Components
Please visit our parent company, Toolless for more information on custom plastic enclosures.
For the most part, any component or hardware item used to manufacture injection molded, thermoformed, or sheet metal enclosures can be applied to a PEI enclosure. The only significant difference would be in our method for physically applying the item to the unit.
As an example, with sheet metal enclosures, standoffs, such as PCB mounts, might be pressed in or spot welded through the panel wall. With the PEI process, we cut a pocket and either sonic weld or solvent bond a molded insert in place. Two of the advantages of this method are that we do not have to break through an outside panel surface and the height of the standoff can be set to a greater variety of dimensions simply by varying the depth of the pocket.
As with all such processes, there are limitations to the amount of height variation achievable due to the material thickness and the beginning heights of the standoffs. However, even with such limitations, the variety of height dimensions is much greater than what can be achieved with the sheet metal fabrication.
Additionally, with our 'no tooling' process we can place standoffs and other molded-in type of components on any surface without incurring additional upfront costs. With injection molding or thermoforming, placing holes, standoffs, or similar feature can be difficult or unfeasible depending on location and/or mold configuration.