Designing an enclosure, start to finish

EnclosureAI builds a 3D-printable box around a real electronics board — pick one from the library, add the ports it needs, and export an STL. This page walks through the whole flow with screenshots of the real app.

1Open the designer

This is what you see before picking anything — a default box, a Quick start list of common board sizes, and the Board library dropdown where the real work starts.

EnclosureAI's initial view: an empty box in the 3D viewer, Quick start templates and the Board library dropdown in the left panel

The app on first load — no board picked yet.

2Pick a board

The Board library dropdown lists every board with real, verified geometry — each entry shows how many mounting holes and connector cutouts it has. Boards with real STEP/STL data behind them mean the enclosure that gets generated actually matches the physical part, not a guess.

The Board library dropdown open, listing boards with their hole and cutout counts

Every board shows its hole/cutout count up front, so you know how complete its data is.

3Your enclosure, auto-sized

The moment you pick a board, the box resizes to fit it, standoffs appear under its real mounting holes, and any known connector cutouts are already cut into the walls. The Model info panel (top right) shows the outer size, inner cavity, and a running port/standoff count.

A Raspberry Pi 5 loaded into the enclosure, showing standoffs and connector cutouts already in place

Raspberry Pi 5 loaded — the box, standoffs, and cutouts all derive from its real geometry.

Drag to orbit, scroll to zoom, right-drag to pan — shown in the bottom-right corner of the 3D view at all times.

4Add a port or feature

Need something the board doesn't already have — a button, a vent, an extra USB cutout? Pick which face you're adding to along the top of the Ports & features list, hit + Add, and choose from the categories: USB, Video, Audio, Power, Network, Control, Display, Storage, Cable, Mount, Vents, Misc, and pin Headers (GPIO, ICSP, camera ribbon connectors).

The Add-port picker open, showing category tabs and a grid of connector types to choose from

Every shape is real-world sized — pick a type, it lands on the active face immediately.

5Adjust a cutout's position

Click any row in the Ports & features list to select it — the little face diagram highlights it, and a position editor appears on the right with exact From left / right / top / bottom distances in millimetres. You can also just click a spot on the face diagram to drop it there.

A selected RJ45 Ethernet cutout with its position editor open, showing edge distances and Center/Delete buttons

Selected: an RJ45 Ethernet cutout, with its exact edge distances and quick-center buttons.

With a cutout selected, the ← ↑ → ↓ arrow keys nudge it 0.5mm at a time — hold Shift for 5mm jumps, or Ctrl/Cmd for 0.1mm fine adjustments. Faster than typing numbers for a small tweak.

6Fix a mounting hole, if one's off

Board mounting holes come from real annotated data, but occasionally one's a little off. The Mounting holes list (under Board library) lets you select any hole and nudge just its standoff — the same arrow-key shortcut works here too. Reset to annotated position always gets you back to the real, original spot.

The mounting-hole editor with Hole 1 selected, showing Offset X/Y fields and a Reset button

This only moves the standoff — the board's own real geometry is never touched.

7Look at it from every side

The View panel (top right, visible in the screenshot above) has one button per side — Iso, Front, Back, Left, Right, Top, Bottom — for snapping the camera straight to that wall. Handy for checking a cutout lines up before you print.

8Export

Happy with the design? The Export panel (also visible above) has three options: Download STL for printing, Download OBJ for Blender/Unity, and Export JSCAD for the parametric source code, if you want to keep tweaking it programmatically.

Good to know

My board isn't in the library: Type dimensions manually, describe the board in the AI bar at the top, or drop its STL/STEP file into the project's board folder and annotate it once — see the project README for that workflow.
I made a mistake — how do I undo?: Ctrl/Cmd + Z undoes the last change to the ports list (adding, deleting, or a template/AI-fill replacing everything).
Will I lose my work if I close the tab?: No — the app autosaves your design as you go, including the board you picked and every port's position.

Open the designer →