I think often its one of space for the connections. Particularly important
on RF of course as you need to preserve impedance matches, and with thick
mains cables its often easier to do it with it all open and then bend the
wires so they do not get crushed when assembled.
Brian

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This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
...
Reading the recent thread about connecting coaxial inside a wall plate,
and how to make sure the coax outer was connected properly, led to thought
about these wall box connections in general.

Basically, why are the components fitted to the removable front plate? Why
aren't they fixed to the back of the box (whether that is fitted on or in
the wall)? It seems to me that as the wiring - and that could be mains
cable or coax - enters through the back of side of the box, it could be
connected directly to a switch, socket, or whatever which would itself be
screwed to the back of the box. The front cover would just have holes in
it to accept the 3-pin socket, coax socket, switch, fuse, etc, and that
would be fixed to the box in the usual manner.

There seem to me several advantages to this. Firstly, you wouldn't need
three hands to hold the box front, cable, and screwdriver at the same
time. Secondly, The cables wouldn't get moved, crushed, or distorted when
the front is screwed on. Thirdly, you could test the connections without
the front of the box being on to make sure it all worked before screwing
the front on.

I'm sure I'm missing something here, but can't see it. Ceiling-mounted
pull switches for bathrooms have this arrangement, and, although not
exactly the same (and now not used much), junction boxes have always had
the connectors fixed to the back of the box, not to the removable front.

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Jeff