An engineered enclosure does more than protect a machine. It creates access, routes cables and services, carries controls, allows for ventilation and maintenance – and is often a visible part of the finished product.
stainlesstec makes customer-specific enclosures, hoods, covers and machine housings in stainless steel and aluminium to drawing and CAD data – from the single part to the completed assembly.
A good enclosure has to work as a whole, and a great many requirements meet in it at once:
defined external dimensions and restricted installation space
doors and maintenance openings
fixing points
cable and service connections
ventilation openings
visible surfaces
seals
assembly sequences and accessibility
stiffness and surface finish
Good enclosure manufacturing therefore starts not at the press brake but with the question of how the finished enclosure will be used and assembled.
Machine enclosures: the interface between the equipment and its surroundings
Machine enclosures take on several functions at once. They:
protect components from contact, contamination and outside influences
give the machine structure and tie assemblies together
create access for maintenance, cleaning and service
carry components such as controls, sensors, switches or connectors
shape the appearance of the finished machine
We make enclosures to your design, bringing several production steps together in one chain.
Hoods and covers
Not every protective part has to be a complete enclosure. Often only one area of a machine is covered:
guard hoods
machine covers
maintenance flaps
process covers
motor and drive cladding
sight and splash guards
technical cover plates
With thin-walled parts in particular, it is the making of them that decides whether a hood later looks calm, flat and free of visible distortion.
Machine housings
Machine housings enclose whole sections of a machine, which means very different interfaces to allow for: doors, flaps, feedthroughs, cable routes, pipe connections, ventilation openings, control panels and fixing points.
The challenge is to accommodate all of that without making the design needlessly complex. Good production planning divides the parts so that manufacturing, assembly and later maintenance all work.
Visible surfaces make different demands
On many enclosures the outer surface is part of the product. Dimensional accuracy is then not enough: scratches, grinding marks, waviness or visible weld distortion spoil a part that is otherwise technically sound. Visible surfaces should therefore be defined early:
the grinding direction wanted
grit
protective film
visible weld areas
edge appearance
joints and gap widths
surface treatment
Good visible surfaces are not created at the end of production – they have to be protected from the very first operation.
Stainless steel or aluminium
Stainless steel suits cases where corrosion resistance, cleanability or a high-grade metallic surface is called for – typically in food processing, pharmaceuticals and process technology, machine building and high-quality plant cladding.
Aluminium scores on weight. Thin-walled aluminium enclosures, in return, need particular care in forming, welding and surface handling.
Thin sheet needs design
Thin sheet cuts weight and material use. As the thickness falls, though, sensitivity rises – to distortion, vibration, buckling, instability over large areas and visible unevenness.
Design measures are therefore needed: bends, swages, return flanges, reinforcing sections, frames and fixing points. Stiffness then comes not from thickness alone but from intelligent geometry.
Bends decide more than the shape
On an enclosure, stiffness and appearance often come from the bend geometry. Return flanges can:
stiffen panels
avoid sharp sheet edges
carry fixings
create defined joints
provide locating faces
It is worth looking at the eventual bending process while still designing, then. Our production planning team checks whether bending sequence, radii and tool access suit the geometry wanted.
Integrating openings and functions directly
Many functions can be prepared in sheet metal work itself:
ventilation openings and louvres
extruded holes and threads
fixing holes
cut-outs for controls
cable feedthroughs
connection openings
Laser and laser-punch technology put details like these into the part precisely. That cuts later operations and improves repeatability.
Doors, flaps and maintenance access
An enclosure has to open in the right places. Opening direction, hinges, fasteners, seals, stops, gap widths and accessibility all matter.
On machines that are cleaned or serviced regularly, this is what decides whether the enclosure works day to day. We make the sheet metal and frame structures for it to your specification.
Welded assembly or bolted construction?
Not every enclosure has to be fully welded. Depending on the application, welded assemblies, bolted components, modular enclosure parts, removable covers or combinations of these all make sense.
Which is better depends on stiffness, surface, transport, assembly, maintenance and quantity.
From sheet metal part to complete assembly
Review the CAD data
Laser cutting and punching
CNC bending
Welding and straightening
Surface finishing
Fitting doors, covers and components
Inspecting the assembly
Several sheet metal parts thus become an enclosure assembly that is largely ready to install. More under Assemblies & system components.
Segregated production for high-grade enclosures
On stainless steel and aluminium enclosures with high-grade visible surfaces, controlled material handling is decisive. We process both groups of materials in our segregated production area.
That keeps foreign material out and protects high-grade surfaces across several operations.
Typical applications
Machinery & plant engineering
Machine enclosures, guard hoods, covers and machine housings to customer design.
Precise special enclosures for measurement, test and technical systems, plus enclosure assemblies where function, surface and assembly all come together.
Machine enclosures often come in variants. One range needs different dimensions, different connection positions, extra doors, altered controls or different ventilation openings.
With CAD-based manufacturing, variants like these can be built on an existing design under control. That is of particular interest to machine builders working in small and medium quantities.
What we need for your enquiry
STEP data or drawings
material
material thicknesses
quantity
visible surfaces
the surface finish wanted
doors and maintenance openings
ventilation areas
connection and feedthrough openings
built-in parts
critical dimensions and tolerances
the scope of assembly wanted
The more completely the assembly is described, the better the production and assembly sequence can be settled before work begins.
The equipment is designed. We build the enclosure around it.
Machine enclosure, hood, cover or complete housing: send us the CAD data and the technical requirements.
We will assess how a stiff, accurately fitting sheet metal assembly that can be made repeatably is best developed from them.
Let’s talk about your project.
Send us your drawing or CAD data by email – together with material, batch size and your requirements. We will come back to you with a sound assessment.
