[cannikin]

I'm creating my first Front Panels with FPD for a couple SSL compressors and I have a few of questions.

My Front Panels are from Par-Metal.

Within FPD; which "insert system holes" are the correct for standard Par-Metal front panels?

19" Part front panel (Fischer)
19" Front panel (Fischer)
19" Part front panel (Schroff)
19" Front panel (Schroff)

Second Question:

Within FPD; How do I get the exact distances between holes?  For example - if I want the outer edge of two circles (for Pots) to have a distance between them of 1" (25.4mm). How would I do that?  

Thanks.

[Family Hoof]

Within FPD; How do I get the exact distances between holes?  For example - if I want the outer edge of two circles (for Pots) to have a distance between them of 1" (25.4mm). How would I do that?

I don't know of any tricks so I just do it manually. set your grid to .1 mm, set your origin to be in the vertical center in between the parts, and just make sure they're at +12.4 and -12.4 from the origin.

As far as par-metal system holes, I'm not sure if any of the FPD choices are completely correct. I just take careful measurements of an actual par-metal front panel and modify the FPD shapes as needed. Last time I sent a par-metal front panel to FPD they threw it out and sent me one of theirs with the correct system holes and without any warning, mention, or extra charge.

[radiance]

The system holes for the "schroff" panels are incorrect, at least for the panels I bought from RS in Holland.
It's best to print the panel and put it over the real panel to check the system holes.

The way I work is like this:
First take a piece off paper the size off a frontpanel. I take the real knobs and arrange them till it all seems "in balance". Then draw the outlines from the knobs and meters and switches, just everything that comes on the frontpanel.
Then I just meassure where everything comes and put it into frontpaneldesigner. I basicly use FPD to "fine tune" everything. Make some prints during the process and place your knobs on the print to see how it looks in the real world.

[BR]

Hey David,
I don't know if you are having frontpanelexpress build you a new front panel, but what I did is, I shipped the front panel that came with the par-metal enclosure over to frontpanelexpress and in the fpd i didn't include any of the mounting wholes, since it is already punched.  My file just had the wholes for switches and meter and all the engraving.  It actually saved me some money.  I think I paid about $80 to have my front and rear panels punched and engraved with shipping and everything..

BTW, are you using the Behr....ger meter??? if so, could you share the measurements for the mounting wholes??
thanks
Gil

[cannikin]

Thanks for the info.  I'm not using the B-Meter, sorry can't help you there.

I'm really surprised about not being able to make the exact measurement between holes.. except for counting each grid line (seems a bit impractical).
therefore there has to be a way of doing it besides printing out the panel and eyeing it, 20 times.  

So what other programs do you need?

[craigb]

If you right click on a hole, and pick "move/rotate", the x/y coordinates of the hole are shown in the dialog box. You can then use those to manually calculate distances. They really should add some type of measure or distance command.

[jhaible]

The system holes for the "schroff" panels are incorrect, at least for the panels I bought from RS in Holland.
It's best to print the panel and put it over the real panel to check the system holes.

The way I work is like this:
First take a piece off paper the size off a frontpanel. I take the real knobs and arrange them till it all seems "in balance". Then draw the outlines from the knobs and meters and switches, just everything that comes on the frontpanel.
Then I just meassure where everything comes and put it into frontpaneldesigner. I basicly use FPD to "fine tune" everything. Make some prints during the process and place your knobs on the print to see how it looks in the real world.

For me, similar procedure, but without paper:

I draw the outline of elements like potentiometer knobs in FPD (using a different colour than for the engraving helps), then draw the mouting holes,
and group both together. Then I can move the wole thing around as if it were the real thing. (For re-using it, I can save it as a macro model.)
When the panel design is finished, I ungroup eveything, and delete the outlines.
The version with the outlines gives a good impression what the final box will look like. The version without the outlines is sent to Schaeffer.

