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Old 8th Jul 2017, 11:44 pm   #1
MrBungle
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Default Finally found some cheap, good quality aluminium enclosures

As Maplin have discontinued them, Radio Shack/Tandy no longer exist and I am fed up with slicing my fingers open on bits of sheet, ruining drills with cast boxes, I did some research and found a line of good quality aluminium sheet based project enclosures finally. No extrusions or castings and easy to work!

RS have started selling Takachi enclosures which are really nice quality and not too expensive. http://uk.rs-online.com/web/b/takach...ic-industrial/

I've bought three so far and they are good quality - cleanly cut, nice finish and made in Japan. Look in the General Purpose Enclosures and the Instrument Cases sections in the above links, select aluminium as the material and sort price low to high.

I bought a two tone one for a DC receiver I'm working on which has a coated aluminium lid and powdered black bottom half and a couple of basic plain ones which are for loads/attenuators as I've run out of Pomona boxes now.

Also they're actually in stock - no horrible lead time for once.
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Old 9th Jul 2017, 12:14 am   #2
Biggles
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Default Re: Finally found some cheap, good quality aluminium enclosures

I used to use the aluminium folded jobs until they became hard to find. Some of the Maplin ones always seemed to be "the wrong way round" in terms of which side you could use as a front panel if you know what I mean, but I discovered they were ideal for using as a chassis with removable bottom for valve projects, as everything was attached to the lid, as it were. You will understand immediately what I am on about if you have used many of these enclosures for projects. I think Maplin actually used to supply aluminium chassis a while ago. As far as I know they have stopped now. I will have a look at the RS site as I use quite a few boxes. I have had some nice ones in the past from RS but you tend to pay a premium for the quality. I like the ABS ones which are in two halves and have removable front and rear panels. I think Maplin may still have these in stock, but it's been a while since I looked.
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Old 9th Jul 2017, 11:12 am   #3
kellys_eye
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Default Re: Finally found some cheap, good quality aluminium enclosures

I'm constantly on the lookout for enclosures to complete projects - they often end up making the project costs more expensive than purchasing ready-made equipment!

eBay came up trumps for me recently when I managed to purchase good quality cases as per the link:

http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/products/7545985/

...and considering I got SIX such boxes for the princely sum of £21 I feel rather chuffed!
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Old 9th Jul 2017, 11:26 am   #4
MrBungle
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Default Re: Finally found some cheap, good quality aluminium enclosures

That's a rather good deal!
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Old 9th Jul 2017, 2:32 pm   #5
G8HQP Dave
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Default Re: Finally found some cheap, good quality aluminium enclosures

Thanks. Ordinary simple aluminium boxes seem very rare these days, now Maplin have stopped stocking them. I thought someone somewhere must still be making them but I couldn't find them.

For the benefit of any stockist's buyers seeing this, we want aluminium (no coatings, colours etc.), thin (so easy to work) but not too thin (so sufficiently rigid), not extruded (just bent sheets), not diecast (we need those too, but not for everything), low cost (bent aluminium ought to be cheap), wide range of sizes. Until recently these were widely available. Is there anyone in the UK who can still bend a bit of metal for a reasonable price?
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Old 9th Jul 2017, 2:41 pm   #6
Biggles
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Default Re: Finally found some cheap, good quality aluminium enclosures

Well said. I totally agree. I love building things, but finding a decent box to put them in seems to take up more time than actually putting the whole project together. To be fair, I don't mind using plastic cases, if they have a bit of style to them, not the famous "black bricks" that seem to abound.
Alan.
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Old 9th Jul 2017, 3:20 pm   #7
kellys_eye
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Default Re: Finally found some cheap, good quality aluminium enclosures

Give the profundity of 3 printers and/or plastic extruders I'm more than surprised that no-one supplies plastic extrusions that take flat aluminium panels that can be cut to size/length to fabricate boxes of 'any' dimension.

It would only require 'one' type of strip and one of each type of 'end plug/corner plug' to fit the standard 1.2mm gauge sheets that are readily available.

I know you can get such stuff that works with plywood (to make speaker cases and transit boxes etc) but I haven't come across a smaller gauge suited to aluminium enclosures (yet).

Anyone?
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Old 9th Jul 2017, 3:41 pm   #8
MrBungle
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Default Re: Finally found some cheap, good quality aluminium enclosures

Most of what I do is RF which excludes plastic boxes unfortunately. Mainly to stop things getting in not getting out (unless I'm lucky!)

Here's a photo of one of the boxes fitted out:

Click image for larger version

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Very nice to work with. They appear to be magic smoke tight as well as I blew that dummy load up already and no smoke came out until I opened it. Oops. Version two in progress using proper RF load resistors and heatsink wings.

Edit: grammatical failure.

Last edited by MrBungle; 9th Jul 2017 at 3:48 pm.
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Old 10th Jul 2017, 10:20 am   #9
radioman
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Default Re: Finally found some cheap, good quality aluminium enclosures

Retex UK still make them in their 'Minibox+" range http://www.retexuk.com/enclosures/un...cases/minibox/
but unfortunately they are too expensive - in my opinion.
Available from Rapid Electronics :- https://www.rapidonline.com/retex-mi...losures-530145

Andy
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