Anyone have a recommendation on good material for building your own gauge / switch panels? Plastic / aluminum? Any leads on who sells such material?
I have made mine out of Hardboard sprayed with blackboard/Chalkboard paint its cheep if you have to redo it and its easy to work with. Disadvantage is its not very strong.
Mine was made out of 12mm mdf, C172 panel.
It was thick so a lot of designs had to be altered, but also at 12mm there was still quite a bit of flex in the center of the panel so it had to be supported from the back.
It was strong, painted it black also, but I put 3mm of laser cut (using a 7.7W output diode laser, Atomstack A5+) black acyrlic (spraypainted different colors based on where on the frame) screwed into the 12mm of mdf.
I also laser engraved text into this black acyrlic, then filled the holes with white silicone to mimic text, it worked ok. I would have preferred to just have white acyrlic, spraypainted black/grey, then laser etched off the spray-paint BUT you cant engrave white acyrlic with a diode laser and Co2 lasers are quite a bit more costly. so that was a no go for me unfortunately.
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My next one is going to be 1/8" ABS with a backing frame. Not sure what the frame is going to be made of. Probably 1" square 80/20.
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I’m making a custom PrintNC, so material options are limitless, I could do it fully out of aluminum if my pockets were that deep to source a sheet that large lol.
I think ABS is a decent idea, acrylic had the tendency to crack a lot until it was screwed on, it would be safer than wood in the worst case of a fire.
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I just laser cut mine from 1/4 white board material. Painted very smooth. Frame is wood.
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Laser cut aluminium. About 2mm thickness. Like the real thing. using real instruments, some of which are quite heavy, it is better to use metal.
If you use wood you need more thickness, and then the many real gauges don’t work well with 3 mm or more thickness. They are intended for 1.5 to 2.5mm.
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yeah, that’s the issue I found with my wood panel. everything had to be offset a lot and it was hard to make. The best compromise I found was to CNC one side of the panel to make inserts where all the gauges are but then that removes strength from the wood.
I used 3 mm Dibond which essentially is two layers of aluminum with a plastic layer in between. I chose it because it looks cool and provides stability while still being able to saw, cut, drill, and sand. I designed it in a drawing program and had it cut by a cutting service. It was charged by the number of cuts / openings to be made so it cost me 86€ but looks ery professional. I would use it again if I’d ever redo the project.
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