There are tons ideas floating around here at Jee Labs (thanks in no small part to a few people joining in on the brainstorming side of things). Never a dull moment!

One direction I’d like to explore a lot further, is coming up with kits which include a really nice enclosure. Even geeks sometimes like to show off their creations in such a way that not all the guts are spilling out, with wires everywhere, and everyone else scared of messing up… or even just touching something.

Because I like to get a real physical feel for things at times, I ordered a large set of ABS enclosures in a wide range of shapes, varieties, sizes, and colors:

See? That’s what “research” looks like! ;)

Now there are many ways to create enclosures, also with acrylic panels, aluminum plates, and PCBs. Even 3D printing is starting to become an option. Not to forget my favorite foam board, and more environmentally friendly materials such as cardboard and wood.

In many cases, it’s possible to fit a project + board into an enclosure after the fact – especially if the enclosure is made specifically for that purpose. And sometimes you just get lucky and find a case which turns out to fit existing boards really well with only a little extra tweaking:

But sometimes it’s easier to pick an enclosure first, and then see whether a proper board can be designed to create a perfect fit.

This is what the JeeLink did, and it ended up becoming a really practical gadget, IMO:

Anyway, with this new “box full of boxes” at Jee Labs, I hope to be able to design more kits in the future which are not only fun to build, but also end up looking good and practical for daily use in and around the house. We’ll see.

“Making stuff fit” is often a neat puzzle. But it’s also easy to overlook details – always the crucial ones, of course.