Hey everyone, I have been planning for a little while to build a double norns shield housed in one box and have a few question surrounding the process if anyone has advice!
The plan
The aesthetic I’m going for is gonna lean towards an industrial control panel look. Think something like these soviet-era control systems panels
Ideally, my design would place the panel and controls on an angle with a flat surface on top for the audio I/O, usb connectors and power - similar to something like the Ekhdahl Moisturizer, or these Lego UX panels 
This should also give sufficient internal volume for a substantial battery. It would be really cool to have enough room for a mic preamp as well, though depending on power draw it may be more sensible to just feed the norns with a separate source like a field recorder with line outs. I definitely don’t mind this thing being a few pounds, I’m aiming for something very solid and inspiring to interact with.
Questions
Rather than sticking to the default shield control layout, I’d like to arrange things vertically - the screen on top, row of three encoders below that, and then finally the keys. The plan would be to mount these on the reverse of the front panel, such that the visible part of the panel has no screw holes. I’m guessing I will just need to use hookup wire to connect the encoders and switches to the relevant PCB connection, but would there be any need to instead make a breakout PCB for those controls?
I’d like to use mechanical keyboard switches in place of the normal switches, but I’m not sure if they are functionally equivalent. Is a switch a switch, or are there gotchas to this that I’m not seeing?
Are there any electrical interference problems that might result from having two of these in the same case, sharing the same power source?
Thanks for reading my wall of text!
