Where to buy a shinny metal box?

Sep 30, 2010 15 Replies

I want to put together an ultraviolet air cleaner. Commercial ones are either too expensive, or too small.



I've located all the parts (the lamp and the ballast) except the case. Any idea where to buy a steel box that's 4 feet long by 1 to 2 foot square? It should be unpainted. Shinny (polished) interior is even better.



Pieces of heating/air handler ductwork screwed together.

Contact cement sheet aluminum to plywood, cut the plywood to size and screw the parts together into a box.

R

I go to sheet metal shops to have parts custom made all the time. Check your local Yellow Pages for sheet metal shops. A shop can make a stainless steel reflector for your housing.

TDD

Um, I have it both on paper and Interweb. Sometimes it's quicker to pickup the ballast and flip through the pages rather than waiting for the computer to boot up. When I'm not using a computer, I turn it off. The people who have problems with computers are usually those who leave them running constantly. I should know, I have to go fix some today.

TDD

Every year, 13.3 times the tonnage of the Titanic, completely loaded with coal is put into landfills in the form of old phone books. It was time for them to move off into history. The yellow pages is in a shambles, rates are miraculously down, and the only ones that seem to really be making any money are books for small towns, where they are actually still needed and used.

Steve

I fix them on a regular basis too - but my experoience is it's the ones that are turnrd off and on daily (or oftener) that fail first.

YMMV

At a hockey supply store, perhaps?

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That was true of the older computers but not so much with the newer machines. The biggest problem I find with computers, is dirt, dust bunnies and dust elephants blocking cooling air to the CPU and power supply. I like thin clients that have no moving parts for workstations that are to be left on. The expensive enterprise level parts can be confined to a server in a controlled environment. Hard drives designed for servers can take the pounding of 24/7 operation. Most of the boxes I see in business are using consumer grade hard drives that are not designed to run 24/7. A little more money to upgrade hardware and the addition of extra cooling fans and the threat of death if they put the computer on the damn floor or pile papers and notebooks all around the poor abused machine, could extend its life and prevent data loss. I can't seem to convince a lot of owners to have the dirt cleaned out of their computers two to four times a year, they wait until it quits.

TDD

Duh, "shiny", I didn't even catch that one. 8-)

TDD

1/2" foil faced foam insulation board and some tape. Would work if there is no stress on the 'box'.

Harry K

That's the ticket. If there were some stress he could just bump it up to 1" or 2" foam board. It's by far the easiest solution.

R

Go to a local hvac duct fabricator. Just give them your dimensions and tell them you want a cube, uninsulated. Probably be $60 or so. Forget about shiney, that would take stainless steel and you don't want to pay that price. They will provide the openings in the end if you tell them what sizes you want or you can cut them yourself. If you are putting this in your hvac return then pickup a couple collars.

To my understanding, to "shinny" is to climb. "The boy quickly shinnied up the old tree in the back yard". I couldn't figure out why was someone climbing a metal box.

To make it more shiny, of course.

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