Project Case Design and Build

LCD Display Mounting Ok, if you're here then I'm guessing you probably know how to drill a hole in a chassis. If you don't then the rest of these posts are going to mean little to you. I am not going to go into how to drill a hole and I won't be discussing where to put controls, dials, sockets or displays - chances are, you already know what you want and where you want it. The idea of this blog is to simply share a couple of neat ideas that I have found that might make your next project a little more professional looking. I see so many builds of excellent equipment that just lack a little finesse and a few hints and tips might make the difference between an awesome piece of electronics looking awesome and an awesome piece of electronics looking like an awesome piece of electronics :) . . . So the two most difficult items in project building, I'm sure you will agree are :- 1) Making that hole for the display just the right size so that it doesn't

A professional looking printer facia Not everyone has the skills or tools to produce a clean tight edge to the square holes required for LCD displays. A close look at the previous pictures will reveal a good but less than perfect edge to the fitting of a 4x20 display to the front of a new project. However, if you have mounted the display in the manner I have suggested in my "Bezels" post, you will note that there are no front protruding mounting screws. The following method for printing the front of the case lends itself perfectly to this method of display mount. However, front mounting screws are sometimes unavoidable and almost inevitable if a plastic panel is used a printed display can still be achieved using the following method. First measure the whole length and width of your display. Use your CAD package to draw the panel outline on your screen. I use a PCB CAD program to do this since it has a fairly precise measurement function built in but there is not

A few people asked me how I design and build my project cases. So I decided to write a shot blog to try and demonstrate. I hope you will agree, the results are quite professional looking...