Silk Screening and Engraving: The Ultimate Way to Customize your Electrical Enclosure

Silk Screening is the easiest and least expensive way to customize an enclosure.  Any flat side of the enclosure can be silkscreened with nearly anything you need from labeling operators or externally installed devices to your company name and logo.  Examples include of operators include Hand-Off-Auto, emergency stop or gas detection to name a few.  If you have a product line name you would like on each enclosures as well as serial numbers they both can be added with this process. Silk screening can be done in nearly any color and can be as simple as a color match similar to what you do at your local paint store. Silk screening on metal is susceptible to being worn off or scratched off from hand tools on smooth metal surfaces like stainless steel or aluminum but we have found that a clear powder coat applied after silk screening makes the specific markings nearly 100% permanent. The silk screening process is actually quite simple.   Once we receive your logo or lettering, a screen is made to match your design.  After customer signs off on artwork, the screen is mounted in a frame and the enclosure is mounted in a fixture to lock both items in place.  Ink is pushed through the screen with a rubber paddle and the ink is then dried in an oven.  If multiple colors are required, a separate screen for each color must be used.  Proper fixturing allows for many colors to be used on the same enclosure. Engraving the enclosure is another option to customize the enclosure.  This option is typically more expensive and takes more time but the outcome is more permanent than silk screening.  In this process, a small amount of metal is removed from the surface of the enclosure to match the logo or letter desired.  Typically .005” to .010” of metal is removed either mechanically via a milling operation or chemically through an etching process.  Once the metal has been removed it is typically filled with epoxy paint of the desired color to match your requirement. If you have an interest in taking your enclosure to the next level of customization, just call one of our project managers to work out the details.  To get started we will need the following information as a minimum:

• Company logo and color requirements in a .pdf or .eps format with as high a resolution as possible.  The ideal file format for us is from Adobe Illustrator.
• Location of the labeling on the enclosure.  If lettering only is required, then just the font type and size.
• Any custom configuration of other details that would allow us to make the final custom enclosure exactly to requirements.

Contact us if you have any questions regarding silk screening an enclosure.