CNC or Laser cut instrument panel

Hi Bill,

I do cad/cam design programming etc. I've done lots of these types of
projects. I've made quite a few panels in lasercut aluminum (usually
anodized black) for different movies like the inlaws or the discovery
series called mayday.

My suggestion is to find a sheet metal shop that has cnc laser, make a
dxf file in autocad (or even coreldraw or something in a pinch)
(remember it's only 2d), then email them the file. If you supply the
material it should cost you more than 80$ or so. Depending on how many
cutouts of course. Then show up with cash at an anodizing place and ask
them to throw it in with another run for you.

This will be the cheapest. ps. Waterjet is fine but typically more
expensive. (slower process)

Zander

"Bill Daniels" wrote in
news:g6fbd.251368$3l3.188348@attbi_s03:

The panel has to be .125" 7075 because it is a structural member.
This is NOT easy stuff to cut.

The last time is did this, I used a milling machine with a fly cutter
to make the instrument holes. Now all I have is a drill press. The
tools that I would need to buy to do this simple job will cost more
than the job 'should' cost from a CNC or waterjet shop.

bildan

"W P Dixon" wrote in message
...
I was wondering the same thing myself , a panel is not hard to make
at
all.
If you have built an airplane the panel should be about the easiest
part. Are you planning on building this panel out of a special
material? If it's metal I would do it myself.

Patrick

"Richard Isakson" wrote in message
...
"Bill Daniels" wrote ...
At this point, I would consider anything. I've been talking to
some
of
the
dumbest phone sales people I can imagine. I've e-mailed the CAD
file
to
20
or so firms that advertise "custom panels" and, so far, no
replies
except
for one local CNC shop that quoted $855 for the 9-hole 18" panel
in
.125"
sheet.

This is a homebuilt group. Have you considered building it
yourself?

Rich

I can't understand why you're having so much trouble finding someone
who'll do the job for a reasonable price. I use several laser,
waterjet, punch and CNC shops in the Portland area and rarely have any
trouble. Send me the file. I'll get you a quote. Where are you located?

I was going to laser 14+ instrument panels for The Noon Patrol, but the
the "group engineering" process produced a panel that was too amorphous
to bother with. So I bandsaw cut to the outline and bent them up, then
had cheap labor cut the instrument holes. I lasered some stainless
instrument templates for the two sizes of instruments to simplify the
layout. I also printed full size templates which could be glued to the
panel to locate instruments.

Of course, one panel isn't really worth laser cutting.

Bill Daniels wrote:


Bill Daniels wrote:

"JohnT." wrote in message
...

Also consider having it water jetted. Like laser cut, but uses a high
pressure jet of water with abrasives in it.

John



At this point, I would consider anything. I've been talking to some of the
dumbest phone sales people I can imagine. I've e-mailed the CAD file to 20
or so firms that advertise "custom panels" and, so far, no replies except
for one local CNC shop that quoted $855 for the 9-hole 18" panel in .125"
sheet.

Bill Daniels


--
John Kimmel

Remove "NOSPAM" to reply

I think it will be quiet around here now. So long.

"Bill Daniels" wrote in message
news:eEdbd.356130$mD.89885@attbi_s02...

At this point, I would consider anything. I've been talking to some of
the
dumbest phone sales people I can imagine. I've e-mailed the CAD file to
20
or so firms that advertise "custom panels" and, so far, no replies except
for one local CNC shop that quoted $855 for the 9-hole 18" panel in .125"
sheet.

Bill Daniels

Wait for the other shops to come back or follow up with a round of phone
calls. We had our panel laser cut in three separate sections, 2x 10" and 1x
5" wide. Cost about 175 Euro for a set. An extra 15 Euro for a second set so
we could experiment a bit before putting the final panel in.

Check that your CAD design is readable and well done. Sharp 90 degree
corners should be avoided, always specify a rounded corner (radius about 0.1
x panel thickness). If you don't do this yourself then the shop will try to
charge extra for 'design adjustments'.

Rob

I was wondering the same thing myself , a panel is not hard to make at all.
If you have built an airplane the panel should be about the easiest part.
Are you planning on building this panel out of a special material? If it's
metal I would do it myself.

Patrick

"Richard Isakson" wrote in message
...
"Bill Daniels" wrote ...
At this point, I would consider anything. I've been talking to some of
the
dumbest phone sales people I can imagine. I've e-mailed the CAD file to
20
or so firms that advertise "custom panels" and, so far, no replies
except
for one local CNC shop that quoted $855 for the 9-hole 18" panel in
.125"
sheet.

This is a homebuilt group. Have you considered building it yourself?

Rich


If you mount the instruments from the front as the military does they cover a
multitude of flaws.

