Mechanical Design Services for Electronics Products
Mechanical design services for electronics products: enclosures, mechanisms, fixtures and drawings a tooling vendor can quote, engineered around the real board and led from Silicon Valley by a founder who trained as a materials and mechanical engineer. We design for your production process, prove the fit on our own printers and CNC, and hand you CAD you own.
What mechanical design services cover for an electronics product
For an electronics product, mechanical design services are the engineering that turns a board into something you can ship: the enclosure that holds it, the gasket that keeps water out, the thermal path that keeps the regulator alive, the fixtures that let a factory build and test it, and the drawings a tooling vendor can quote. It decides whether the product survives a drop, a summer in a parked car and ten thousand assembly cycles on a line you will never visit.
It is not industrial design, and the difference matters when you buy it. Industrial design decides what the product should look and feel like: form, proportion, hand feel, finish, concept to first CAD surface. Mechanical design is the engineering under that surface: wall thickness, ribs and bosses, draft, tolerances, material grade, fastening, sealing and the rules of the process that will make the part. This page is the engineering half, and you can buy it on its own: around a board from your own electrical team, for a product that has outgrown its printed shell, or as plain CAD design services from a sketch or a sample part.
Enclosure design services built around a real board
An enclosure engineered around a placeholder block fails when the real board arrives: a tall capacitor sits where the rib was, the USB-C jack is 0.4 mm off the wall, and the antenna now lives behind a metal boss. We start from the actual PCB outline and 3D model and settle the board and the housing together:
- Keep-outs and connectors: edge clearance, standoff and boss positions, panel-mount connectors, and the travel and feel of every button.
- Antenna clearance: the window a BLE, Wi-Fi or LTE antenna needs, and which plastics, fillers and paints are RF-transparent.
- Thermal path: where the heat leaves a power stage, a modem or a Linux SoC, and why vents and ingress protection pull in opposite directions.
- Sealing: gasket compression and groove geometry, O-rings, ultrasonic welding or overmolding, vent membranes, and the IP rating designed in rather than hoped for.
- Drop and vibration: wall thickness and ribbing for a handheld drop, battery retention, strain relief, and a snap-fit that survives two thousand openings, not twenty.
We design and pre-test for the ingress and drop targets on the bench; the formal rating comes from an accredited test lab, and we prepare the parts and paperwork for it. The plastics, the IP ratings and how layout and enclosure interact are in our guide to enclosure design for electronics.
Material selection, thermal design and tolerance analysis
Materials chosen for the job, not the render
inteRFace R&D is led by Shahaf Baron, a materials and mechanical engineer by training, and in mechanical design for electronics the material is an engineering decision, not a drop-down in the CAD. ABS, PC, PC/ABS and glass-filled nylon behave differently under heat, UV and impact; a UL 94 V-0 grade molds differently from the HB grade of the same resin; an aluminum housing solves a thermal problem and creates an antenna problem. We write the reason on the drawing.
Thermal design before the first prototype runs hot
Thermal design starts with a budget, not a simulation: the watts each hot component dissipates, the surface that carries them to the air, and the temperature the plastic, the battery and the user's hand will tolerate. A hand calculation and a thermal pad in the right place settle most products; a sealed device with a modem and a fast processor needs a conduction path designed into the housing and thermocouples on the first prototype. We do not promise a temperature we have not measured.
Tolerance analysis: fit at one unit and at ten thousand
A board-to-enclosure stack-up has more contributors than it looks: PCB outline, connector placement, molded part, screw bosses, gasket and standoff height. Stacked at worst case they rarely fit; ignored, they jam at volume. We run the stack both ways, worst case for sealing and safety features and statistically for the rest, then put the critical-to-function dimensions on the drawing with GD&T so the tool shop and the inspector measure the same ones.
Design for manufacturing: injection molding, sheet metal, CNC and 3D printing
Every process has rules, and a part designed without them is expensive or impossible. We design for the process you will use at the volume you expect, and say so when the process you had in mind is wrong for the quantity.
- Injection molding: a uniform wall, usually 2 to 3 mm, ribs at 40 to 60 percent of it, draft on every face, gate and parting line off the cosmetic surfaces, no undercuts that turn into side actions, texture called out for the quote.
- Sheet metal: bend radii and relief cuts the brake can make, holes kept away from bends, self-clinching hardware for threads, flat patterns that nest on the sheet.
- CNC machining: internal corner radii that match a real cutter, pocket depths a tool can reach, tolerances tightened only where function needs them, finishes specified so the quote covers them.
- 3D printing for production: SLS or MJF nylon where a few hundred to a few thousand units do not yet justify a tool, with orientation and minimum feature size designed in.
DFM is cheapest while the geometry is still soft, so we review it with your contract manufacturer or tool shop before the tool is ordered, not after the first shot. When we also run production, the handover is on our manufacturing page.
