Custom Aluminum Enclosures, Extruded Then Machined
The housing is usually the most expensive single part of a device programme and the one that decides whether it looks premium. We form the body in a die, machine the fits to ±0.01 mm, and finish it with 180# bead blast anodizing — in one facility.
- Body alloy
- 6063-T5 / T6
- Wall
- 0.3 mm minimum
- Machined fits
- ±0.01 mm
- Finish
- 180# bead blast anodized
Programmes where the housing is the product
This page is for the team building a device whose outside surface is also its structure: a handheld instrument, a wall-mounted control unit, a charging case, a camera body, a power module. The wall carries the thread, the lid closes on a machined step, and the finish is the first thing a customer touches.
If your part is a plain box with no visible surface, a heat sink or a bracket, other pages on this site will be more useful. If the housing is the thing people judge the product by, read on.
The construction we quote most often is one extruded body with machined end caps. The profile carries the wall, the internal PCB rails and any cooling fins in one piece. Machining adds the connector cut-outs, the lid step, the hinge pockets and the threaded inserts. Finishing covers both parts with one colour approval.
Enclosure facts
- 6063-T5 / T6 body, 6061-T6 for structural caps
- 0.3 mm minimum wall, ±0.02 mm wall thickness capability on thin-wall sections
- Profile section ±0.05 mm, machined fits ±0.01 mm
- 180# bead blast anodized without polishing
- Colour approved on a physical chip before production
- Batch cost 30–50% below milling from solid billet
What the process lets you design in
Each of these is something the extruded body does for free, or something machining has to get exactly right.
Integrated internal rails
PCB guides and mounting bosses are formed in the profile, so the board slides into a channel instead of being screwed to a bracket.
Formed in the dieMachined end-cap interfaces
The cap step, the gasket groove and the screw bosses are cut to ±0.01 mm from a datum shared with the body.
±0.01 mm fitThin walls without ripples
Staged cutting and stress relief between operations keep the visible face flat at 0.3 mm.
0.3 mm wallFins when the device runs hot
Cooling fins are extruded with the body at 3–6 mm pitch, removing the thermal interface between housing and heat sink.
3–6 mm pitchFinish that survives handling
180# bead blast anodizing without polishing: uniform matte, no buffing marks, fingerprints less visible.
No polishing stepOne supplier for both parts
Body and caps are extruded, machined and anodized under one roof, so colour and fit are agreed once.
1 supplier, 0 hand-offsTypical enclosure specification
A reference point for your own drawing. Every line is negotiable per part — these are the values we hold in production.
| Body alloy | 6063-T5 or 6063-T6 (6005A for larger sections) |
|---|---|
| End caps | 6063 or 6061-T6, machined from profile or plate |
| Wall thickness | 0.3 mm minimum, ±0.02 mm capability |
| Profile cross-section | ±0.05 mm as extruded |
| Machined features | ±0.01 mm; bore and OD ±0.04 mm |
| Finish | 180# bead blast + anodize; clear, black or custom colour |
| Other finishes | Sand blast, brushing, powder coating, laser marking |
| Tooling | Die in 4–5 days, sample in about 7 days |
| Volume | Typically 500 pcs/year large, 2,000 pcs/year small |
How an enclosure is made here
Section design
Wall, rails, fins and parting line agreed; die cut in 4–5 days.
Extrusion
Profile run on one of two automated lines, cut to length, aged to T5 or T6.
Machining
End faces, connector cut-outs, hinge pockets and threads to ±0.01 mm.
Blast and anodize
180# bead blast without polishing, then anodizing in the approved colour.
Inspect and pack
Dimensional and appearance check, export packing that survives air freight.
Round and shaped bodies follow the same route
Handles, barrels, pen bodies and cylindrical device housings are extruded as a tube and then machined on the ends. The bore and the outer diameter are held to ±0.04 mm after machining, and the end face becomes the sealing or mating surface.
- Tube wall and diameter agreed with the die, not after it
- Ends faced, bored, threaded or stepped to the assembly drawing
- Anodized clear or black, with the colour chip approved first
A housing is mostly wall. Milling turns most of that wall into chips.
On a typical enclosure, the die forms the wall, the rails and the fins in one pass. Machining then cuts only the fits that need ±0.01 mm. The route removes about 90% less material than milling from billet, which is where the 30–50% batch cost difference comes from.
Enclosures we have run
0.3 mm thin-wall housing
One-piece extrusion plus CNC, bead-blasted anodized, for a 3C accessory program.
Wall 0.3 mm
Read the case studyTWS charging case
Two-part housing with a hinge fit and lid gap that had to close consistently.
Hinge fit
Read the case studyExtruded speaker enclosure
Wall thickness consistency that steadied resonance across the production run.
Wall uniformity
Read the case studyEnclosure questions before quoting
The five questions that come up on almost every housing programme.
Can the enclosure be made as one extruded body with machined end caps?
Yes — this is the most common construction we quote. The body is a single 6063 profile with the wall, internal rails and fins formed in the die; the end caps are machined from plate or from a second profile. You get one supplier, one tolerance conversation and one colour approval across both parts.
How thin can the housing wall be?
0.3 mm minimum, with staged machining and stress relief. For a housing that takes a drop or a clamp load, we recommend 0.6 mm and above — the wall has to survive assembly, not just look thin in a render.
Can you hit a ±0.01 mm fit between the lid and the body?
On machined features, yes. The die holds the section to ±0.05 mm; the mating faces are then machined to ±0.01 mm from a common datum, so the gap closes the way the assembly drawing says it will.
What about sealing, IP rating or gaskets?
We machine the gasket groove and the sealing face to the geometry your gasket supplier specifies. We do not test or certify IP ratings — that is done on the assembled unit — but we will hold the groove dimensions that make the seal possible.
Do you anodize the inside as well?
Anodizing covers what the bath reaches, which is normally the full part. Where a surface must stay conductive for grounding, we mask it and agree that at DFM so the mask does not land on a sealing face.
Send the Enclosure Drawing. We Will Quote the Body and the Caps Together.
Include the wall thickness, the fit that matters most and the annual quantity. If a different construction would save money, we will propose it.
What to send
- 2D drawing or 3D model (STEP, IGES, DWG, DXF, PDF)
- Alloy and temper
- Surface finish and color
- Estimated annual quantity