So the last days I was doing the plates. I have to admit that there was a lot I wasn't aware of. I'll try to keep it short.
Let's start with the layouts. As you know, I don't like it when plates get flimsy because too many layouts got unified. Now I realize, that combining the most common layouts possible with a GH60 PCB, the plate actually doesn't look that bad. So to stick to my promise I decided to do separate ANSI and ISO plates for the standard 60% - that seems to be the best possible solution to give you a solid plate.
Next is stabilizers. I have to admit I wasn't aware that combining plate & pcb mount stabs isn't gonna work - at least not if you want the plate mount stabs to fit tightly. The plate for the prototype was made for one specific layout, so I didn't had to think about that at the time. Now I know, that there is a reason why so many of you voted for PCB mount stabs in the first poll - they are basically the only option if your plate is not 100% on single layout. So I googled a lot about pcb mount stabs, took apart an old G80 to get genuine cherry pcb stabs, measured them and scratched my head again. Trying not to elaborate too much right now, so one point I didn't like about pcb stabs was the fact, that if you screw up something with the stabs during your build, or even forget to put them in completely (you know stuff like that happens even to the best of us), well that you have to unsolder every single switch. So I'm wasn't quite happy having to make a pcb mount stab plate, knowing to cause quite some drama down the road if the stabs are not set up perfectly from the very beginning. But all of a sudden
a unicorn turned up in wodan's backyard. Its poop revealed some quite interesting details. That old nixie plate has some really big cutouts around the stabs. Seeing that made perfect sens to me, its bigger cutouts make it possible to get the pcb stabs out afterwards and only one switch would have to be unsoldered. So I decided to go for big cutouts around the stabs.
Maybe that is something some of you were already aware of - I wasn't and now I told you the story how I found out about it
If the cutouts are actually big enough for removing the pcb mount stabs is something I can't guarantee, I'll investigate more to make sure.
Now the different plates I came up with so far. ANSI and ISO separated for GH60 PCBs. For YAS the bottom row options are so many I had to make two different plates otherwise we'd get just one huge cutout for the whole bottom row. I even dumped some unlikely layouts - lesser but better. The lower request for YAS doesn't justify ANSI/ISO separation. 75% has to get a unified plate. Not a bad thing in this case because there aren't too many options anyway. I dumped the option for the L-nav-cluster, I guess everyone is fine with that.
Made some graphics, assigning the possible layouts to the different plates. Only the layouts most obvious to me are shown, of course some more mixtures of those are possible, you get it.
Also, cause the case inside offers much space for the plate it has more surface area at the sides, giving it even more strength. Especially plates for tray mount cases suffer from the tiny space at the sides.
Enough, here are the plates. Nothing fixed as of now of course, changes may come, what do you think?