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Posted

Well I was down in the shop puttering away and had to post a couple of pictures of my first enclosure build that I am working on.

Still have a lot of work to do on it, but at least the boards are wired up to the outlets and mounted. I am going to have 2 power sockets on the bottom to plug in power cords and will have 4 switches along the inside top to control power to each controller. Since I am running all LEDs with them I can get away with 2 - 20 amp feeds and split the feeds to run 2 boards off each one. I am using Neutrik connectors for my signal cable connections and had to stick them in to see how they look. :)

This one is the first of 4 that I am going to build for this year. I just had a friend that dropped me off another of these cabinets (36H x 24W x 7D) yesterday. This time he got me a brand new one still in the box !!! :shock: WooHoo

I think that I am going to paint these cabinets to look like Christmas presents after I get done with all the case mods and they will look pretty nice out in the display.




Attached files 173445=9915-cont.jpg

Posted

Here are the Neutrik connectors mounted on the box.




Attached files 173446=9916-neutrik.jpg

Posted

And the Neutrik from the inside.




Attached files 173447=9917-Neutrik1.jpg

Posted

Great job!! the wiring is done so neatly. Where do you plan on putting them...throughout the yard or just mounted hear the house?

Posted

They will end up out in the yard. I am building 4 of these to run different things.

1 for my mega tree (and later mega trees), 1 for mini trees, 1 for arches, and 1 for house lights.

I will probably use the ones for the mini trees and arches to control other things like wireframes, blowmolds, and a few special effect items that I have yet to build.

This is the best part of this hobby to me. I love to build things like this and the special effects things will be fun to incorporate into the display. I have ideas for an overhead flying santa sleigh, a snowball fight, and I am toying with the idea of making my house look like a gigantic locomotive by using some wireframe additions to the house and yard as well.

Well anyway the dreaming part of all this is going great :).

Bill

Posted

Great job on the wiring, if you have seen the post last year for my enclosure you would know that I am abig fan of the Panduit wiremold system you used. I do have to ask if you have checked to make sure you can get 8 extension cords in each of the holes at the bottom of the enclosure. I was thinking it would be tough to get the 7th and 8th cord in after 6 of them were in the hole. just my two cents.

Posted

ahhhhhhh...never mind, I just saw you post on PC where you said you are going to cut between the holes to make large slots. Good Job!!

Posted

Thanks for the compliments.

Yea I got the slots cut out this afternoon. Still want to smooth them out a little more and then should be able to paint the box after I get the power cord holes cut in.

Here is the slot with a grommet set in it.

Bill


Attached files 173470=9921-grommet.jpg

Posted

Well done! What type of cover does the enclosure have, Plate or Door? Any idea how much the finished enclosure weighs? Again, nice work.

Posted

Out of curiosity, where did you get those CAT-5 female adapters. They look as though they are water tight and would be nice to have a quality source.

Posted

R Weiland wrote:

Well done! What type of cover does the enclosure have, Plate or Door? Any idea how much the finished enclosure weighs? Again, nice work.


Thanks.

The box has a door cover and is rated as a Nema 1 enclosure in its present form. I have the gasket material that goes around the inside lip of the door that will convert the enclosure to a Nema 4 weatherproof rating.

The holes in the door panel and on the top of the box are going to be filled in and sealed. They were in this box when I got it. Since the box was free I couldn't turn it down. A little bondo and some paint and who will ever know.

As far as the weight, these are going to be heavy for sure. I would say that this one will come in at around 80 lbs when it is completed. But I certainly won't have to worry much about somebody just walking off with it. I figure that I will hear the screams if they try to grab it :).

Bill




Attached files 173533=9928-cont2.jpg
Posted

Ponddude wrote:

Out of curiosity, where did you get those CAT-5 female adapters. They look as though they are water tight and would be nice to have a quality source.


