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Interfacing swappable Control Panels..

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mahuti:
Most terminal strips have recessed screwheads. They won't work for what I'm trying to do. Maybe someone could think of a good way to use them.

About the metal. Copper, stainless steel, regular steel all work. Anything that conducts electricity, anything magnetic for sure. Copper & steel would probably be the best materials.

One suggestion I would make. Do not attach the screws & switches to the cabinet & control panel directly. Get 2 blocks of wood. Premeasure precisely. Predrill the holes. Prewire both of them. Attach those blocks to the CP & cabinet. If you mess up you can always redo the boards. You can also assure yourself that you have everything lined up before you install. Now that I have thought about it, I am going to go back and do that so I can get everything a little more accurate. I have thought about it a while, and I am going to rework this so that the leafs do not have any weight on them, I'm going to mount them vertically, and mount the screws vertically (more like Nannuu's original drawing.) I didn't think I could do it before with my cabinet design, but after thinking about it, I think I can make it work (and better)

mahuti:
One more thing.

Put 2 screws in  the leafs, to keep them from twisting & cross contacting.

Put some distance between the 5 volt & other contacts (more than an inch for saftety's sake.

Also, I don't think tension is that big of an issue. BENDING is an issue. You don't need hardly any tension to the connection. You need to make sure that the leaf does not bend away... What i've found is that flexibility is good & tension is bad. I would rather allow the leafs to lightly lay across the contacts, than worry about them incorrectly bending away.

GGKoul:
Does the leaf have to bend??

As I bought some very small 90 degree steel furniture brackets and these will not flex.  

And I was just going to screw them into the back of my panel and have the screw touch the top of the bracket.  

Anyone see a problem with this?

-GGKoul


 

GamingGreg:
Yes, the leaf should bend and "give" a little in order to maintain good contact and not break the circuit.  

I'm also interested in seeing some pics of Searcher7's solution.  I found his earlier post here, but I still can't fully picture this in my head.  He said he has 96  1/4" contacts.  This would allow for more buttons, but the CP must need some sort of guide so that things aren't off by too much.

mahuti:
If you use something that has 100% resistance, you will have to have a 100% steady connection. You will have to have a very accurate placing of screwheads & you will have to tinker with the height of each screwhead. If your board gets banged to hard it's possible that you might lose connection momentarily.

I went with something with very little give initially, and it did not work well. The idea is to have the contact be as consistent as possible... that's why Palm cradles, jamma harnesses, battery boxes, molex pins all have some type of flexibility in the female connections. A leaf type operation allows you to be a little less thorough in your design & construction, allows for board warp, & vibration very well without losing contact. YMMV, but I think you will run into the same problem I had... there has to be some wiggle room, or the connections will not work.

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