Replies: 12 comments 22 replies
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I should add that since I have a CNC router/mill, the plan is to cut this from a piece of PP plastic (poor man's POM). Hence why the back plate is quite thick as it would reduce machining time. I will likely make it even thicker where it's possible - which should also help beef it up for connecting a sort of bracket or holder for mounting on the lathe. That said, I'll probably 3D print the first version in PLA to check the fit and such. Once it's proven, I'll share the files, of course. Still to do:
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Also, I may change the legend/text a bit for the sticker on the back but I am not sure what they all mean as they are. X, Y, Z: those are the pulses for the motor drivers, right? (I think I will go with X-Motor/X-MTR) |
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I did have space issues fitting everything into the case and it took more than a few iterations.
That's not necessary in the 5 inch version and USB cable I linked has endpoints made from metal.
I'm also using the pre-soldered boards, pins are lower than other board features and don't seem to be a problem.
It's very convenient to have it accessible - it's okay if it's at some distance inside the case, you can 3D-print a special tool or use tweezers to put it in and out. I'm not aware of other ways to get the UI file onto the screen but it probably exists.
Not that I noticed.
Yes. JSIGNAL & JPOWER: What are those? Jog? For a jog pendant? If so, was I wrong about the PULSE inputs being for MPGs, too? Joystick signal and power. Joystick support is not implemented in the code but those pins are intended to be used with a 3-axis potentiometer-based joystick with a button. |
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Max - Thanks as always for the speedy and elaborate reply:) Ah, maybe the metal USB-C connector is why, then. I've been playing around with calipers and I am missing 0.5-1mm of space with your 5'' casing and the plastic cables I had on hand to measure - at least in CAD. I am almost sure those cables are thicker than yours. No worry, If I have to cut/file mine down a tad, so be it:) Thanks for the rest of the info. I am getting there, bit by bit. |
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A bit of a change as I now intend to include the buttons and handhweel needed for the ELS as well as the general lathe controls in the same enclosure as the display. Here's where we are now: Still missing a few things. |
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Wow, it's massive 😄 |
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Yes, it really makes the mini in Mini Lathe a real thing, haha. Either way, I am ok with it now that I can move some buttons to it and thus eliminate a second box on the lathe. In the end, I think it will actually be pretty cool to use like this and good practice for possibly building a control panel for my CNC lathe and mill down the road:) |
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Hi, I have decided to get a 7in nextion screen and use the latest max code for a touch screen. I am wondering if you would have the initial case for the 7 in screen available please ? |
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Hi Alan. I think I have most of it though, perhaps 90-95% there and the size and mounting holes should be spot on or very, very close. But do you know your way around Fusion? If so, it should be easy putting finishing touches on it yourself. Otherwise I can try to find a bit of time in a day or two and see what I can do. Also, I don't have an FDM printer large enough for this enclosure so I have actually never tested a printed version of it. You may have to adjust the ribs between the EDG15 connectors or other small stuff like that. They are quite narrow, ~0.9mm wide, so you have to have a nicely dialled in printer to make those come out and fit well. Speaking of which, I think it would be a good idea to print a jig with the same cutouts as those for the connectors to use when you solder the connectors to the board. If you don't constrain the connectors, there's quite a big risk that they end up a bit wobbly and you may not get the board to fit in the case then. You could possibly use the case itself as the soldering jig. |
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Hi, Happy to take what you have. I use the online Tinkercad for any design changes, it is not a fully fledged CAD tool abut not bad for basics. I have used the actual case as a jig for soldering my 5in screen which seemed to work well. |
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Great, holler at me if I haven't shared it here by tomorrow evening but will try to get it done sooner:) |
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FILES FOR THE 7'' ENCLOSURE PULLING THE FILES FOR NOW - FOUND AN ERROR OK, attaching a folder with a few different formats. Let me know if they don't play well with your software and I can try exporting in something else. Some pointers:
Some screenshots: 
A closer one showing the small gap between the Nextion flange and the screw boss: But if you don't need to use the original M3 screws and have longer ones, then you can shorten that screw boss or eliminate it completely and then for sure, there wont be any issues there. |
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[EDIT] PULLING THE FILE FOR NOW - THERE'S AN ERROR OK, speaking of the test print to check the gap and screw length, I went ahead and cut a corner out of the model so here's an STL and a screenshot: It's small at 25x28x40mm so it won't waste much filament. [EDIT] I printed this little test piece myself at home and wil be back in the workshop tomorrow so I can do a quick sanity check unless you are ahead of me on this one already;) But as mentioned, the guarenteed fix is to just get longer screws and shorten or remove those internal screw bosses altogether. |
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Hi, Thank you very much for the files. I have downloaded them but will wait for my screen to arrive before trailing the printing. |
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Hi again @AlanMerry |
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I have ordered a 7 inch display (black friday price} . Looking at the downloaded .step file the enclosure appears to be in one piece . I am not familiar with 3d printing so I guess I am missing something. Can you advise please, Thanks |
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Hi Clive, But since you wont be needing the EDG connections, I think you have more options. The opening for the connectors, the placement of the PCB and then ESP32 governs a lot of the 3D design for the 3D-printed enclosure. @AlanMerry Did you get a chance to print the latest version of the 7'' enclosure? Did the mounting holes line up? |
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Excellent, thanks for clarifying |
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Nextion 7'' Enclosure Files GO HERE FOR LATEST FILES @AlanMerry and others, Keep in mind, I have not 3D-printed this myself as I don't have a printer large enough. All measurements, apart from the ones based off of Max's 5'' enclosure has been taken with calipers. As such, there's a risk I might not have gotten them all perfect, but I did my best. I am attaching two different design versions - all to do with the SD card reader slot in the Nextion. Honestly, I don't think the Nextion itself does this very cleverly. There's a fairly big opening and quite a risk of losing the card into all the empty space around it. (This will make more sense once you have the Nextion in hand.) Some pics. As you can tell, it's not aligned in the best way: As for the two different designs I am sharing, one has the larger slot (though only on the bottom): The other only has the microSD card slot, the idea being you can use its location as a starting point for your own design changes: Personally, if I needed access to the SD card I would grind some of the plastic from the Nextion itself, marked here in blue: While I think I got the screw locations sorted now some things are still left up to you:
Anyways, hope someone finds this useful. Whoever modifies this and improves on it, please share your files, too. |
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Thank you, will look into this soon. I have another question regarding hiding buttons or text objects (like I want to remove the Y fields because I only use X and Z). Starting with the latest Max .hmi file I have figured that the screen has a background image over which the buttons and text elements are placed. Happy with modifying that file but the issue remains that there are still buttons linked in the .ino code that I no longer want to see. The Editor attributes of vis which allows hiding of an object, is not on the list of attributes. Is simply deleting the object/button the way or is hiding it correct? Feel free to ignore me if I am being annoying. |
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I can't recall in detail how Max made his screenset. Off of the top of my head, you may run into an issue since both him and I used images for the background and some of the buttons. Whether or not the "Y-stuff" relies on images I can't recall but if it does, you can't really just delete it. You would have to redo the image(s) and swap it for the original one. If the Y-axis don't rely on images but only buttons made in Nextion, you can start by just dragging them off of the canvas - so, off to the side. That way, they wont actually be on your screen but you can drag them back and recompile if need be. But the Nextion Editor is actually not too bad - and if you just save various versions as you go along, it's hard to do much damage - that way, you can also just delete the buttons completely [EDIT] SEE NEXT POST - DO NOT DELETE BUTTONS... That said, you could also give my screenset a go - it has all the Y-axis stuff deleted already which does make space to enlarge the coordinates and some of the more important buttons and there are some other nice improvements, too. I am biased, of course, but I do find it nicer to look at;). You could start by using it with Max's V11 FW which would be the safest though my screenset does have more functionality when used with my modified FW. E.g. long press for +/- buttons, delete all limits, no jumping of the decimal point in the cordinates, etc. Personally, I am actually not using the modified FW which I am proposing you should try - since I have recently added DRO functionality so I am on an even more modified FW - but @Clive66 is using it as you can see in this post and I don't think he has found any bugs in it, yet. |
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@AlanMerry OH! forgot, you actually have to be super careful about deleting buttons - it's a Nextion quirk and a silly one. Max's FW uses each button and text box's "Content ID". This ID than gets mapped to a specific function in the FW. The thing is, the Nextion Editor auto-assigns these IDs consecutively as you add elements during the design phase. BUT if you delete a button, the buttons created later than the deleted button will be moved up ID-wise and thus will no longer do what the code expects them them to do. So, forget what I said about "just" deleting buttons - instead MOVE unused buttons off of the canvas and I think the remaining ones should keep their ID... There's a workaround if it gets messed up - you would have to "fool" the button to send a different ID than its Nextion-assigned ID. You basically insert one line of code in the button attribute in the editor and the button will send the ID you "told it to" rather than what was auto-assigned to it, but I have explained how to do that elsewhere on the forum and I can find a link if you really need it. |
