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New Boxes For Your Electronics Projects

A project log for Boxes.py

Cut out boxes and other stuff with a laser cutter

florian-festiFlorian Festi 05/21/2020 at 12:320 Comments

Often just a generic box is just not enough, but you need something that can house the electronics of your project. The ElectronicsBox was the first variant with this in mind. But in the end it is just a box meant to be bolted down and screwed shut:

QuitButton needed something else: A housing with a slanted front to mount a LCDisplay and a few buttons.

As a first stop gap solution (other than just turning a pentagon box on it's side) I implemented Console using the relatively new polygonWall() code that turns a list of lengths and angles into a side wall. The actual win here is that there is a .polygonWalls() method that is rendering all the walls between the sides. The result is still a bit simple, but  at least has the right shape:

But as with a lot of other boxes there is a severe lack of lockable doors or hatches. And while non rectangular finger joints are cool they are rather distracting around the front panel.

So here is an improved Console2:

There are a few variants. You can choose with or without removable back wall, with or without removable front panel and the front panel - as seen here -  clean and glued or attached with finger joints on the sides.

The panel is held in place by spring loaded tabs:

The two tabs per side and both springs being one single, laser cut piece.

The back wall is hooked in at the bottom and has two flush latches at the top:

The latches are made small enough that they cannot be opened or closed by hand but need a small tool like a screwdriver. This is on purpose to avoid people accidentally sticking their fingers into the electric parts inside. To prevent the latches from opening they have an integral leaf spring and a very small recess that locks them in place when closed. This way they can only be re-opened when pressed in a little bit against the spring.

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