Project Boards & Other Sundry Matters

[DougLowe]

Here are three questions related to assembling projects:

1. What's the best material to use for the project board? I've always just cut a piece of nice plywood, sanded it, painted it black, and screwed everything down on it, using standoffs of course. It looks OK but is by no means professional. Cheap enough though. Is there a better way to go? Say for a typical project that includes a 3 or 4 efx-tek boards?

2. What about getting power to multiple efx-tek boards? In the past, I've used a separate wallwart for each powered board. It would be great it there were an easy way to distribute power amongst the boards from a single source, but they all seem to take power only via the 2.1mm connector. The AP-8 does appear to have solder pads that look like you could solder power leads to. And the Prop-1 routes power to the V+ terminals if the power switch is in position 2. Is it possible to power an AP-8 from a Prop-1 by soldering leads to these pads and connecting them to the V+ and V- terminals on the Prop-1?

3. What methods have people used to wire up external 120VAC devices from an RC-4 -- eg, devices you simply want to plug in? I've used standard electrical boxes & outlets, but they're cumbersome. I've also used cheap power strips & simply cut the cord & connected to the appropriate terminals on the board.

Thanks for your input!

--Doug

[JonnyMac]

1. Laser-cut panels are really nice, and not too expensive you you buy more than one at a time.  We've ordered panels from Pololu.com on two occasions and they've worked well.  With drawings for Pololu you use black lines for cuts, red lines for scores -- using this we made small panels that included our logo.

2. Yes, you can power the AP-8 (or any other EFX-TEK board) by connecting to the V+ and GND terminals; remember that the external device will only be on when the controller power switch is in position #2.

[DougLowe]

I think you showed me a board you had cut & etched at HauntX -- it looked really good! Was it 1/8" acrylic?

[JonnyMac]

Yes, indeed; acrylic seems to be the choice material for laser cutting.  We've hand cut 1/4 ABS which is a nice material too, but apparently it's not suitable for laser cutting as it creates a lot of nasty fumes under that process.

[DougLowe]

I might try Plexiglass -- it's readily available, cheap, and (I think) is basically transparent acrylic.