Richard Lamb wrote:
wrote:

Now that Panel Planner is a pay-for-use website, is there any other
type "freebie" service out there? I'm having withdrawal symptoms.

Neal


Whatcha doin with these things, Neal?
If they have to be photo real, well, sats...

But CAD lets you draw almost anything ya want.
http://home.earthlink.net/~tp-1/pan019b.jpg


I got creative one day and made CAD drawings of various instruments,
face and side, from actual ones I had as well as some generics. Side
views are important since space behind the panel can get strange fast. I
also made drawings of AN hardware (lot less tedious than it sounds since
in most cases all I had to do was scale 'em) all of which makes life
easier. I recommend anyone doing this also do mounting trays. One nice
thing about CAD is you can mirror the panel to plan wiring and plumbing.

For those of you who haven't used CAD everything I have described is
simple to learn to do and can save you headaches in the long run unless
you enjoy redoing a part. Nice thing about instruments is the come in
standard cases so you can easily make generic drawings if you don't have
the actual instrument in hand. Just copy the cases and name them as
required.

The only hard part is dimensioning your drawing. It's easy to run
over your dimension lines to the point of being a total mess. If
necessary make copies of the drawing each with a different set of
dimensions. Example: 1 for switches, another for engine instruments etc.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired