Wood is also easier to drill and cut than plastic; however, you’ll often find
that the wall of the box is^1 ⁄ 4 " thick, which makes mounting components such
as switches more complicated. In Chapter 4, we provide some advice on how
to handle mounting components on wood.
Build it yourself ....................................................................................
If you don’t like to buy ready-made containers, you can make your own boxes
from wood or plastic. You can easily find lots of books that tell you how to
make all sorts of things from wood, so we don’t get into that. To start, you
might check out the Woodbox.com Web site and click the Wooden Box
Making link for a good overview.
If you want to make your own boxes or build fancier shapes out of plastic,
such as a model car, to mount your electronics, check out
http://www.talkingelectronics.com/Projects/Boxes/BJones-BoxArticle.htmlThis article is a nice introduction to making custom plastic boxes for elec-
tronics projects.
For some projects, you will mount boxes on a base or sandwich them
between two sheets of materials. We used sheets of PVC and plywood in our
projects. Quarter-inch or 6 mm thickness is a good bet for a strong base. You
can use thinner sheets — for example,^1 ⁄ 8 " or 3 mm — when you don’t need
structural strength. Rigid, expanded PVC is often used instead of other plas-
tics because it resists the buildup of electric charges, which might cause elec-
trostatic discharge, which can zap your electronics components.
Robot supply houses, such as Solarbotics (www.solarbotics.com) or
Budget Robotics (www.budgetrobotics.com), carry PVC sheeting. At
Solarbotics, this material is sold under the product name Sintra. You can find
plastics suppliers that sell rigid expanded PVC in 4' x 8' sheets, which is eco-
nomical if you plan to use a lot of it.
Holding it all together ..........................................................................
Sticking materials together to form boxes or whatever can be done in a few
different ways.
You can attach many different types of materials together with glue. Look for
a glue called contact cement.This can bind a wealth of materials, including
metal, plastic, rubber, and wood.
Chapter 3: Assembling Your Electronics Arsenal 53