For more than a decade, our How to Design Custom Enclosures for Motherboards guide has been vital for designers looking for guidance on how to properly integrate standard form factor motherboards into their custom enclosure design. For many of our customers, this resource has become a staple, outlining how to design custom enclosures for ATX and Mini-ITX motherboards (and now, Micro-ATX).

We recently revised our How to Design Custom Enclosures for Motherboard-Based Systems resource to make it more clear, up-to-date and overall more helpful. This resource serves anyone who is looking to design custom motherboard-based enclosures. Plus, many of the concepts discussed in this guide also apply when designing enclosures for other motherboard form factors and custom-built circuit boards.

We’ve made several changes and additions to the new and improved motherboard-based design guide:

  • Added Micro-ATX boards to the document
  • Added height constraints
  • Changed mounting fastener configuration
  • Changed PCI slots so they don’t restrict protruding connectors
  • Added detailed illustrations and diagrams

Check out the full How to Design Custom Enclosures for Motherboard-Based Systems guide, also available to download as a PDF. Happy designing!


What other design guides and resources would you like to see? Let us know in the comments below. Our engineering and design services team is here to help you make manufacturable designs that achieve all of your design goals – we welcome any feedback or ideas you have.

About The Author

Christa Carey

Christa Carey has been with Protocase since the very beginning. In fact, she was the first employee the company hired back in 2002, after working for the Protocase co-founders in a previous job. She graduated in 2000 from Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia, Canada. As the CNC Engineering and Design Services Technical Services Manager, Christa manages a team of engineers and technologists in the CNC Machining Division.

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