Project Box

 

I bought a metal project box because I knew I would need to drill/cut holes into it for what I need.  What I did was create a paper template from the circuit board I wanted to mount into the box.  I did this by taping it to the circuit board and then marking the mounting holes on the paper in pen.  I took the template off of the circuit board and transferred it to the back of the case.  I used a punch to mark where the holes would need to be drilled.
ProTip: Make sure to tape the corners down before you hit the project box with your punch so everything stays properly aligned.
Here you can see the box with the template:
IMG_20160507_210242650 (Custom)

After I drilled the holes, I used the screws to check and see if the heads were going to stick out and they sure did.  I bough philips machine screws with a flat mounting head type so I wanted these to be flush with the case as to avoid accidentally scratching things.  In order to make this work, I used a counter sink.  You can see what the holes look like after I counter sunk them:
IMG_20160507_210220289 (Custom)

After the holes were counter sunk, I screwed the nuts down to permanently mount the screws and test fit the PCB.  Next I checked for space/fit for the RJ45 adapter with the PCB mocked up in place.  In order to check the fit, I first cut the backplane bracket down to size:
NIC bracket cut