Ask an ipXpert: Don’t forget about the enclosure! How to not ruin a great electronics design

In ipXchange’s second “Ask an ipXpert” interview, Eamon chats with Petr Dvořák, founder of Beny-devices, a company that aims to take the hassle out of ensuring that your PCB design is suitable for your intended enclosure and application.

As Petr explains in this in-depth interview, most electronics design engineers are not mechanical design engineers, so when it comes to finishing products and placing completed PCBs into enclosures, many electronics design engineers suffer the humiliation of finding that their electronics lack the correct clearances for certification, the connectors are misaligned with the enclosure, or worse yet, there is a mounting screw going straight through their circuitry.

For the price of a couple of cups of coffee, Beny-devices provides engineers with verified, easy-to-use digital hardware templates which enable them to do all the electronics design for a given enclosure with the sound knowledge that their PCB will fit, meet certification, and be mounted securely.

You may be thinking that this is a relatively simple task, and Petr may have perhaps agreed with you when first setting out to help design engineers with his work at Beny-devices. In reality, however, verifying hardware templates is a long and costly procedure that takes weeks to complete when you consider the measurements, template manufacturing, and real-world verification required to ensure the digital design files created by Beny-devices are absolutely bulletproof.

Beny-devices supports enclosures from top manufacturers like Hammond and OKW with a constantly growing portfolio of hardware design templates, so head to their website, https://beny-devices.eu/ , and check out the work they are doing.

In addition to talking about Beny-devices’ mission, Petr also describes some of his own experiences as a design engineer, some tips in making the transition from a purely electronics engineer to a partially mechanical engineer, and some key things he has learnt during his career that he wishes to share.

We hope you enjoy this thought-provoking interview, but most importantly, we want you to have learnt something, at least enough to never screw up your PCB design again because it does not fit in an enclosure. If you’re still struggling, consider adding a mechanical design engineer to your team. The roles go hand in hand for creating the best products, so let’s bridge the gap!

For any companies wishing to partner with Beny-devices, follow the link to our board page, and we’ll put you in touch to start a discussion that will ensure engineers have everything they need to use your enclosures with confidence. If you’re a design engineer and want a custom template, you can use the same form to get in touch.

Keep designing!