PCB mounted controls

photon

photon

New member
I’m in the planning stage of making a clone of the EHX Clockworks. I’m using PCB mounted controls: slide potentiometers, 9mm pots and 1/8 inch jacks. I think the taller caps will interfere with the front panel if I mount the pots on the front of the board, so I’m considering two options:

  • Rear mounted panel controls. To mount these on the rear of the PCB, is it just a matter of editing the footprints in KiCAD so they are flipped, making sure the pin numbers are correct?
  • Separate board for all panel mount controls. For this I’m guessing I need two schematics, one for each board. Would I just have the panel control connections go to headers (on the schematic) for the interconnection between boards?
Hopefully these questions make sense. Thanks.
 
I would definitely just go with rear-mounted panel controls.

It's typical in a guitar effect pedal to mount the controls on the opposite side of the board from the components. In my experience you don't need to edit any footprints in KiCad, you just need to select the item and in the pop-up menu (on Mac) select "Change/Flip Side" and KiCad will adjust the footprint layers so that they are appropriately oriented for the back side of the PCB.
 
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