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Almost There For The 7'' Enclosure I finally have a printer big enough to actually print this in one go: The printer still needs some tuning so don't judge the print quality too much but we are getting very close to it all fitting. The inner holes shrunk a bit in the print (hadn't yet adjusted that in the slicer) so had to enlarge them - but they are indeed clearance holes in the CAD. The connectors fit well, too. The black ones are slightly looser but the green ones go in, too: But the pins are a little bit off center in the PCB so I think I will spread out the connector openings just a tad more than on Max's sketch: I will do one last iteration on this, print it and then if things look good release it in a day or two:) Mind you, I wont be needing this myself as I have more buttons on my panel and will be using aviation style connectors and overall reduce the amount of them, but maybe some of you can use the basic enclosure:) |
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Hi, I actually printed your original 7in enclosure and I discovered a couple of issues. the back panel is too thick. This stops the plugs seating properly. The sides are too high. This means that the original screws from the next ion panel are too short. Both of these changes would reduce the print time which was about 10hrs. |
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Hi Alan, I just checked the files (the ones shared in the forum) and the distance from the PCB to the outside bottom of the panel is 9.0mm - same as in Max's 5'' file so not sure what's going on with the plugs not seating properly. The EDG connectors are specced to be 9.2mm tall, so in theory they should sit 0.2mm proud of the enclosure. That said, on the dummy enclosure I have been using myself with the same dimensions, I also don't get the feeling that the connection is very secure - but the connectors are flush and fully pushed in. I haven't had them come undone but I also have ziptied the cables in a way that offers strain relief. But yes, it seems the version of enclosure that I shared is 4.25mm taller than it needs to be: As for print time, that's a tricky one. It depends on many things. That was with 3 walls, 15% infill, 0.4mm nozzle, 0.28mm layer height. ~200mm/s speeds and it felt plenty strong to me. But there are so many parameters that can make a print slower or faster. But I wouldn't print this solid, don't know if you did? I am not an engineer but generally, we don't need to print big parts solid. It's to do with how the outer walls start carrying the stresses and the farther apart they are, the better a job they do of this. So, the infill just has to be strong enough to keep the walls from buckling. It's often mentioned that 4-6 walls and 10-15% infill will get us close to the strength of a solidly printed part. On my own enclosure, when I finalize it, I will probably go with 4 walls and 10% infill. Anyhow, yesterday, I printed a little cutout just covering the EDG connector area as I tweaked the horizontal spacing but it has the standoffs for the PCB so will see if I can replicate your issue with the depth of the connectors. |
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I can't replicate the issue you had with the connectors being too deep. They are actually spot on as far as I can tell. This is the test piece I printed to check the new hole spacing but the height offset to the PCB is the same as before at 9mm with the EDGs pressed in as far as I could (not soldered): Sits a tad proud as expected per the CAD and connector specs: Same for the black ones: The black ones may be 0.1mm shorter but still, the plug doesn't touch anything else than the female connector: So, I don't think it would make sense for me to change this geometry. It will stay in line with Max's and people can modify it on their end if they feel they need to. The only thing I can think off in regards to your problem, but it's hard to explain, is that the plastic connectors don't grip the pins that well and you can end up in a situation where when you solder the connectors in, the pins move in relation to the connector body. You may end up in a situation where some of the pins are sticking out too far and that's what is blocking the male connector from plugging in fully. But it's pure speculation, I just noticed they would move quite easily during soldering. The slightly adjusted horizontal spacing also looks good, the pins don't seem to be pushed sideways now: This just leaves the 4mm reduction in height to save on filament and print time and hopefully make the original screws work. Not sure I will waste filament printing a whole case I wont be using just to prove this last change, time will tell. But will share a file in a day or two. |
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I am wondering if there is a difference between the black and green connectors. In my case I was wondering why I was getting poor results, ie els powering off, encoder not working etc. When I looked closely at the plugs, I discovered that they were not "clicking" in fully when the pcb was mounted in the 7in case. When I removed the pcb from the case, the problems vanished. So, I looked further and discovered that the back was thicker than Max's 5in case and that this extra thickness was not allowing the green plugs to "click" into position. |
