Not all electronic enclosures are large, metal boxes used to protect large amounts of circuitry or other electronic devices. In fact, if you were to conduct a Google image search for the term “electronic enclosure,” most of the images you’d see would be of electronic enclosures that are small enough to be held in an adult’s hand. You’d see a variety of products, all of which vary in shape and in size, and most of which are used to contain the electronic components of small electronic devices. This is one of the other major uses for electronic enclosures: to enclose small collections of electronic components.

The definition for what constitutes an electronic enclosure is not rigid, and in its broadest interpretation the definition can include any object that encloses, surrounds or protects any kind of electronic device. By this definition, a computer mouse could be considered an electronic enclosure, as could a light bulb, a telephone or the plastic shell of a computer monitor. However, this definition is rarely used, and the word “electronic enclosure” is usually reserved for the description of the actual materials that are used to protect electronic devices. This is as true for large electronic enclosures as it is for small electronic enclosures.

Examples of small electronic enclosures can include components of electronic device rack mounts, collections of circuitry and even very small circuit breakers. Small electronic enclosures can also be important parts of products which are themselves components of larger systems of electronic equipment. In personal computers, for example, cooling fans are very important components, and they are often housed within small, plastic electronic enclosures. There’s no doubt that small electronic enclosures play an important role in industrial, commercial and even consumer products contexts, and their use only will increase as electronic devices continue to become more important to economies around the world.