Custom dust and moisture-resistant IP66 enclosure for automotive application, accommodating a custom PCB. EnCata delivered the industrial design, DFM, and manufactured in-house a steel mold along with the first batch and product assembly.
Industry:
IoT
Equipment & Tools
All
TRL:
5 → 9
Project duration:
7 months
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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 changes within the range -40 …+85 deg. C. The device should be mounted inside a car engine compartment.
SLA 3D printing
Plastic injection moulding
IP-66 ingression protection
Mini-USB
48 Pin FCI
Silicon moulding
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.
Among the offered variants of the industrial design, the customer adhered to a futuristic touch with strong geometrical features and easy access for quick battery interchange. The design had also adopted IP66 protection (vandal, dust and water resistance). The casing also incorporated a 48 Pin FCI Automotive Waterproof ECU interface, as well as mini-USB and U.FL/IPX to RP-SMA interfaces.
In the industrial design phase, a selected shape was modeled in CAD, and a 3D printed prototype produced as part of the concept development. The color, materials, finish (CMF) was also part of the industrial design. To survive the aggressive and harsh environment, a fire-proof plastic was selected.
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To incorporate the functionality and test the design (as part of the DVT) a small batch of cases was produced using silicon moulding technology.
The project further required steel moulds design and larger batch production at our semi-automatic plastic injection moulding machine. The moulds were designed and produced at EnCata’s facility; a batch of 100 units was produced and tested to comply with the IPX6 standard.
In this project we delivered the end-to-end service to our client, starting from the existing PCB design and building a contemporary and robust enclosure design. The industrial design was validated with 3D printing and prototyping with silicone moulds.
The project took 7 months from the EVT through DVT to the PVT phase, providing the customer with full documentation and a batch of enclosures produced by injection-moulding technology.
moulds made of steel were designed and manufactured as part of this project
prototypes were produced as part of the DVT
enclosures were produced in a pilot PVT run