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Except for the color, I don't think there's a difference, they should be made to the same specs. And I do have green connectors on my quick and dirty panel. That one is CNC'ed though, not printed but has the same 9mm distance from the PCB to the outside of the case. Same as for Max 5'' case. OK, I looked even more closely and I think I might have found an explanation - and it's definitely partly on me, my bad. Here's the lip on the connector that I possibly forgot all about when I decided to stick with the 4mm bottom wall thickness for the 3D printed version of the case: And for the tests on the 3D printed parts the last few days, I used brand new connectors - I hadn't cut the lip off, didn't even notice it was there so may I just have pushed them in harder so that tiny lip didn't object (it seems to be only sticking out 0.2mm). But here's where that 3mm lip "kicker" takes a turn... Max actually specced the holes to be large enough that the lip may not even come into play. Here's his 5'' enclosure with a connector inserted: And here's it is in mine, with the same hole size - but with admittedly, the thicker wall: So, yes, in theory, the lip should/could be sliding through and not stopping the connector, but with the tolerances of 3D printers it's very possibly that your holes ended up ever so slightly smaller than mine - and thus the lip actually did get to put a stop to the connector reaching the back. Which admittedly, it wouldn't have if I had stuck with a 3mm wall thickness. The hack would be to file open the top side of the holes (I think the top) about 0.3mm or so to allow the lip to go into the bore or cut the lip off each of the 15 connectors. But I will change the thickness to 3mm and then both the 9mm offset and the thickness of the back is finally the same as Max's and no hacks should be needed for anyone hopefully. Apologies for making you the guinea pig on this. I do think there's a chance that with 20mm screws and an Exacto knife or a little file, your first print might very well be put into service. As a little side note, it's common for printers to print internal bores and holes a bit undersized. On my particular printer I found that adding a bit of "XY hole compensation" in the slicer helped: I also turned on: Honestly not sure which one did the trick but I don't have undersized holes anylonger. |
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для cd карты можно использовать такой адаптер |
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First I thought this was a wifi card that plugs into the mSD slot. But it's "just" a physical extender. Personally, my lathe controls and buttons get in the way but for others, it could work with the basic 7'' enclosure. [EDIT] |
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Final Files For 7'' Enclosure From Me - Feel Free To Modify The 7'' enclosure is good now. But do read the pointers below. About The Files GeckoSub Nextion 7'' Enclosure - V2.zip Some Pointers
Known "Issues" And Now, The Words On The Latest Changes @AlanMerry had pointed out that my bottom was thicker than Max's and I finally found out how that could lead to an issue with the female connectors not being able to fully reach the back side - which in turn, could lead to the male plugs not inserting fully. It's located so that it works with a 3mm flange thickness but since I had 4mm, that's why issues could arise (depending on the tolerances and tightness of the connector hole). The easy, proper fix was to lower the thickness in the connector area to 3mm - I kept the rest 4mm which is why you see the step: And the connectors sit ~0.2mm proud at the rear as expected per the CAD: The enclosure is also ~4mm shorter now making it 25mm tall like Max' 5'' version and M3x16mm screws work now. |
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@kachurovskiy The only thing it doesn't have is a way to add a mount as I don't know what people will be doing. |
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Hi @GeckoSub, thanks a lot for pushing this project through. Please make your own repo (ideally not a fork of NanoEls so as not to bring all the unchanged files), upload the files and instructions there and I'd be happy to link this from the main pages. This ensures that people don't need to ingest all the consequent modifications and can just get latest and greatest state - and you don't need me in the loop for updates. Cheers! |
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Sure, will look into how to do that in a few days:) |
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UPDATE AS OF Feb 12, 2026
GO HERE FOR THE LATEST STL AND CAD FILES
Original Post Below
So, I am working on an enclosure/back as I have the bigger 7'' Nextion (with the glass front). Not too difficult with Max's original file for the 5'' version and some measurements of my own display.
Tight Fit For The USB Cable?
@kachurovskiy Did you have any space issues with the USB cable or is the one you linked to very low profile where it inserts into the ESP32? There's about 8mm from the studs that hold the H5 PCB to the floor of the countersunk area but most of the cables I have here are a bit too tall for that allowance. I guess, some of us may have to cut some of the plastic off of the USB connector?
The ESP I am using came with pins already soldered on, but perhaps those plastic spacers on the pins are a tad too tall. If I can pull them off and cut them down, that would help in this regard.
Micro-SD Access or Not?
Also, how important is it to have access to the micro-SD card once it's all assembled? On the 7'' display, there's quite the distance to the card readed on the Nextion PCB so it won't be easy popping a card in and out. Can I still bypass it and upload new Nextion files to the display in other ways? I have a TTL adapter on the way but how would I go about connecting that to the Nextion when the RX/TX port is taken up by the ESP? Can I somehow go through the ESP this?
Cooling...?
Does any of this run hot enough to become an issue? I have enough space to add a 40mm fan in the enclosure - like a 4010 from older 3D-printers. Or a 5010 if I move the H5 PCB a bit to the side.
If yes, then how would I go about it as I don't want it to suck in dust and chips...?
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