Filastruder 2.1 Enclosure review

As soon as I saw the new acrylic Filastruder enclosure, I knew I wanted one. Even though my Filastruder worked perfectly and had a certain rugged appeal with it's unfinished wood planks and slightly crooked assembly, something new and shiny caught my eye. Not to mention that at less than $15, it was that rare combination of sexy and cheap. Since my Filastruder was a version 1.6, certain upgrades were also required/desired to make it work with the version 2+ parts but I will discuss that in another post. This post is reserved for my review of the acrylic enclosure.
1. Packaging: Since I also purchased some additional items, my enclosure was inside of a box with appropriate packing materials. The actual enclosure comes contained within a sealed plastic envelope. Shown here - unsealed.

Here are the items contained within the envelope.

Important safety note: To ensure sanity, don't blindly rip into package and pull everything out. There are some parts (spacers) contained within the larger hole cutouts and they will immediately attempt to run to every corner of your workshop if you set them free from any height more than a few inches above your work surface. Gently slide everything out of the package, preferably over a large flat work area.

2. Inspection: All laser cut parts were neat with no cracks or rough edges and still coated on both sides with protective paper. After you are ready to install, remove the  protective coating. Trying to remove after installation is difficult, if not impossible.

3. Installation is straightforward, pretty much your only option for incorrect assembly would be swapping sides so the logo is on the inside or trying to mount the upper fan piece backwards. Notice that that piece has tabs that aren't equally spaced from the edges. The shorter width is mounted towards the barrel.  My only difficulty with installation came with not fully tightening the flange mounting bolts prior to assembling the case, which required disassembly. Only other minor issue was that the upper right (while looking at logo) hole is a very tight clearance with the aluminum frame requiring some finesse to get the mounting bolt completely through to the other side. This may be due to my installation being somewhat custom and may not be a factor with version 2 or higher. I was using 10-24 threaded rod with printed acorn nuts to secure the enclosure vice 5mm bolts.

4. Overall impression: This baby is sharp looking. Well made and easy to put together. Gives a more professional look to an already great product. I use a 2L plastic bottle as my hopper and it just clears the case when mounted on the side. Using the white bracket with the ear cut off securely locks the PID controller into the face of the enclosure. Switches hold fine in the cover, although due to the thickness of the acrylic, mine didn't snap lock, more like a press fit.

5. Areas for improvement: a)The laser etching for the Main and Motor switches is a very thin line. I haven't figured out what I am going to use to try to color the grooves white so they show up better like the Filastruder name and logo. They are almost invisible except for when looking at them straight on. b) The stall protection board mount seems like a good solution except that you can't easily see the board from either a vertical or horizontal mount. I think that the best location would be on the same side as the switches. If the Filastruder name were etched right above the PID controller and switches with the logo between the 2 upper mounting holes, that would leave a nice big area above the logo to mount the board. My photos below show my solution, basically I just printed an "L" bracket to move the board to the side where I wanted it. The downside is that is covers some of that sweet etching.

Final assembly

Vertically mounted

Hopper clearance

Board mounting bracket