midibox seq 3 frontpanel and mounting questions

[analogue900]

Hi all,

I'm starting to build a midibox seq3 to control some of my boxes (9090, a home-built 808 clone (without seq), based on MIOS and some synths).

Before diving into construction and design of the box and the frontpanel I wanted to ask (I guess TK, specifically) if there's some good pictures around how people mount the PCB boards (for the buttons and pots) and the LCDs behind the frontpanel. I've been looking at the pics linked at the bottom of the mbseq3 page... TK, how robust is this setup? I noticed quite a few screws on the front panel; does this do the trick/

After having built some diy modules already, the mounting of buttons and LCDs is starting to give me real headaches.

Thanks in advance

Dino

[stryd_one]

Welcome aboard and congratulations on your correct spelling of analogue :)

I don't think this is a question that only TK could answer, or even specific to the seq. If you have a look around the forums for a while you will find lots of different examples of mounting boards, in lots of different projects.

[TK.]

Yes, the screws are doing the trick. The construction itself is stable, I'm still using my original hardware since many years.

But maybe I should highlight, that I mostly got bad marks in handicrafts @ school ;)

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[Futureman]

You could try and panel mount all the buttons and LED's? Then, apart from the LCD's, there would be no screws.

Mike.

[analogue900]

...If you have a look around the forums for a while you will find lots of different examples of mounting boards, in lots of different projects.

LOL!  After having lurked for weeks I was betting I'd get answer like this.  ;D

That's quite OK though.  I am browsing some of the other topics to get more ideas.

Yes, the screws are doing the trick. The construction itself is stable, I'm still using my original hardware since many years.

Thanks for letting me know.

I'm sourcing parts right now.  I found some nice push buttons w/LEDs at Mouser - they look a bit like the old buttons used by Roland (JP-8) and I love those. They're just insanely expensive (>$3/pc). The problem is the buttons should have the same depth as the encoders when both are mounted on the same PCB...

Thanks again for the ideas and hints!

Dino

[analogue900]

You could try and panel mount all the buttons and LED's? Then, apart from the LCD's, there would be no screws.

Mike.

Yeah, thought about that. But I wanna avoid this due to the wiring nightmare. The more I think about this front panel thing, the more I realize that a couple of screws won't really bother me - I'm much more worried about this thing being (mechanically) stable without having to individually wire every encoder, button and LED.

Dino

[julienvoirin]

look :

http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,10954.0.html

absolutly no screw ! and the wiring is rather cool. Use vero to make solder tracks, usually leds share the same GND Bus, buttons too, and encoders too. All is very strong, i used spacers and the vero are soldered together and then linked to the panel by 4 screws (hidden under the handles)

you can reuse the panel .fpd

[Futureman]

I used these for my sequencer... dirt cheap.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/100-Sequential-Circuits-Momentary-Tact-Switches-PB86_W0QQitemZ300185858934QQihZ020QQcategoryZ58166QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1713.m153.l1262

(I don't know why they mention Prophet 5 in the listing, they are wider than p5 buttons)

You can message them for less, but at just over $1 each, they are great.

If you get them, get more than you need, as I had 1 or 2 in my 50 that were not so great.

And the spacing is pretty much perfect for the alignment with my LCD.. maybe a few mm out at each end, but nothing obvious.

Regards

Mike