Also you will be your own worst critic and most people will never notice minor
errors.

On the other hand the first instrument panel I ever made looked like I was
drunk when I laid it out. The error was I didn't cut the blank out square,
assumed it was, didn't check etc. I drew center lines top to bottom and side to
side. As you may have guessed they weren't 90º apart. It was like building a
house in quicksand.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Rob Turk wrote:
"Bill Daniels" wrote in message
news:eEdbd.356130$mD.89885@attbi_s02...


At this point, I would consider anything. I've been talking to some of
the
dumbest phone sales people I can imagine. I've e-mailed the CAD file to
20
or so firms that advertise "custom panels" and, so far, no replies except
for one local CNC shop that quoted $855 for the 9-hole 18" panel in .125"
sheet.

Bill Daniels


Wait for the other shops to come back or follow up with a round of phone
calls. We had our panel laser cut in three separate sections, 2x 10" and 1x
5" wide. Cost about 175 Euro for a set. An extra 15 Euro for a second set so
we could experiment a bit before putting the final panel in.

Check that your CAD design is readable and well done. Sharp 90 degree
corners should be avoided, always specify a rounded corner (radius about 0.1
x panel thickness). If you don't do this yourself then the shop will try to
charge extra for 'design adjustments'.

Rob


I did not find that to true, I have perfect 90 degree corners in my RV-6 panel,
they cut is just as I laid it out on CAD. I saved it as a DXF file and took to a
company in Beaverton, OR called TRIAX and at that time they only charged me
$150.00.
That was about 10 years ago so I don't think it would be that cheap now.
It is really nice to have a laser cut panel because each screw hole and switch
hole and cutouts for the radio stack was perfect.

Jerry

Earlier, "Bill Daniels" wrote:

The panel has to be .125" 7075 because
it is a structural member. This is
NOT easy stuff to cut.

The last time is did this, I used a milling
machine with a fly cutter to
make the instrument holes. Now all I have
is a drill press. The tools that
I would need to buy to do this simple job
will cost more than the job
'should' cost from a CNC or waterjet shop.

I really like the results I get from waterjet and laser cutting, but
when I'm doing a onesey-twosey job I often find that it takes longer
to do the CAD layout than it does to just hack it out in the shop. And
I'm one of the guys who thinks that CAD/CAM has put high-performance
sailplane development within the reach of ordinary people like me.

Sure, the hand-laid parts of mice and men go oft awry. But somehow I'm
just not into the whole "one perfect part" thing. I prefer to have one
servicable part, and if it works OK the next one or dozen will benefit
from the experience. That's pretty much how Dick Schreder operated
through the 1960s: he'd dive into the shop in the winter, roll out a
new sailplane in the spring, win a Nationals in the summer, and then
spend the fall taking the ship apart and tracing its bits on paper to
make the drawings and plans.

I disagree about the difficulty of workage of 7075. I do a lot of work
with 7075-T6 up at the HP shop, and I think it is lovely stuff to
drill, cut, and sand. Its hardness makes for very nice, smooth cutting
with long soft chips. Nothing at all like that nasty, sticky 6061-T6
which so often yields broken drills and triangular holes. The key is
to keep the speed up.

In fact, one thing I've had good luck with is using a $16 suicide
cutter (one of those adjustable single-point things) to cut 4" or so
holes in 7075-T6 up to 1/4" thick. I get best results when I cut
half-way through, flip the piece, and then cut through from the other
side. And of course, I always use it with a pilot drill or pin, and
the workpiece is always clamped securely to the drill press table.

I've also had good luck using ordinary black carbon steel 2-1/4" and
3-1/8" hole saws from the local hardware store to bore instrument
holes in 2024, 7075, and 6061. I also use hole saws on 4130 steel, but
for that I use the bimetal kind.

I've got an old PZL airspeed indicator that I use as a guide for the
mounting holes; I put that in the big hole and then pilot-drill the
mounting holes. The PZLs tend to be on the big side, so when one of
those fits in a hole I'm relatively confident that a Kollsman or D^2
instrument will go in.

As for getting stuff economically waterjet or laser cut, you'll
eventually find a shop that you like. When I have mass quantities to
do, I shop it out with the http://www.mfgquote.com web site. I've
found a couple or three reasonable shops that way. If you do that,
though, you have to look carefully at the terms of the various
proposals. Some of those guys bury their minimum price deep in the
text of their proposal, so you don't notice until you get the bill for
your onesey-twosey job that it's actually about twice what they bid.

Thanks again, and best regards to all

Bob K.
http://www.hpaircraft.com/hp-24
:full fuselage shell molds!:

"Bob Kuykendall" wrote in message
om...
Earlier, "Bill Daniels" wrote:

The panel has to be .125" 7075 because
it is a structural member. This is
NOT easy stuff to cut.

