Making panels

Thought I’d write up something about my process for making front panels. Or rather for designing them — the actual making is someone else’s job. I’ve made my own in the past, drilling sheet aluminum and then affixing a paper overlay with a transparent plastic layer. But all the ones I’ve done in the past […]

Hole footprints

I’ve had 983 front panel designs fabbed in PCB material, FR4 (OK, 983 may be an exaggeration). Never a problem until my order in November when JLCPCB’s reviewer emailed: That was startling. The indicated holes are for 1/4″ jacks and are 10 mm diameter. They’d done plated through jack holes on every panel before this. […]

OBG VCF TLA OMG (part 2)

I got the VCF boards from PCBWay: Even though I ordered them two days earlier, I have not received the boards from JLCPCB: Sigh. Not that those boards matter, really; I don’t intend to use them. But then there are the panels also ordered from JLCPCB, shipped but at last report (five days ago) still […]

OBG VCF TLA OMG (part 1)

Having learned something about KiCad, I started thinking about putting it to use. I’ve got thoughts of a couple of modules I’d kind of like, both of which I’d have to breadboard and debug before finalizing the PCBs and building them. So I thought, meanwhile, maybe I should work on a module using an existing […]