Box/Enclosure

M

mkomkom

Member
Any good boxes/enclosures for the teensy 4.1? I am going to make a little control for lights in my front room and want to put it in the cabinet next to the A/V stuff.
 
mkomkom said:
Any good boxes/enclosures for the teensy 4.1? I am going to make a little control for lights in my front room and want to put it in the cabinet next to the A/V stuff.
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I'm sure there are many different enclosures. I typically don't worry about 'fancy' enclosures.

One that I've used in the past is the Altoids tin. You can get a regular Altoids tin (eat the mints in it first), or Adafruit sells a blank tin. You would have to cut or drill holes to get the wires and power in. There are two protoboards made for the Altoids tin. I generally like the second one better because it has more space for laying things out (you want the full through hole version of this board):

Be sure to get some 4-40 or 3mm standoffs, so the prototype board is above the metal tin.

If you have a Teensy 4.0, 3.2, or LC, and not much extra stuff, you can go to a smaller mint tin:
 
It depends on which country or continent you live in/on. Here is an enclosure company based in USA:


https://www.polycase.com/

Lots of options even handheld boxes if you have drill and router to open holes for things like wire or buttons.
 
I'm looking for a 4.1 with Eth enclosure. Looks like there are not many options on the market. Any good 3D printed solutions out there or anyone who wants to work with me on it?
 
N5NHJ said:
Looks interesting. Please let me know how the Teensy fits in it.
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Unfortunately, it is slightly the wrong size for many of the breadboards and prototype boards that are big enough for the Teensy 4.1. The problem is the 4 columns where the screws attach eliminate boards.

I tried a normal 30 row breadboard. If it had 26 or mabye 27-28 rows, it would fit. On many of the breadboards, you can remove the power/ground rows, and it would likely fit if you remove both sides, and likely fit if you only remove one side. If they had breadboards where there were the normal power/ground rails for all rows, except the first 4 rows and last 4 rows, it would fit.

I tried the Adafruit half size (30 row) perma-proto board, and it would not fit. However, you can angle the board a little and it will barely fit in. I suspect you would not be able to attach a USB cable to the Teensy unless you move the Teensy to row 6 to allow the USB cable to be mounted. Like the breadboard, if the power/ground rails were missing for the first 4 pins or so, it would work. Or if there were fewer columns, so the board was thinner, it might fit (of course you do need 7 columns for the Teensy).

I tried the Adafruit mint tin (30 row) perma-proto and it will not fit in.

I have a bunch of the long prototyping boards with mounting tabs that is perfect for the Teensy 4.1 (24 rows of pins in the main part, plus 12 rows of pins on each end, and the mounting tab projects a little bit further. The width of the board (1.2") is thin enough that it isn't a problem for the screw columns. The only problem with this board is the seller has been taking a break now for a couple of months.

The various boards that are appropriate for a Teensy 4.0 will fit fine. These boards include:

I don't own this prototype board, but it might fit (note, it is only single sided, not double sided):

The SmartMatrix SmartLed shield for Teensy 4 will fit. Now is sized for the Teensy 4.0, so the last 20 pins will not be connected. The board has mounting tabs, and 2 of the tabs line up with the mounting screw holes (not the screws for mounting the top), but the remaining 2 tab holes are not over the other screw hole:
 
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I forgot that I had marked the following in tindie. Hypertronix is a Canadian company that sells 115mm x 90mm x 55mm (4.5" x 3.5" x 2.2") enclosures and prototype breadboards that fit in this enclosure. For an extra cost, they will drill up to 3 holes for cable glands. If you need even more room, they also sell a 158mm x 90mm x 55mm (6.2" x 3.5" x 2.2") enclosure:
 
Thank you, guys, for answering my question. For my project I do not need a breadboard, I'm using only 2 pins plus ground connected to a 3.5mm jack. What I need is the Ethernet connector/board, though. I've been searching for any existing 3D model, there are very few of them and no one is considering Eth. I have a Bambu printer, in my team we have enough expertise for drawing a 3D printer model, but at present time we do not have time, and this is slowing down my project. I'll give a look at the tindie enclosure suggested by Michael.
 
FWIW, the PG-7 glands that came with my Adafruit box are too small to pass standard ethernet/USB cables with the normal RJ-45/USB head. You could cut a standard RJ-45 cable to expose the 8 wires, and run that through the cable glands, and connect those 8 wires to the ethernet port (or once you have gotten the cable through the gland, resolder the ethernet head back to the cable).

But if you are willing to drill and epoxy a box, Adafruit and Amazon do sell waterproof glands that has a dual RJ-45 jack inside. I imagine inside of the box, you would need to make a rather short ethernet cable, and/or use DIY ethernet male headers and run the 8 wires to the Teensy.
I recall the Octows2812 Teensy board was shown inside of an enclosure (the Octows2812 uses 2 ethernet cables to connect to the neopixels). The enclosure that Paul used was a CableGaurd 500 Coax Demarcation Enclosure.
 
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