I'm going to have a go at using a faceplate for an upcoming build and wondered what thickness of black fr4 you chaps usually use for the task?
just the regular one you'd use for pcbs. No idea how thick that actually is. Note that faceplates generally don't work with 9mm pots. You'd need to drill bigger holes for the pots and hold the faceplate in place in a different manner
Cheers Felix I was ordering some lexan last night to try making a lightplate and will give it a go for the faceplate as well. Oh and I'm using 16mm pots.
Quote from: Adam_MD on December 03, 2017, 09:36:45 PM
Cheers Felix I was ordering some lexan last night to try making a lightplate and will give it a go for the faceplate as well. Oh and I'm using 16mm pots.
If ordering lexan, I would recommend 1/16" or 1.5mm thick plate. Any thicker and a lot of the hardware doesn't fit.
Well that might suck the thinnest I could order was 2mm. Oh well it won't be a big problem I'll just use it for light plates instead.
If you're ordering the PCB for the face plate from ABCFAB then order .030 with 1/2 oz copper. 1 oz copper will take a little bit longer to etch but would still work. stay away from 2 oz unless you are milling the PCB.
Quote from: Adam_MD on December 03, 2017, 11:28:10 PM
Well that might suck the thinnest I could order was 2mm. Oh well it won't be a big problem I'll just use it for light plates instead.
2mm might still be OK, but I'm not sure. 3mm is too thick, though.
Seconded on the 1/2oz copper, if possible. It etches wicked fast and is plenty good for faceplates.
As pickdropper says, 3mm is definitely too thick. I've tried that and ended up having to countersink all the holes for the pots, so that I could get enough thread showing.
You could buy longer screws too
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I would avoid the regular PCB-sized thickness.
They (ABCfab) have much thinner PCB material that works great for faceplates. Been using it for quite a while now. It typically comes in regular "puke" colors but, it also comes in BLACK! 8)