Bracket proposal
2002-12-14 by John Loffink
With a number of DIY modules coming up, I have been giving some thought as to how they will be mounted. Many of the DIY designs like CGS are too "jack heavy" to use the Stooge 3 or 4 pot mounting brackets. The solution I'm proposing is a 1 inch wide right angle bracket. You use two of these per panel. Let's say you have a six inch tall CGS panel being mounted to a 1U wide MOTM panel. The bottom bracket would mount to the bottom two jacks, while the top one would mount to the second row of jacks from the top. This gives six inch spacing so the PCB can be mounted. The brackets would have the two jack holes already punched, with a slightly elongated slot in the plane of the two jacks (horizontal). This allows for jack hole offsets in the panels. You would not be able to mount the locking washer behind the jack as this bracket takes up that depth dimension. Estimated cost for these brackets is about $1.00 each. There could be two varieties, one with two jack holes drilled, another with no holes drilled. Both would cost the same. Note that it is difficult to drill yourself as the bend of the bracket will interfere with your drill chuck and drill body. Also, the bracket may be too long from the other side with most drill presses. Presumably the non-drilled version would only be needed 10-20% of the time. The most overall useful size I can determine is a bracket that extends 6 inches behind the panel. For the jacks, which will be flush against this bracket, you need to allow a minimum of 1.25 inches clearance. A CGS PCB is 2 inches wide, but I have a specific instance where two will be mounted behind one another (Dual VC Divider). This makes 5.25 inches the minimum required, and 6 inches is a nice round number. This may also allow EFM boards which I believe are wider. A picture of the proposed bracket is located here: http://www.microtonalsynthesis.com/motm/jackbracket.jpg . If this sounds interesting, please respond to me directly with quantities that you'll need. I'm rolling up this information for Stooge Larry. John Loffink jloffink@...