A few years ago I built the board for my copy of Steve Wards Division Controller.
I decided it was about time I built a case for it.
My first attempts were around 3D printing it and I had designed a relatively ergonomic case in Sketchup.
I had a few attempts at 3D printing this case, however I was still using my old home made Prusa I3 and it was really on its last legs and pretty much every attempt failed after about half a dozen layers, plus it only just fitted on the bed.
I was looking around my workshop (garage) for a suitable container I might be able to use, when I remembered I had a few small sheets of dibond left over from my lasercutter skins.
I spent weeks trying to persuade the supplier of the skins to send me the offcuts from the 8’x 4′ sheet, before they eventually sent me 4 x A3 (297 x 420mm) sheets, which is way less than the offcuts would have been, plus at the time I considered them too small to be of any use for anything.
I thought that if I use some of this dibond for the skins of the box, all I would need is some sort of frame for them.
First I thought of using some 10mm square aluminium bar, but then decided on 11.5mm x 1.5mm aluminium equal angle, which is available from my local Wickes at £3.15 for a 1m length.
Here is the frame layout
and here are the box skins
These could all be cut from a single 297 x 420mm (A3) sheet of dibond
I cut the various lengths of angle
Then drilled and threaded them to M3
Next I cut the dibond skins
and cut made the cutouts for the screen and buttons
Here is the front panel with the screen and main circuit board attached
rear view of the front panel
The bottom section of the box with the stepper driver, power supply and DC-DC buck converter (5V power for the LCD screen and PIC controller).
In assembling the box I decided that the shortest pieces of aluminium angle that I had cut for the uprights were not required as the box was stiff enough without them.
The power supply is an old HP laptop adapter that outputs 19.5V at up to 3.3A, it is held in place by a couple of additional strips of aluminium angle.
The completed controller attached to a stepper motor
