Custom dust- and moisture-resistance IP66 enclosure for automotive application, accommodating a custom PCB. EnCata delivered the industrial design, DFM and manufactured in-house a steel mould along with the first batch and product assembly.
Background
A fast-growing car-sharing startup company contacted EnCata to design a special enclosure for its custom PCB electronics, which would be able to sustain vibrations and sharp temperature hike within -40 …+85 deg. C. The device should be mounted inside a car engine compartment. Since the customer had already developed the PCB we qualified the customer’s technology readiness level as TRL-5. The customer requested to have a distinctive industrial design to portray his advanced hardware + software technology.
Work
Among the offered variants of the industrial design, the customer adhered to futuristic touch with strong geometrical features and easy access for quick battery interchange. The design had also adopted IP66 protection (dust, waterjets) and vandal resistance. The case also incorporated 48 Pin FCI Automotive Waterproof ECU interface, as well as mini-USB and U.FL/IPX to RP-SMA interfaces.
Such combination proved to be challenging for DFM as EnCata needed to circumvent issues with compartment sealing at a small curvature radius.
To the highest degree, all these features were incorporated in 3D printed prototypes and a batch of cases was produced with home-made steel moulds and on our semi-automatic plastic injection moulding machine. The batch and the moulds were delivered to the customer
Results
Overall, the customer received a full service from EnCata, comprized:
- Industrial design
- CAD model and full documentation (drawings)
- 3D-printed prototypes
- Design-for-manufacturability
- Moulds design and manufacturing
- First product batch with our own injection moulder
