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Minimum Cutout Edge Distance?

claycookiemonster

Well Known Member
Now that panels often have several really large rectangular cutouts instead of smaller round cutouts, what is the minimum spacing between adjacent cutouts?
 
Clay, considering that this is a pretty thick plate and therefore pretty rigid, and a part I would consider mainly non structural (sure I'll get pushback on that comment), spacing isn't your primary driver.

Take a look at my panel cutout and you'll see that some holes are pretty close together. The overall panel is very rigid, even after cutting.
 

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IIRC the plans call for reinforcement of all large cutouts. So edge distance is really whatever the minimum width is of the reinforcements.
 
If you're using at least 0.063" for the panel, then 0.5" spacing is a minimum I recommend from a flexibility perspective. If using thinner material, then just having a doubler, such as what Garmin provides with their G3X Touch screen install kit, should be sufficient. Understanding that you probably need at least that much distance for nut plate installation, you're probably good.

More importantly is longitudinal bracing. As long as you have a couple supports from center of the panel going forward to a larger structure, you're fine.
 
Just me

i think the rigid boxes like the G3X GDU displays and the radio stacks that use trays that bolt to the panel will actually increase the stiffness of the panel once installed. But the rocker switches and stuff with non rigid mountings probably will not.

In general, if the web is large enough to stay intact during machining, I think the panel will be rigid enough once fully populated. JMHO.

I had a problem with the webs between the switches being too narrow, so i had to eliminate a switch and spread them out. The problem arose during trail machining.
 
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