Enclosure Layout: Precise Measurements or Just Eyeball It?

[thermionix]

Getting warm?

[Ben Lyman]

haha! that's just a dead battery and old recycled snap that I use for "measuring " 

[davent]

To make life easier for yourself, because you've a symmetrical layout, mount all your pots and switches outside the box and do all your wiring and soldering except to the jacks. Have the wires for the jacks soldered to their appropriate board pad, switch lug, pot lug, etc. and now remount the works inside the enclosure and make the connections to the jacks.

Much, much easier to access all the solder lugs for inserting wires and getting to them with your iron.

I usually use a jig drilled to match the enclosure for this step.


dave

[smarkalet1]

This is a trick I saw on DIY Guitar Pedals. Not exactly precise, but comes in very handy. Use putty for a template by pressing the hardware in to it and use the indents as your guides.





Sent from my LGMS330 using Tapatalk

[GiovannyS10]

I have some ready forms on Photoshop with real size that i use for simulate how the things will fit inside my enclosure. Normally i do all there and make a image with my graphics in real size. I print the image in normal paper the fix it on pedal using tape. I do my holes upside the paper, like a template, in the end, all work fine... See the images:



In the end, all fit right 

The good thing in use the forms in real size is you can import the pcb layout inside your project to fit it into the enclosure too. And you will be able to see the correct position of 3pdt, pots, leds...

[bloxstompboxes]

To make life easier for yourself, because you've a symmetrical layout, mount all your pots and switches outside the box and do all your wiring and soldering except to the jacks. Have the wires for the jacks soldered to their appropriate board pad, switch lug, pot lug, etc. and now remount the works inside the enclosure and make the connections to the jacks.

Much, much easier to access all the solder lugs for inserting wires and getting to them with your iron.

I usually use a jig drilled to match the enclosure for this step.


dave

I second davent's suggestion as it helped me keep my neutron wiring in check.

[Ben Lyman]

awesome guys, thanks! and...
Doh! I got so wrapped up in making sure this project would work out that I forgot... I don't even have any J201 FETs! 

In the meantime, it just got a primer coat. Now to try and track down some FETs!

[PRR]

> do addition/subtraction with fractions...

If you MUST do such a thing - - -

Construction Master
http://www.calculated.com/
http://www.calculated.com/products/1/Construction-Master.html#
https://www.calculated.com/prd212/Home-ProjectCalc-8510-Do-It-Yourself-Calculator.html#

Calculates cubic yards per furlong, but also does fractions (even inches and fractions).

I got mine cheap at a yard sale. I have used the fraction feature 2 or 3 times. It sure could be worth $60 to someone doing inches all day long. I see they have a "home" at $20, and an App at $10.

My big use was computing an octagon window's trim in inches and 1/16, to ensure it would cut out of a 8-foot stick. But I also pondered the WWJD? method. Joseph The Carpenter would have wrapped a string around marks around the window and probably had a cut-guide faster than I got a mere number.

But really, the scale you are working at, *get a metric ruler!!* The toothpick-wide marks are "mm", the finger-width marks are "10mm" (but they say "cm"). It really is easy to peep your pot as 17mm, round-up to 18mm, and then half of that is 9mm. Works just as good to divide a 95mm box into three parts. When you hit an odd division like 95/3, you can usually fudge to 93/3 and nobody will notice the odd mm at each end.

And do not forget WWJD? If a big box is 7 palms wide, and you want thirds, cut paper 7 palm wide and fold it in thirds. If you really wanted 3 parts equally spaced, one more fold gives those center marks.

[EBK]

Take it easy, Paul.  Ben apparently started dabbling in metric two days ago (to good results from the pics).  The WWJD system is even more difficult once you start bringing cubits into the mix!