Main housing

There are multiple options for creating a housing for an electronics project.  I don't have interest in learning a decent program like Fusion360 for creating laser cut drawings.  The one-time cost of a standard box doesn't weigh up against all the hours invested in learning a new tool.  So I'll settle for a standard housing.  The OKW P/4.9-AL (drawing) might be a good choice:

• cheap (around €10)
• dimensions are ok (215 x 130 x 77mm).  Wide enough, so that it doesn't easily fall over.
• front panel can be replaced by a PCB, or laser cut panel.
  • The front panel is a thin aluminium sheet.  I milled the needed slots in it using a Dremel multifunctional rotary tool, but the result isn't very clean.
  • The original front panel is too flexible now with all the cutouts.

To be fair, it would have been better if the housing was 10mm higher and 10mm narrower.  That would have allowed for a nicer placement of the alarm LCD.

Material

Because of the sunrise simulation, the housing, or a least a major part of it must be translucent or transparent.  Translucent materials are preferred as the diffusion of the light will make the housing light up as a whole.  It's an option to use transparent materials for the housing and stick a translucent film onto it.

• Acrylic : can be laser cut

Box design

Online file generators for laser cutting

• T-slot Box
  
  • Easy
• Lattice Hinges
  • Looks nicer, but will need some experimenting

Manufacturers

• Seeedstudio laser cutting
• Ponoko : online laser cutting
• Buda::lab : makerspace
  
• Elecrow

Antenna enclosure

There's a chance that the electronics of the generate too much EM-noise, so that the antenna and receiver need to be placed in a separate housing.

A suitable housing is the Hammond 1593NBK (Farnell €2.75).

If you want to build a really cheap enclosure for your antenna with hot glue and some scrap piping, have a look here.

Further reading

Adafruit : Laser cut enclosure design

Front panel

This still leaves options for the front panel.  An aluminium front panel is nice, but expensive (Front Panel Designer).  An alternative would be to create the front panel instead as a (non functional) PCB.

Open source CAM tools

https://github.com/geobruce/FabLab/blob/master/CAM-tools-CNC.md