Drill guides

[Anonymous]

Happy New Year. Where do you guys get your drill guides? The builds I see some of you do are so good. My drilling is always a bit wonky and occasionally I have to discard an enclosure because the drilling is so bad. Thanks in advance. Barry, thanks for the swag on my last order.

[Billy]

I use gimp for mine

If it’s on-board pots I use the guide in the build doc for measurements then always print it on paper or card to check it fits before committing to drilling

Basically it’s measure everything several times to make sure it all lines up and your labelling won’t be obscured by pots, washers etc

I usually use paper tape to draw horizontal and vertical centre lines to get it nicely centered and a square rule, digital caliper and centre punch and always drill 3mm pilot holes

The best men to answer this are Cybercow, Wilkie and Playsforfun all of whom have completed complex builds with lots or drilling also Chuck and Dan who’ve recently put up some nice builds

 

[Cybercow]

To be completely honest, I do not use drill guides\templates. While I may build projects with the PCB-attached hardware where they were originally so designed to be, I always use the artwork I create in Photoshop to determine where my drill holes need to be. I do a great deal of measuring, re-measuring, test prints, drawing adjusts and more measuring to be as precise as possible with hardware placement on the enclosure. This often means I have to adjust and re-adjust the created labeling to ensure the knobs, washers & such such don’t interfere with legibility. If I were into multiples of a single project, I’d more inclined to have developed guides (templates). But I do everything by hand.

[Anonymous]

I love the creative layouts, but if you want to fit 5 pots in a 125B, you can’t to better than the nice, tight layout that was designed right into the board. The Black Dog for example has been designed perfectly for using five right angle PCB-mount pots that will line up nicely, but there is no drilling diagram provided.

I found a good workaround – The PDF includes a scale layout, but it doesn’t print at the right size. For the Black Dog at least, I found that if I print it at 74% (“custom size” option in the print dialog), the diagram is correct within less than a millimeter.

[Big O]

I primarily use paint.net for designing my layouts on blank enclosures.  You build the graphics design in layers and then you can de-emphasize layers (uncheck the box), move layers higher or lower in emphasis order, etc.  I usually first decide where the pots and other hardware need to go and then do a mock up for board location and to make sure they will fit in the enclosure properly.  Since the location of the pots and hardware have already been decided and placed in the overall drawing, I de-emphasize the graphics/picture layers to leave the hardware locations and hole sizes remaining for a drill template.  It takes a lot of measuring and arranging to get it done, though.

For example, after measuring and figuring out the spacing for all of the pots, switches and LED, I use the program to make my hardware layout and with the approximate PCB location in the drawing.  From experience, I found that the wall thickness of an enclosure is approximately 1.5mm.  So knowing the external top dimensions, I can draw the internal box dimensions and arrange hardware and boards accordingly, as below.  The pots, jacks and switches have been drawn to scale (you have to know their measurements).  The blocks in the lower part of the drawing are the spaces for the input and output jacks.

Then I subtract the PCB layout image by unchecking that particular layer box and get the drill template.

And of course I utilize the above drawings to arrange the final graphics placement and then deselect the appropriate layers to get a printable cover graphic that corresponds to all of the hardware drill holes.  Of course when planning the layout, one also has to know the knob sizes, etc. to plan graphics placement and spacing.

And you hopefully end up with a final product like below.

 

[Anonymous]

I use most of the same techniques mentioned above. Careful measuring is essential.  I use a metric ruler for greater accuracy along with a digital caliper.  The programs I use include inkscape Visio, DIYLC Publisher as well as several photo programs.

[Chuck]

Guess I’m kind of the dinosaur in this room.  In the absence of a drill guide provided in the build document I will cover the surfaces of the box I intend to drill with painter’s tape, measure and mark the center line.  Depending on the board I sometimes use the board to help align holes for pots/switches.  Once everything has been marked, checked and re-checked I use a step drill bit in a 1940’s vintage Delta drill press to drill the holes (the vintage press makes the pedals sound better, like having all the knobs go to 11).  For boards with a lot of board mounted pots I’ll sometimes bore one vertical row slightly oversized to ease assembly.

Chuck

[Big O]

There are also many templates available on the internet.  A “general” stompbox site that has kits and PCB’s has a pdf file that can be printed out and taped to an enclosure for drilling.

[Playsforfun]

I’m with Cybercow, I’ll design the drill guide according to the graphics I use. And I tend to place led’s anyplace I feel like. I’m lucky enough to have Illustrator and I use that from design to drilling to waterslide labels. I have Inkscape, which is similar, but I haven’t mastered it yet. Gimp should do the same, so I have read.

[Author]

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