Cast Aluminum Enclosures Without Slopped Side?

[carboncomp]

Does anyone know of companies that make enclosures without the slopes found on Hammond boxes?

[EBK]

You are looking for "machined" enclosures rather than "die cast".  Yes, they exist.  I don't have a useful link for you, unfortunately.

As an added bonus, machined enclosures can be anodized.  (You could technically anodize a die cast enclosure, but it would look blotchy/awful)

[MikeA]

Here are some options:
https://alpinetech.com/alpinetech-n1-cnc-aluminum-enclosure-box-1590n1-magnets-included/
http://www.gainta.com/en/al_die-cast-housing/al_g0_case/
https://www.hammfg.com/electronics/small-case/extruded

[Processaurus]

It won't work great having jacks and pots mounted to the same pc board- there's reliability issues, but also assembly issues. You can't get pots into their holes on the top plane and the jacks into the holes on the back/side plane, unless the pot holes are huge, or slotted (Line 6 DL4's are made like this!).

I did this elaborate pedal with pc board mounted jacks and pcb mounted pots and it was VERY touchy with the tolerances, eventually I could only get it assembled by putting the jacks in the box with little shims to fine tune horizontal position, wrestling the pcb in, and soldering it in. If it breaks, desolder every pin on every jack. It's complicated and inferior to jacks on wires. The only way it works in practice is if all the pcb mounted stuff is on one plane. Beware of assemblies were some of the parts have to magically appear in place, there's gotta be a plan for the movement of how it gets assembled and disassembled.

[carboncomp]

It won't work great having jacks and pots mounted to the same pc board- there's reliability issues, but also assembly issues. You can't get pots into their holes on the top plane and the jacks into the holes on the back/side plane, unless the pot holes are huge, or slotted (Line 6 DL4's are made like this!).

Are chrome ferrule mounting nut jacks not designed to eliminate this exact issue? 

https://www.neutrik.com/en/product/nmj4hcd2

Used on PCBs like this?


Not saying you are wrong, a genuine question.

[stallik]

They are but they work better on a square panel imho. Reason for your original question?

My take on 'complete' pcb's such as this is that you're forced to assemble them in a particular way to avoid stressing the pcb on day 1, hope that expansion/contraction of the enclosure doesn't introduce stress by day 300, nobody kicks it too hard or jams plugs in awkwardly and any replacement of worn out components is done in a sympathetic way.
The best success will come from good engineering knowledge, the ability to drill the holes in the right place and making no mistakes.

For that reason, I'll stick to flying leads

[carboncomp]

They are but they work better on a square panel imho. Reason for your original question?

Yes, agreed. That's why my question was on enclosures where a square panel could be achieved, enclosures without slopped sides. 

[Processaurus]

It won't work great having jacks and pots mounted to the same pc board- there's reliability issues, but also assembly issues. You can't get pots into their holes on the top plane and the jacks into the holes on the back/side plane, unless the pot holes are huge, or slotted (Line 6 DL4's are made like this!).

Are chrome ferrule mounting nut jacks not designed to eliminate this exact issue? 

https://www.neutrik.com/en/product/nmj4hcd2

I think those are the ones I used, and still had to solder them in the box and kinda pry the board in there. They still stick into the chassis hole a little. They come with a couple spacers which helps tailor the depth but they still protrude a small amount in the hole and get caught if you try to slide them in or out sideways. They work fine, if the pcb just slides in perpendicular to the face with the holes for the jacks, just the thing about pcb mounted controls on more than one plane is a problem.

I have seen some custom enclosures (EBS) that cut a slot for the jack, and then the bottom lid completes the slot, but still, the jack is dinky and fragile compared to the switchcraft jacks, that are bulletproof.

[carboncomp]

but still, the jack is dinky and fragile compared to the switchcraft jacks, that are bulletproof.

Think I'm going to stick to all the good advice here and just stick switch wired switchcfrafts'

[ElectricDruid]

Just to provide a alternative view, there are plenty of well-thought-of boutique builders (and I'm not talking about little bedroom-builders, but serious operations) that use the ferule jacks on the PCB. And since they're not losing money or reputation fixing tons of busted pedals, either it doesn't happen that often, or they found a way around it.

I've heard various solutions proposed, all the way to putting soft cork washers on the jacks to fill the weird gap, or putting various items under the jack to get to the correct angle of the enclosure wall.

Consequently, I don't think it's impossible. Tricky, maybe

[turbofeedus]

I think the normal casting procedure requires at least slightly sloped sides in order to demold the casting.
It would be possible with investment cast or lost-wax casting, because you can just break away the mold instead of need to keep the mold intact for repeat use.
If you need parallel sides, or sides perpendicular to the PCB, you should probably just go for folded enclosures.

Regarding making PCB mounted jacks/etc. work in sloped enclosures, I wonder if you could use sloped or wedge-shaped washers to counteract the slope of the walls?