25mm Separation

In the post before last I suggested using 25mm separation might work better than 20mm or 30mm both of which are not ideal. I finally found time to try this out. Here is a pic of the result:

The top switch now appears to be in a better position. I checked the distance from the top surface of the top PCB to the underside of the enclosure and it is pretty close to 25mm so the space above the top PCB is the same as the space above the bottom one. So far so good. I also checked the clearance above the inductors on the bottom PCB and and there is at least 4mm clearance (the top will be the same). So all round, in mechanical terms, it all seems to fit.

What about front panel layout?  To make this easier to explain let's rotate the module into is normal orientation:

The separation between the two sets of switches is now 25mm plus a board thickness, which is a total of 26.6mm. We already know the spindle of the left hand set of switches is 23.55mm from the left edge of the panel. The right hand set is 26.6mm from the left hand row so the right hand set are 23.55mm plus 26.6mm from the the left of the panel which is 50.15mm. The panel is 70.9mm wide so the right hand set is 70.9 less 50.15 from the right edge of the  panel, which is 20.75mm.

So the left hand switches are 2.8mm further away from their panel edge than the right hand ones. Possibly just enough to notice. I think we could spare 1mm less separation between the boards (24mm instead of 25mm) without compromising the headroom above components. This would reduce the difference to 1.8mm. I am still not sure how this would look so I will create some front panel layouts so I can judge them visually. An alternative would be to make a feature of the 2.8mm offset perhaps by running  vertical line down the left hand side of the front panel or including a long skinny graphic with some words of wisdom or marketing in them???

Fortunately both 24mm and 25mm standoffs are available.