Over a long duration I finally constructed the Pocket NC enclosure. And now after an even longer period of time I am posting about it.

Features include:

• (reasonably) soft close/open with gas struts
• high visibility with clear perspex on four sides
• elevated mounting of Pocket NC to allow longer stock in the ER40 collet
• enclosure open signal integration with Pocket NC
• internal iPhone mount for video recording of CNC sessions 🤓
• integrated LED lighting
• lighting partially switches off when opening to avoid blinding the user 😎

The build pretty much worked out as planned. There was only one main “gotcha” which was that the gas struts exert a significant amount of force on the frame resulting in a large degree of shaking when opening the enclosure. For this reason I needed to add some unplanned bracing plates on the rear side uprights.

The rear of the enclosure provides space for mounting:

• a power board
• LED lighting power supply
• a network switch
• a POE lightning cable to power and connect an internally mounted iPhone for recording CNC sessions
• a POE lightning cable to power and connect an externally located iPad for the Penta interface
• the receiver for a Vers Wireless Touch Probe - integration of this is the next step on the journey…

I also worked on a small fitting to allow a dial gauge to be attached. I was planning to measure repeatability, but I’m not sure how useful this will be in practice given it is mounted on a movable part of the machine…

It all looks pretty cool with the iPad beside it for convenient control:

Here is a video showing some of the details: