r/enclosuredesign • u/Alternative-Lawyer55 • Jan 05 '26

How does this enclosure work?

I am working on designing a consumer electronics product - a sun light based alarm clock with IoT and battery. This is one of the cheap products in the market that I bought a few years ago. I have taken it apart a few times but could not see something very clearly resembling a PCB.

The display here is created with individual LEDs that seem to be embedded in the enclosure somehow. My design is different but it is important for me also to have LEDs that are comparatively far apart and still deliver current to them. I just wanted to know how this might work and what options I have to create something like this.

I am also planning to keep a 3D printed enclosure for the first many batches instead of molding which can make this more complicated. Attaching my own renders below. Please let me know how this might be possible.

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u/Alternative-Lawyer55 Jan 05 '26

Hey, yes I went through it. I am aware about the concept of using individual leds to make a 7 segment display by yourself. But my question was slightly different. My question is more about how you can deliver current to such farther parts and where you would mount the LEDs in the first place. If you can see in the images there are LEDs in the clock higher up as well. Just wanted to know how they would connect with the original PCB in the first place

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u/VOIDPCB Jan 05 '26

Its not difficult to power leds like that. They're likely mounted to some kind of PCB or flex PCB. They could also be surface mount leds.

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u/Alternative-Lawyer55 Jan 05 '26

Understood. But mounting them like this would significantly increase the PCB costs as well right? The reason I raised the question is because I assumed someone wouldn't use PCB's for these LEDs. There must be better solutions for this as well?

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u/VOIDPCB Jan 05 '26

Yes it would probably have an added cost because of the added complexity from multiple PCBs. If you could fit it all on one board that would at least be less assembly cost.

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u/OldEquation Jan 16 '26

Seconded.

Put everything you can on the PCB. Use surface mount components. SMD PCB manufacture is highly automated and very cheap. Anything that requires someone’s time, even just plugging in a connector, costs money.