Zachary Houser
Dynamic Engineering: Chassis Design
One of my main responsibilities was to design and build models of various chassis Dynamic Engineering produces. Most of the products are made for more general purposes, such as a certain type of board or ones that house motherboards. Occasionally I created custom chassis, or customized the more generalized ones, for specific clients or purposes. Check all of them out below!
SCSI Adapter Hub
This was my first chassis project after coming into the company. It was a custom-ordered design that needed to contain a signal-splitting board within it. Every board edge had connectors protruding from it, so I chose to build the chassis out of 4 simple components, securing them to each other with screws. Every component had a silkscreen on it designating which numbered connector was coming through each hole. I used flush sheet metal fasteners to generate the threads needed to put the case together.
Renders of the adapter hub chassis and its components
PMC-MC-X2/X4
The PMC-MC-X2 and PMC-MC-X4 are both PMC carriers/motherboards that I designed the chassis for. These chassis were another design challenge for me. The first iteration I was given was not feasible, as the motherboard's connectors would be damage when the chassis was closed. I went through several cycles of the design process to get it to what you can see here. I tried to minimize the number of pieces require while keeping the design simple. I ended up with the three pieces, the bottom, top/front, and the rear panel. It is a very rugged design that is exceptionally secure when it is all assembled. I also installed rubber feet to the bottom to give it some vibration isolation. To make the X4, I essentially stretched the X2 chassis to maintain design consistency.
Renders of the two sizes of the chassis and their components
PC104p, PCI-104, & PCIe104
This chassis was already a solidified design when I joined DE, however, the company did not have any SolidWorks models of any of the components. My job was to recapture every piece, which come in a wide range of lengths/versions, and create an assembly in which we can customize the chassis for future clients. After I had completed this, I worked with a couple of clients to customize and change it, as was intended. I also complete designed a custom inner frame add-on so clients could install solid state drives within the chassis, shown in the last 3 images.
Renders of the chassis assembly and the hard drive add-on