A note of caution! The world of 3D printing can be highly addictive !!!
After about a year of thinking about it I purchased a printer (kit) late fall, with the specific intention of building my own enclosures.
I figured I could do this in a couple of weeks...
I was achieving very good test prints, but...
I quickly got caught up in all the aspects of this technology and as a retired EE with a career in software I just had to understand all that was going on...
So first came a number of add-ons: high performance heatbed, Octoprint on Raspberry Pi with web cam for remote monitoring, control and stand-alone printing, etc.
Now that I was happy with the 'physical' stuff, I started looking into the software: lots of time getting to understand Marlin (Open source, kind of a mess) and lots and lots of trials with every 'slicer' program out there.
Then came testing and choosing printing materials: there are literally hundreds of different materials available. For enclosures you are looking for accurate dimensions, and UV resistant if it is to be installed outside.
And finally I realized that I needed to master a good CAD software program if I really wanted to do my own stuff: enter the FUSION 360 (Autodesk) learning curve !
3 months into this and a major backlog of my Moteino projects, I am just about ready to start on my enclosures.
My objective is to model all the possible parts that can go into an enclosure: moteino, battery + holder, power shield, Mighty boost,etc.
This way I can play around positioning the parts, and all standoffs, cutoffs, etc. will be done automatically.
Have a look at the
www.thingiverse.com site for an idea of what people are building with these low cost 3D printers.
François