Inside the CODI Build
- Dan Welch
- Jun 1
- 4 min read
This is the first part in a series that details the aspects of the CODI Power Controls product line.
By Dan Welch
CODI Goes Beyond the Standard
When we design CODI Power Controls products, we are motivated to make people feel and see the quality of the build immediately. We love hearing customers say "this is really nice" with genuine enthusiasm when they open one of our enclosures. So in this post, we are opening the door on the CODI Generator Docking Station to highlight some of the details that make our products among the highest quality low-voltage enclosures on the market today.
It starts with the CODI manufacturing philosophy that we have developed over our three decades in food and beverage automation: exceed expectations with robust, US-manufactured equipment built by a team of committed professionals. We are family-owned, vertically integrated, and building exceptional products is our reputation.
In the regulated space of low voltage switchboards, this means we need to not only know and abide by the UL standards, but also know where to go beyond them. We have to understand where a design is most likely to flex, wear, leak, or fail, and then engineer past those weak points.
See the Door
The first thing you see on a CODI Generator Docking Station is the louvered front door. It creates a clean, professional look. Many products in this category use a "mailbox" shroud instead of a louvered door. One reason is that louvers are hard to make well. Forming a louver into sheet metal can stretch and distort the panel. To do it properly it requires expensive dies, precision tooling, and real manufacturing acumen.
But louvers also create a design challenge: how do you add airflow without giving up stiffness in the door? CODI solves that challenge by engineering rigidity into the backside of the door. Anywhere we need to bolt bracing or hardware to the inside of the door, we use a PEM stud hydraulically pressed into the sheet metal. No visible hardware shows up on the front of the door. The interior uses an interlocking bolt-together design. As we tighten the frame during assembly, the cross members self-center and align, and the tabs pull into the metal to create a more rigid structure than a typical support frame. The result is a louvered door with strong structural rigidity, limited wobble or deflection, and full ventilation.
The louvered design also gives us a clean way to manage ventilation, filtration, and weather protection without adding a bulky external shroud. Behind each louver is an easily removable and washable mesh filter that keeps dust and debris out of the unit. Door perforations are minimized throughout to lower the chance of water intrusion, and the door overlaps and formed edges are designed so water sheds off rather than pooling. Hems and similar techniques keep all welding hidden, which keeps the front face clean.
Open the Door
Grab the handle of a CODI Generator Docking Station and you feel the robustness of the build. Open the door, and you know it was made by people who care about quality.
The lockable, oversized handle is the first thing an operator will touch. Its large size is easy to operate with a gloved hand. The UL pull test only requires a 200-pound pull, and CODI exceeded that standard by over 25%.
The hinge is integrated directly into the door design rather than bolted onto the outside. It takes more manufacturing work to form the door this way, but the result is a cleaner look and a stronger pivot point that helps the door exceed UL pull test requirements.
We build the door and the entire enclosure with 12-gauge steel, a heavier gauge than is standard for this product, because it provides superior durability. And because CODI works in stainless steel every day through our automation division, building an enclosure in stainless is an easy and surprisingly cost-effective option, especially for 3R applications. Our standard units are powder coated in ANSI 49 or ANSI 61 grey, but we offer customized colors as requested.
Why the Door Matters
Why spend a whole post on a door? Because the door is what every contractor, electrician, and operator touches first. It is the most honest preview of what is inside. Everything we have described, the 12-gauge steel, the PEM studs, the interlocking frame, the hinge, the louvered front, is the same philosophy applied to every bracket, bus bar, and control panel inside. We will get into those attributes in upcoming posts. For now, we want anyone who opens the door of a CODI Power Controls product to see the quality and say, "This is the kind of equipment we should be buying."
About CODI Power Controls
CODI Power Controls is a vertically integrated manufacturer of Generator Docking Stations, Switchboards, and other low-voltage industrial equipment. We draw on over 30 years of manufacturing excellence building automation machinery to produce quality UL 891 Switchboards. Made in Colorado. Built for Generations. Veteran-owned. codipc.com
About Dan Welch
Dan Welch is a Growth & Marketing Strategist at CODI. He worked over two decades as a sales and marketing executive at a Fortune 500 company before pivoting to the craft beverage equipment industry in 2018, where he held senior sales and general management roles. He joined the CODI team in 2025 and is based in Colorado.
