Neat front panels

[ajb]

A lot of good tips in this thread so far, just a couple of others:

- A cheap set of needle files plus a couple of larger files will help you fine tune holes of arbitrary shape.  For long straight edges, use the largest file that will fit to help get a straight edge.
- For round holes in plastic or thin sheet metal, step drills are the way to go.  They won't grab and twist the material like a normal twist drill will.
- A bit of bondo and hammered-finish spray paint will hide a lot of sins.

[German_EE]

Damn, I should have remembered the size thing. I get most of my printing done at the local copy shop and they are now used to me asking for pdf jobs to be printed at 102%. When size is critical there is no harm in printing a scale in either cm or inches along one edge of the job then checking it with a ruler.

[SeanB]

Be aware with some printers they might have different scaling in the X and Y direction ( Don't ask why but trust me this is very common especially on some laser and inkjet printers) so if you print out a scale do the first in both X and Y directions and then measure. You might have to do a stretch of the image in one direction or the other to get it right.

Also remember resolution of the printer. 1200DPI lasers are not 1200DPI really, they are 600DPI engines with fancy dithering to make it appear like that, but this will cause problems with fine details. Great for halftone pictures, but not if you are into an accurate print measurement. Use 300DPI instead.

Inkjets are particularly bad at times, you get very different horizontal and vertical resolutions. Solution is use the worst, though most can do 120DPI fine.

To fix this distortion you need either Photoshop ( sledgehammer to crack a peanut) or GIMP which can do this for free. Having used both Gimp does win out on cost, unless you can justify the Adobe annual fee for something else.

[D. Head]

A few years ago I made a project and designed a front panel and had it made at https://www.schaeffer-ag.de, it took me hours to design the thing mainly because i had no reference point, where the cut-outs need to go compared to the PCB. It was more trail & error.
So I ordered 1 panel, with the cut-outs a little bit too small, then adjusted it with a file, changede the design an tried again. That's a very expensive hobby.

This was for the DCI-PLC from Elektor 2001.

[D. Head]

some more photo's

[Buriedcode]

I too have struggled with front panels, as well as finding 'decent' enclosures for projects that didn't always require nagging acquaintances to use their CNC machines >.<

I believe mike from 'mikeselectricstuff' (on this forum) had the great idea of using PCB material - the manufacturer can do the milling/cut outs of almost any shape, you have silkscreen printing, and often a choice of colours of the soldermask.  Then there's the small added bonus of using groundplane for screening/grounding.

For plain aluminium panels I have used https://www.frontpanelexpress.com/

For >10 it worked out quite cheap and the german guy on the phone was very helpful.  I got a bunch of end panels sized for hammond enclosures made up.

For my own projects that only I use, 'packetbob's idea of printing off something and laminating it, then laminating.  A bit of 3M photomount adhesive and it works.  Also very handy for making prototboard/stripboard boards look half decent. (always best to print the pinout of every connector..). 

Like everything its a question of time, money and effort - you can save on one of those.

[sca]

"measure once cut twice"

Measure once, cut twice, weld, grind, repeat.

sca

[VK5RC]

Measure once cut twice, curse, weld, grind, repeat.  HiHi
The real advantage of the internet is the anonymity; avoiding the personal embarrassment of having to go back to the shop for another ……….. that you have just stuffed up and explain why you need another in such short space of time!