[TowerTalk] custom aluminum panels

[Jim Lux]

A great resource when you need an aluminum panel with holes, notches, 
lettering, etc. at a reasonable price is a company called Front Panel Express.

http://www.frontpanelexpress.com/

you download their software, design up your panel and send the order 
off electronically. They've got libraries with all manner of weird 
cutouts: D holes for things like BNC connectors, Sub D multipin 
connectors.  And, they do holes of all shapes and sizes (including 
tapped), pocket milling, engraved legends, etc.  Essentially anything 
a good NC mill can do to a piece of flat aluminum.

You can also get it finished in a variety of passivations, or paint, etc.

Delivery time is usually less than a week (depending on how much you 
want to pay).

It's remarkably cheap (standard 19" rack panels 4 U high with a bunch 
of connectors run around $50, and most of the cost is the aluminum.. 
tapped holes are something like 0.38 each and so forth) and I daresay 
you'd have a very hard time duplicating their product at home, unless 
you have a good NC mill and a lot of programming time.

We use them at work for things like breadboarding microwave circuits 
(you know, you get all those little modules from Minicircuits and 
need to screw them down to something).  I've made waveguide pass 
through panels (the WG opening and the 4 tapped holes for the flange 
bolts) to mount into the side of, strangely enough, a NEMA 4 Hoffman box.

Truly an amazing service.

The software and machinery is made by a German company, and 
occasionally, the software displays an error message in German, but 
you can figure it out, and go on.  The place you send your order to 
and which does the work is in Washington state.


No excuse for ugly connector panels where the bulkhead feed throughs 
keep spinning when you tighten the connector!

Jim, W6RMK