Hey Greg

I picked them up from Mouser. The RJ 45 feedthru connector is:

http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?qs=sGAEpiMZZMvQhAhQbXdbBi4sm%252bPEbvWD2qCoILD1M8E%3d

The cover is:

http://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Keyword=SCDX

And the kit to make them IP54 weatherproof is:

http://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Keyword=568-SE8FD

I also picked up some housings for my cat 6 cables to use with these. They are:

http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?qs=sGAEpiMZZMsBYeZNO4kNBCpPVzkDe%252b%2fW

I'm not sure that I really need the SE8FD weatherproofing kit. It looks like a little silicone caulk around the cover plate when it is installed would work just fine for these. I will use the SE8FD's though just because I have them.

And I went with the feedthru RJ45's since I have a ton of cat 6 cables around in lenghts from 1 foot up to 100 feet rather than use cat cable and punch down style connectors to make up the cords.

Another way to do these with a weatherproof RJ 45 system is to use these:

http://www.streakwave.com/Itemdesc.asp?ic=RJ45%2DECS&eq=&Tp=

It is a cheaper way to do the same thing and gives you a 1 foot piece of cat 5 inside the enclosure to hook to a controller and these go to IP67 for weatherproofing.

Cat 5 and 6 cables can be gotten from MonoPrice for absolutely great prices:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10208

Bill
Posted

Bill;

Thanks for sharing. If there was a contest for the best non LOR enclosure, you get my vote. And with a weight of around 80 Lbs you have little worries of someone walking off with your controllers.

Posted

Thanks Bill,

I really like your setup. I'm looking to get more controllers and will use the setup you have posted. Thanks for the inspiration! I saw the posting yesterday and was just about to ask you for the details of the enclosure but I came back today and low and behold here they are. Thanks your the bomb.

Joe

Posted

Jeff Millard wrote:

WOW! Speechless I am! What a great idea! I made big metal cases full of controllers to keep them in the house. When I got kicked out of the house I decided to put them in the little Keptel boxes, and disguise them as presents with wire frames and painted coroplast. Your boxes are a really fine idea! Thanks for sharing! I wish I'd seen them and understood what you were doing before I mounted 13 controllers in individual boxes! LOL! :D

Jeff


Thanks Jeff

I must admit that this idea came after seeing your setup pictures of your cases in the house, so cudos to you for the idea. :cool:

I really want to come up with a better connection termination method for the other controller boxes though. This one is more or less a "universal" controller box that I can use for anything out there.

I am thinking of using your idea of molex connectors for some of the other control boxes to save space since all these outlets take up so much room in the box. I would rather be able to stuff another 2 or more LOR cards in the box if I could. So maybe a panel mount style of molex on the bottom of the box with some form of protective cover might be in order for the next one to see how that will work. For something like a mega tree I would think that it would be better since there is not a lot of changes to make (other than adding channels to the tree), so using molex and "premade" cables for the light hookups would be a snap.

I am also looking at using Amp cannon style connectors since I used them in the service and am used to them (also have a lot of the tools to work with them already) and I like the twist lock of them along with weathertightness. Just a matter of cost, but will research them and see what I can find for suppliers.

Sure wish I could go out to the aircraft boneyard out west and spend a day or two. I could get enough connectors there to last 2 lifetimes! :shock:

Bill
Posted

I had a chance to pick up a 707 airframe for nothing years ago, but the costs to prep and ship it out here to the East coast made things too expensive at the time.

I still wish I had gone ahead and gotten it though. I was going to make a house out of the airframe for my home. The plane was one that I had worked on in the service many times and even had the record books for it with quite a few entries in it that I had done.

I thought that it would make a very novel house as well as to be able to sit in the cockpit and "relive" old times.

Ahh well, we all have some crazy dreams at times. Look how many people have bult houses now out of airplanes.

Bill

Posted

Well to get back on track with this thread, here are a couple of photos of the box getting it ready to repaint.

This is the top where they had run some things into the box in its former life. I used epoxy to fill the holes and then sanded them down. Was going to paint today, but realized that all I have is red oxide primer :). Have to make a road trip and pick up some gray sandable primer for this.

Guess I will finish cleaning up the slots in the bottom of the box for cords to come into today and then I will be ready to paint the whole thing at once.





Attached files 173725=9940-panel1.jpg

Posted

And a shot of the side. The 2 holes left are where the RJ45 Neutrik connectors will go.

Bill




Attached files 173726=9941-panel.jpg

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