Electrical Component Enclosure

As a result of adding various electrical components to the design overview of our trike, it was important to design an enclosure that would be able to hold all necessary components onboard. As well, the enclosure would need to protect the components from dust, dirt, water, etc.

Our first iteration of the enclosure design was to 3D print a box with necessary mounting holes for all electrical components (e.g. Raspberry Pi) for simple installation and cable management. However, after discussing requirements, it was apparent that the enclosure would be quite large as the list of necessary components was greater than initially expected. A large enclosure would require several prints and would therefore take a large amount of resources to prototype and implement, especially when considering changes throughout the project timeline. As a result, we moved away from 3D printing for this enclosure and explored other options.

We gravitated towards an option using treated wood as the material for the enclosure. After team discussion, it was apparent that this design would end up being the most cost and time-effective option. Once this option was chosen, we moved towards designing the enclosure on SolidWorks.

Before creating the design on SolidWorks, it was necessary to allocate space on our enclosure for each part. Therefore, we made sure to design the enclosure such that all necessary parts would easily fit on the enclosure, along with extra space to be used if necessary.

Once our design was complete, creating the enclosure was simple as the build was relatively basic. We purchased wood from home depot which we treated with wood sealant before assembling the build. To properly protect the enclosed electrical components, we planned to install screw eyes underneath the enclosure which we would use to harness a tarp that would fully wrap around the wooden enclosure. However, we were unable to complete the last objective due to COVID-19.