Prototypes on our bench, then fixtures and jigs for yours
We print and machine the first versions ourselves: in-house FDM printers and a CNC on our bench in Silicon Valley mean a fit problem found on Tuesday is a new part on Wednesday, and a snap-fit or a button feel can be tried three ways in an afternoon. SLA, SLS and MJF parts come from vetted partners, and every part ships to you by carrier. The wider prototype build, boards and firmware included, is on our rapid prototyping page; the printing service itself is on the 3D printing page.
A product is done when a factory can build and test it, not when the enclosure fits. We design the fixtures and jigs that make that true: an assembly jig for the connector angle, a programming and test jig with pogo pins on the test points, a bed-of-nails fixture for the functional test, and alignment features in the parts that keep every fixture simple.
What you receive from a mechanical design engagement
Every phase ends in files any vendor can work from:
- Native CAD in SolidWorks, Fusion or Onshape plus STEP exports, with the board model and keep-outs in the assembly.
- Toleranced 2D drawings with GD&T on the critical-to-function dimensions; material, grade, color, texture, finish, flame rating and inserts called out.
- A DFM report, a tooling request package a vendor can quote from, and the tolerance and thermal calculations with their assumptions.
- Prototype parts with a fit and assembly report, plus fixture and jig designs with their own drawings.
- A costed mechanical BOM with alternates for anything that depends on a single supplier.
You keep 100% of the IP and every file. We never take equity, we never hold design data as leverage, and a mutual NDA is signed before any technical detail is exchanged.
How a mechanical design engagement is priced
Mechanical design is priced in engineering hours, and you get a written quote with phases before any work starts. For scale, a campaign-ready BLE tracker prototype we delivered, with a module-based first board, a printed enclosure and a BOM costed at volume, took 48 engineering hours in total; most projects we quote fall between 40 and 250 engineering hours. The free project cost estimator turns your scope into a range of hours in minutes.
Where we do mechanical design work, and how a mechanical design engagement starts
We are based in Silicon Valley and work with teams across the United States, mostly remotely: CAD reviews run on video with the prototype on the bench and a camera on it, parts ship by carrier, and in-person fit checks happen in the Bay Area by arrangement. How a nationwide engagement runs is on our United States page.
It starts with a free 30-minute call with a senior engineer, under a mutual NDA if you want to share detail: book a time and bring the board or the shell that is not working. The first paid step is bounded and quoted up front: usually a mechanical review of your board, requirements and target process that ends in a written assessment and a written quote with phases for the design work. You can stop there and keep the documents. Have a part as an STL already? The free 3D printing instant quote prices it in your browser without uploading it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do your mechanical design services include?
The engineering of the physical product around your electronics: enclosure design against the real board, mechanisms, gaskets and sealing, the thermal path, material selection, tolerance analysis, design for manufacturing in injection molding, sheet metal, CNC or 3D printing, prototypes on our own printers and CNC, fixtures and test jigs, and toleranced drawings a tooling vendor can quote. You receive native CAD, STEP files, drawings, a DFM report and the prototype parts, and you own all of it.
What is the difference between mechanical design and industrial design?
Industrial design decides what the product looks and feels like: form, proportion, hand feel, finish and the concept work from sketch to a first CAD surface. Mechanical design is the engineering under that surface: wall thickness, ribs, draft, tolerances, material grade, fastening, sealing and the rules of the process that will make the part. We offer both and usually run them together, but you can buy the engineering on its own when the look is already decided.
Can you design an enclosure for a board another team designed?
Yes, and you do not need to change the board first. Send the board files or a 3D model of the assembled PCB, the connectors and anything that must reach the outside, and the environment the product lives in. We design around what exists and tell you early if a mounting hole, a connector position or an antenna placement will make the enclosure harder than it needs to be, so your electrical team can decide whether a small board change is worth it.
Which manufacturing processes do you design for?
Injection molding for volume plastics, sheet metal for chassis and brackets, CNC machining for metal housings and low-volume precision parts, and 3D printing, SLS or MJF nylon, when a few hundred to a few thousand units do not justify a tool. The process is chosen against your volume, cost target, environment and schedule, and each one has its own design rules, which is why the choice is made before the detailed CAD, not after the quote comes back too high.
Do you offer mechanical engineering consulting on a design we already have?
Yes. Send the CAD, the drawings and the problem, whether that is a tooling quote that came back high, a part that cracks on the drop test, a gasket that leaks or a housing that runs hot, and you get a written review ranked by what each issue costs to fix. Sometimes the answer is a rib and a draft change; sometimes it is a different process. Occasionally the design is fine and the problem is elsewhere, and we will say so.
How much does mechanical design cost, and how do we start?
It is priced in engineering hours, and you get a written quote with phases before any work starts. A simple printed enclosure around an existing board is a small number of hours; a sealed, molded, multi-part housing with fixtures and a tooling package is a larger one, and the quote spells out which. Start with a free 30-minute call, booked from the button below, usually followed by a bounded mechanical review quoted up front, so the next quote rests on engineering rather than guesswork.
Ready to talk specifics?
A 30-minute call with a senior engineer beats three rounds of email. Tell us what you're building.