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Design Philosophy

Chassis Plans' design philosophy is to provide exceptionally engineered, cost effective industrial computers at a competitive price.  Chassis Plans provides turnkey solutions of custom industrial rackmount systems, allowing clients to have quality industrial chassis with minimal investment in time or money.

• On-time
• On-budget
• Technically sophisticated
• Turn Key
• Incredibly well documented

Chassis Plans' designs are superior to any others on the market.  We've been doing this since 1985 and have designed more systems than any other design team. We offer no unnecessary fluff.  Features are often added to others chassis to inflate the system specifications, not because it improves the design.  Many of these features are of questionable benefit and several are actually detrimental.  As required, features can easily be added to our chassis designs to include system monitors, speaker amplifiers, and shock mount drives. Real features, signs of excellent design talent, such as hidden hinges, two-screw lid removal, adaptability, door and seam overlaps, safety/emission compliance, front accessible filters, cooling analysis, low cost, serviceability, and just plain good looks are standard with all Chassis Plans' designs. See our White Papers on cooling and noise, shock and vibration, and others for some additional design background.

Chassis Plans' designs are cost effective. We are dedicated to specifying, engineering, manufacturing and integrating the products that fit your budget and standards, providing reliability, during and after the sale. Whether you need a turnkey solution or specialized design, Chassis Plans will meet the excellence you demand for your products.

All components such as fans, power supplies, drive cages, etc., are easily accessible for quick removal and repair.  All purchased components have short lead times and the designs are easily modified to suit customer component requirements (handles, locks, etc.).

Chassis Plans' fast response time and skill will help make your ideas and requirements a reality. From idea, to prototype, testing and large production runs, we are your industrial computer source.  Testing for agency approvals such as CE, UL, MIL Spec and FCC can all be handled by our staff. Chassis Plans' designs are guaranteed to be error free and to meet commercial agency certification requirements.

The Design Process

So what's involved in manufacturing a custom enclosure? It's just a metal enclosure right?

Chassis Plans Manufacturing Documentation Package provides a highly detailed set of drawings and other information required to fabricate manufactured parts, purchase components, and assemble a high quality industrial chassis. There are no short cuts; all these steps are required.

Depending on many criteria including design complexity, prior art, and lead time, a design may be done in Autocad or in Solidworks. Both packages have advantages and disadvantages. The end result, however, is a highly documented design that is easy to manufacture and is highly sustainable.

The Customer Proposal Drawing
The first step is to communicate with the customer what we think they want. The customer drawing is a quick but detailed representation as to what the chassis will look like and how everything goes together. The drawing is accurately scaled and pretty well detailed. This assures both us and the customer that all the parts will fit, there is adequate cooling, and the product appearance is what is desired.



The Model
The engineer constructs a completely detailed 3D model or layout of the desired chassis in either Autocad or Solidworks. In Solidworks, this is a true 3D solid drawing. In the case of Autocad, a 2D orthographic representation is created. Each of the parts of the chassis is drawn on it's own layer so that any fit and interference problems can be determined. Click here for a self-viewing Solidworks example. (Please note this is a large executable file that is generated by Solidworks. It is virus free and does not install anything on your hard drive. Deleting the .exe file will completely remove all traces.) Once the design is finalized and perfect, each of the component parts is extracted to its own drawing and detailed as shown below.

Autocad 2D Orthographic Layout

Solidworks Model

Sheet Metal Detail Drawings
These are accurately scaled CAD drawings providing all detail and manufacturing information for each fabricated sheet metal part in a chassis. The drawings are provided as files to the sheet metal vendor to generate the machine program. The drawing is also printed to provide inspection information. Any change to the drawing once released for production requires a new revision to both the drawing and the BOM.

Assembly Drawings
An isometric pictorial of each of the subassemblies and completed chassis shows the relationship of each of the parts including required hardware. Multiple views are provided for clarity as required. These drawings are used by the manufacturing group to assure every chassis is assembled to the same standard and that "tribal knowledge" is not required for chassis assembly.

Step-By-Step Assembly Instructions
While a picture is worth a thousand words, detailed instructions and pictures assure the chassis is correctly assembled in the least time. These instructions simply clarify the assembly drawings.

1) Install Fans (item 35) and Fan Guards (item 36) onto Fan Panel (item 6) using 6-32 x 5/8" Screws (item 43) secured by 6-32 Nuts (item 44). Note direction of air flow. Position fans with leads at bottom.

NOTE: Do not over torque nuts as this can break the fan housing

2) Install Reset Switch (item 31) from front and press into place. For consistency, install switch so that pushing on the left side of the switch is the reset position.

Bill Of Material
A complete listing of each of the fabricated and purchased parts giving an item number related to the assembly drawing, description, unique part number, and required quantity. Special notes are included as required. All items, both manufactured and purchased, are controlled by revision.

Source Control Drawings
This is the document used by the purchasing department to procure purchased components. Included is complete vendor information with company name, address and phone numbers. Vendor part numbers are provided. Where applicable, multiple vendors are listed allowing price shopping and alternative sources. Known pricing information is also provided. This guarantees the correct parts are purchased at competitive prices.

Shop Instructions
Instructions and assumptions the chassis fabricator should understand. Having this information up front prevents mistakes and misunderstandings.