Fixstuff's World: Weekend work on Controls Enclosure

Ok, I didn't like how the lid turned out from a couple weeks ago in mounting some of the parts. There were too many screws and nuts poking out, which would have created a leaking issue one day, and it looked bad. So, I ordered inner aluminum panels for the lids, and butch plates for the box interfacing. A butch plate is basically a term is to describe a cutout on an enclosure, with a plate cover for mounting connectors, penetrations, etc. This prevents constant cutting and drilling into the enclosures, when adding or modifying connectors. In total, I added seven plates to the two boxes, four butch plates, two lid inner panels, and a replacement bottom panel for one box.

To eliminate the added cost of either connectors between boxes or conduit, I cut out and joined the two boxes together, which will allow cabling and wires to go between enclosures. I did the cutting of the hole, the four butch plate cutouts, and the box joining last week.

During the week, I also mounted all of the parts to the three remaining panels. Doing this I found to be MUCH easier mounting the boards to a sub-panel on a workbench, rather than having to deal with stretching and contorting myself to get into the boxes.

So now, having cut all the butch plate cutouts, and mounted and bolted the two boxes together, it was ready for final painting. Since I had pre-painted boxes, I had to find a paint that would allow me to paint over my existing boxes as is with only minor cleaning. I found some, and this allowed me to not deal with blasting off the existing paint, and not dealing with a primer coat. I test painted a throw away panel to make sure it looked ok. I finished painting yesterday and mounted the assembled inner panels after drying.

The paint looks nicer than the pix show, and I may actually paint the sweep arm and rover chassis with the same paint. It will give the whole rover, a uniform stealth look, and should look pretty good.

Below are some pictures of the box...