RF project boxes: Where?

Try Digikey L206-ND and L205-ND

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Thanks, Spehro, I was eyeing the L210-ND and will order those if I can't find anything better. They are somewhat acceptable but it's not the finger-snap lid from the good old days, and probably not tin-plated either. Those used to provide a nice RF seal all around. With the Heeger boxes you can only solder it in and then it is a bear to remove. It's possible with a Weller 100/140W gun but messy.

...

Buy a can of Altoids? Not quite the same dimensions, but close.

Curiously thin metal, though.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

I'm an RF enthusiast, not professional, I've hacked and adapted lots of stuff but I can't say I can identify this from the description. I have a mental image that may be correct but not like anything I've seen on any shelf. Sounds like you were sitting on a local gold mine with that store. Do you have anything left around that you could take a picture of and post to the binaries group?

Ideas:

Can you use a regular box plus a gasket like the ones here?

Or seal it with one of these methods:

mw

There is a company - "BUD"? Have you checked them or their products - out? I know some of their products were used in the past - in construction articles - for items such as tuners, band pass/reject, TVI filters and so on.

From their website:

Bud Industries is the United State's leading manufacturer of standard electronic enclosures and custom electronic enclosures.

They have an online catalog - and a distributor "finder" list as well as other information.

Seriously, I was canvassing the garage for a can that a uC programming adapter came in. Gone :-(

And we don't eat Altoids, so no luck there. Buying one would be an option but then I'd have to eat them all and that leads to a whole 'nother problem half an hour later.

I could but I'd have to pry the last one out of a unit though so the camera can catch it. Basically it looks like an oversized TV-tuner, with a lid that has dozens of contact fingers so tight that you need a tool to pry it off (or break fingernails).

It used to be no problem to buy them at electronics stores except that the last one in this area has now vanished. It became a, gasp, cell phone shop :-(

Link times out but I'll keep looking. Thanks.

I wonder why Digikey doesn't have any. I remember even being able to buy this stuff at radio shack. "RF project box" or something like that. Ok, they cost a lot more than at the large places but in a pinch this was so great.

Sure but I am not a fan of beryllium-copper. Also, I'd still need to find a metal box for that and it can't be aluminum or die cast because that wouldn't yield good long term contacting. And if I found a tin box sans fingers I could also just solder 6-8 spots of the lid and it'll be fine.

I can't speak for all "Radio Shacks" but I think some still have them.......... The question is, is it the size "you" need?

L.

They only had the larger ones but that would be fine. Problem is, Radio Shacks around here seem to die like flies, their web site is next to useless and the stores we still have here are smallish in their assortment. Growing in the cell phone and MP3 aisle, shrinking parts corner.

Just put them in a bowl and hand them out to the kids at Halloween. ;-)

A couple of years ago, I bought a pack of "Camel Turkish Jade" cigarettes, and they came in a metal tin much like the altoids', but big enough for two rows of 10 cigarettes, and the corners radiused at about 1/8". Haven't got around to figuring out what I want to use it for yet...

Cheers! Rich

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 09:07:05 -0700, Joerg wrote: ...

Here's the box I was talking about in my other followup:

Cheers! Rich

If you're not afraid to solder, why not just get a flat piece of tinplate, (tin-plated sheet steel), a bender of some kind (small bench vise?) and make one?

Good Luck! Rich

You're so right............ Ah the good ole days. When we had - at least around here - Olson Electronics, Heathkit, Lafayette Radio Electronics, Radio Shack and countless others to go to. And at that - an "educated" person in the craft - to assist.

Must have been some tasty smokes ;-)

Done that, many times. But after the umpteenth broken scroll saw blade that gets old. I've got grandpa's old hand brake to bend the corners, looks almost professional. When I want to be extra good and made a copper box I give it a nice spit shine (but on my own time, not the client's). I lucked out in finding two tubes of Wenol polishing paste at a kitchen store, bought both of them that very millisecond.