Measuring distance? Temporarily set the origin to the first element, and move the cursor to the second element. Easy.

JH.

[Michael Krusch]

I'm using CorelDraw with some selfmade elements to have a more real view while designing a frontpanel.

[cannikin]

I contacted the FPD tech support and requested a feature for the future.
Here is how tech support suggests you calculate the distance between objects:

"Hello David,

Actually there is no way to measure a distance between two points. So thank you for your feature request in your second mail. I think some kind of measure function would be very useful. I will put it on the "suggested improvements" list. Unfortunately I can't promise you when it will be implemented.

But I think I can help you with this particular problem. It is possible to place a hole on a exact position. Just select the function to insert the hole and then press the 'm'-key. You get a dialog where you can enter the exact position of the hole. When you place the second hole you could give a relative distance to the previous point. Because you have the distance of the outer edges you have to subtract the diameter of the holes to get the distance of the centers.

Best regards
Kai

--
Dipl.-Phys. Kai Schaeffer      Schaeffer AG Hohentwiehlsteig 6a            Tel. +49-30-8058695-25
14163 Berlin                   FAX: +49-30-8058695-33
http://www.schaeffer-ag.de "

[Sender]

I contacted the FPD tech support and requested a feature for the future.
Here is how tech support suggests you calculate the distance between objects:

"Hello David,

Actually there is no way to measure a distance between two points. So thank you for your feature request in your second mail. I think some kind of measure function would be very useful. I will put it on the "suggested improvements" list. Unfortunately I can't promise you when it will be implemented.

But I think I can help you with this particular problem. It is possible to place a hole on a exact position. Just select the function to insert the hole and then press the 'm'-key. You get a dialog where you can enter the exact position of the hole. When you place the second hole you could give a relative distance to the previous point. Because you have the distance of the outer edges you have to subtract the diameter of the holes to get the distance of the centers.

Best regards
Kai

--
Dipl.-Phys. Kai Schaeffer      Schaeffer AG Hohentwiehlsteig 6a            Tel. +49-30-8058695-25
14163 Berlin                   FAX: +49-30-8058695-33
http://www.schaeffer-ag.de "

You need to subtract the RADIUS of the hole, not the diameter. If you subtracted the diameter that would give you the inside to inside measurement. To get center to center measure the outside distance then subtract the radius (1/2 of the diameter).

[q2audio]

When I need to put holes a certain distance apart, I usually temporarily make a new panel, place the first hole at 0,0, place the next hole at the correct X,Y position and then group them. Then, I copy the group to the original panel. In FPD, when you copy from one panel and paste into another panel of the same dimensions, the past goes to the exact coordinates as the original. Handy.

As for measuring distance between two holes on some existing piece. It's easy to measure from outside edge to outside edge, then subtract the diameter of ONE hole. This gives the CTC distance between holes.

To find the distance between two holes while in FPD, again I sometimes make a new temporary panel, copy the group to the new panel (without disturbing it on the original panel), set group properties to use one hole as the reference point of the group. Move the group to 0,0. Then, you can again change the group properties to make the OTHER hole the reference point. Now, when you choose "move/rotate" the coordinates of the new group reference point will give you the distance between holes. It's kind of a process, but it works. It seems that almost everything in FPD is a "workaround". But it is pretty powerful software for FREE! I find that it is useful for making hole patterns for transfer to metal as well. Print in wiremode and print the reference points. Tape the printout to your workpiece and centerpunch the holes.

I would like to see them add some sort of "lock down" feature. I assume a real CAD program has a feature like this, but I don't know what it would be called. I have accidentally moved stuff just slightly and didn't notice it. Ouch.

[Sender]

As for measuring distance between two holes on some existing piece. It's easy to measure from outside edge to outside edge, then subtract the diameter of ONE hole. This gives the CTC distance between holes.

Very true. I should have clarified what I wrote. I meant to subtract the radius of each hole (or the diameter of one, same difference).

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