What price mechanical standards?

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ruffrecords

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Joined
Nov 10, 2006
Messages
16,152
Location
Norfolk - UK
I use Eurorack enclosures a lot and design my own front panels, modules, PCBs and backplanes that fit into them. Finding the right dimensional positions of mounting holes for panels and PCBs has always been a pain. Manufacturers of Eurorack components post snippets of info which I have gathered together over the years. Despite all this accumulated info, I still have problems getting modules to smoothly slide into Eurorack enclosures and mate cleanly with my backplane PCBs. What I need is a definitive document defining all the mechanical distances and tolerances. There is such a document - it is IEC 60297-3-101:2004. I have toyed with the idea of buying it but British Standards wants an outrageous £182 for a pdf copy of its 24 pages.

So I have been trawling the internet trying to find a cheaper alternative. Each country seems to sell the the standard in their own language and also in English. I found I could buy it from Switzerland for about£80 and about £60 from Denmark. Then, by chance, I hit upon Estonia where I was able to buy the pdf for a mere £10 which to me is perfectly reasonable.

I am astounded by the range of prices that standards bodies charge. If governments want products to meet standards then the details of those standards really ought to be free or at least easily affordable. In the meantime I will be going to Estonia for mine.

Cheers

Ian
 
Perhaps it cost them money to prepare and support.

I paid hundreds of dollars for the UL standard when I designed my outlet tester and that was just the appetizer. I decided I didn't want to spend even more to pursue.

JR
 
Not really an answer, but do you really need that standard?

You mean Eorocard, right?

IIRC the backplane distance was never standardized, as there were several competing connection standards, most of them catering to digital. Dieter Döpfers Eurorack sort of goes around that by using buscables (mostly for power, and really not appropriate, but wonderfully easy to improvise).

Sorry to be unhelpful, but it sounds as if you’re doing great, why not stick to one brand?

Interestingly the equivalent DIN specs cost about the same. I think this an evil business model like the scientific publication services are and serves some lobby interests at best.

(Btw i do someting similar in that i get the sizes from the websites of doepfer and gie-tec)
 
I don't know that's its some evil business model, but the reality of no free lunch... It makes sense to have public funded standards for things like food safety, but industry standards need to be funded by industry participants. Paying for copies of those standards is one obvious way they receive funding to support the effort.

This is just the natural order and small fish (companies) do not get much influence. Vague standards evolve over time by market acceptance or not.

I recall in the early days of midi where there was no clear industry standard, and one or two large companies just stuck a fork in it, and started building to a defacto standard.

JR
 
Midi is a very good example. I see your point. (Midi still has two diverging standards for pitches and the hard-birthed midi 2.0 is more a patchwork than a standard. Still you need to buy into it to be able to influence it).
 
efluon said:
Not really an answer, but do you really need that standard?

You mean Eorocard, right?

IIRC the backplane distance was never standardized, as there were several competing connection standards, most of them catering to digital.

Eurocard is a subset of the specification. The size of the cards is the easy bit. The backplane distance is standardised in the spec I now have a copy of, as are the key dimensions of the connectors that meet the standard. The hard bit is making sure  the front panel fits properly into the front of the rack and at the same time the PCB connector mates properly with the motherboard connector
Interestingly the equivalent DIN specs cost about the same. I think this an evil business model like the scientific publication services are and serves some lobby interests at best.
The DIN standards for the basis of the IEC ones. The IEC spec embodies several separate DIN ones.
(Btw i do someting similar in that i get the sizes from the websites of doepfer and gie-tec)
Yes, I got some pf the info there also.

Cheers

Ian
 
ruffrecords said:
I use Eurorack enclosures a lot and design my own front panels, modules, PCBs and backplanes that fit into them. Finding the right dimensional positions of mounting holes for panels and PCBs has always been a pain. Manufacturers of Eurorack components post snippets of info which I have gathered together over the years. Despite all this accumulated info, I still have problems getting modules to smoothly slide into Eurorack enclosures and mate cleanly with my backplane PCBs. What I need is a definitive document defining all the mechanical distances and tolerances. There is such a document - it is IEC 60297-3-101:2004. I have toyed with the idea of buying it but British Standards wants an outrageous £182 for a pdf copy of its 24 pages.

So I have been trawling the internet trying to find a cheaper alternative. Each country seems to sell the the standard in their own language and also in English. I found I could buy it from Switzerland for about£80 and about £60 from Denmark. Then, by chance, I hit upon Estonia where I was able to buy the pdf for a mere £10 which to me is perfectly reasonable.

I am astounded by the range of prices that standards bodies charge. If governments want products to meet standards then the details of those standards really ought to be free or at least easily affordable. In the meantime I will be going to Estonia for mine.

Cheers

Ian
I am currently working on a project that uses a Eurorack. So far, I have managed to make it, with the help of the attached documentation and an Eagle device (component). You probably couldn't use directly the Eagle part, because it's an old version, but if you want I can convert it to dxf.
EDIT: the pdf document is too big (4.67 MB). PM me a suitable e-mail address.
I have several other documents that also have contributed snippets of info.
 
ruffrecords said:
The hard bit is making sure  the front panel fits properly into the front of the rack and at the same time the PCB connector mates properly with the motherboard connectorThe DIN standards for the basis of the IEC ones.
This is where the Eagle part is interesting. I can make a pdf of it.
 
I get the impression that Eurorack is as much a 'standard' as RS-232. I also agree with your general statement about paying for access to standards. It's the same here in Australia and access to them is very expensive if you're not a large organisation. You often get free access to them as a student through the libraries, do you know any students?
 

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