(SUCCESS!!)
For those who were interested in my project to redesign the pcbs in my Curve Tracer product, to eliminate the discrete, soldered wiring that connected the pcbs to the front panel, I have come up with what I think is a very good solution.
After deciding that a new PCB was needed, for the front panel controls and connectors to be mounted directly to, so that I could use some type of pluggable multi-conductor connectors, and then also considering the MANY possible interconnection options, and all of the connector types' pros and cons, etc, I finally realized what the solution should be. (And I don't think anyone else ever suggested it to me, which amazes me. But, in this case, I had to start to "get my hands dirty", before I realized it, too.)
I had three pcboards, in the original unit. They had wires, soldered to them, that were also soldered to the lugs on the front-panel controls. And there were MANY wires. Imagine FIVE rotary switches, with 12 or more solder lugs on each one, plus a few pots and a few 1P2T toggle switches, and some i/o connectors. Not only did soldering the wires on both ends make it very tedious to ever remove a board, but, all of those wires made it almost impossible to even SEE the boards, or anything else, inside the unit.
After considering many different possible ways to "tame the tangle", and getting MANY good suggestions, and quite an education, from members of this (and other) groups, I started playing with "layout considerations", to try to get an idea of what could and should be done, to facilitate using SOME type of better interconnect strategy.
However, I soon realized that only the MAIN board was really in need of any attention. The main board had at least SIXTY-something wires that went to the instrument panel's controls and connectors. The other two boards had only nine, and two, respectively.
Then, it HIT me: WHY put a whole new PCB in, parallel to the front panel, and change all of the controls to pcb-mount types, and then use that pcb just to run trace-busses to multi-wire connectors, to go to the other boards, when I could...
(gasp!)
just MOVE the whole main board ONTO the new front panel PCB?!!
∗NOW∗ there are almost NO wires ∗OR∗ connectors needed! And no need to worry about their reliability, or errors made installing the old discrete wiring, etc etc.
The main board was 4x6 inches. The new "panel" board is about 3 x 9 inches. Perfect!
It's a ∗beautiful∗ thing. For example: the circuitry that's associated with each rotary switch is built right around each switch's pins. There was just BARELY enough room, on the board. But I made it all fit, eventually, and even improved it as I did so. It ended up being almost a total re-layout job, for about two-thirds of it. But it seems to have been well worth it! It's definitely the prettiest broad I've ever laid (...er, I meant "board", hehe). I can't wait to actually warm one up and give'er a try.
This will also eliminate about five or six crowded pages of wiring diagrams from the kit-version's assembly instructions (which is good for me, too, since I will now no longer have to maintain those pages' artwork). Plus. I eliminated the cost of including most of the wire, from the cost of each kit (including many on-board wires that were also eliminated), which is probably on the order of 1% to 2% of the total parts cost.
Even better, I estimate that the construction time will be cut by almost ONE THIRD. (There are probably also too many other potential benefits to try to discuss them all, here.)
Thanks again, VERY much, to everyone who shared suggestions, comments, hints, tips,information, etc.
Regards,
Tom Gootee
http://www.fullnet.com/u/tomg[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]