The last time is did this, I used a milling
machine with a fly cutter to
make the instrument holes. Now all I have
is a drill press. The tools that
I would need to buy to do this simple job
will cost more than the job
'should' cost from a CNC or waterjet shop.

I really like the results I get from waterjet and laser cutting, but
when I'm doing a onesey-twosey job I often find that it takes longer
to do the CAD layout than it does to just hack it out in the shop. And
I'm one of the guys who thinks that CAD/CAM has put high-performance
sailplane development within the reach of ordinary people like me.

Sure, the hand-laid parts of mice and men go oft awry. But somehow I'm
just not into the whole "one perfect part" thing. I prefer to have one
servicable part, and if it works OK the next one or dozen will benefit
from the experience. That's pretty much how Dick Schreder operated
through the 1960s: he'd dive into the shop in the winter, roll out a
new sailplane in the spring, win a Nationals in the summer, and then
spend the fall taking the ship apart and tracing its bits on paper to
make the drawings and plans.

I disagree about the difficulty of workage of 7075. I do a lot of work
with 7075-T6 up at the HP shop, and I think it is lovely stuff to
drill, cut, and sand. Its hardness makes for very nice, smooth cutting
with long soft chips. Nothing at all like that nasty, sticky 6061-T6
which so often yields broken drills and triangular holes. The key is
to keep the speed up.

In fact, one thing I've had good luck with is using a $16 suicide
cutter (one of those adjustable single-point things) to cut 4" or so
holes in 7075-T6 up to 1/4" thick. I get best results when I cut
half-way through, flip the piece, and then cut through from the other
side. And of course, I always use it with a pilot drill or pin, and
the workpiece is always clamped securely to the drill press table.

I've also had good luck using ordinary black carbon steel 2-1/4" and
3-1/8" hole saws from the local hardware store to bore instrument
holes in 2024, 7075, and 6061. I also use hole saws on 4130 steel, but
for that I use the bimetal kind.

I've got an old PZL airspeed indicator that I use as a guide for the
mounting holes; I put that in the big hole and then pilot-drill the
mounting holes. The PZLs tend to be on the big side, so when one of
those fits in a hole I'm relatively confident that a Kollsman or D^2
instrument will go in.

As for getting stuff economically waterjet or laser cut, you'll
eventually find a shop that you like. When I have mass quantities to
do, I shop it out with the http://www.mfgquote.com web site. I've
found a couple or three reasonable shops that way. If you do that,
though, you have to look carefully at the terms of the various
proposals. Some of those guys bury their minimum price deep in the
text of their proposal, so you don't notice until you get the bill for
your onesey-twosey job that it's actually about twice what they bid.

Thanks again, and best regards to all

Bob K.
http://www.hpaircraft.com/hp-24
:full fuselage shell molds!:

Bob, that's a nice write-up. I appreciate it.

However, I've found a shop that will laser cut the panel for $70 including
the metal. Since I don't have the 'suicide cutter' or hole saws, that looks
like a good deal.

The CAD thing is pretty easy for me. I scanned the old panel for the
outside dimensions and then carefully drew up the four different instrument
holes I needed. (80mm with the altimeter cut out, 80mm plain, 57mm plain
and 57mm with the 7:30 notch for the clock.) I just pasted them on the
panel and moved them around until I had what I liked.

I then created a photo realistic panel by photographing the instruments I
planned to use and pasting the photos into the holes using the CAD program.
I tried various panel colors before settling on the traditional flat black.
I'll have the panel black anodized after I dry fit it into the glider to
insure all the little holes are drilled.

Now I need to find a stick grip with switches to control the Microair 760
and the B50. Any ideas?

Bill Daniels

I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine about laser
cutting..he's been in the business for about 20 years. He mentioned that the
FAA has never officially approved laser cutting as a means of working with
aluminum for structural applications. It has something to do with stress
risers and the heat involved and what it does to the temper. The reason heat
is a factor is because of the reflectivity of aluminum.....it acts like a
mirror. It takes longer for the light beam to cut through and more heat is
built up in the process. Steel is actually easier to cut with a laser than
aluminum. However, some of the newer lasers are better able to cut aluminum
without building up so much heat. In any case, we experimental builders are
not necessarily constrained by what the FAA will allow on certified aircraft.
Also, if the part is non-structural, it really isn't a problem. As a matter of
fact, my friends company cuts instrument panels for one of the aircraft shops
here in town. He said that If I supplied the CAD file, a typical instrument
panel would cost between $75 and $100 to produce. I asked how they figure
their rates, since I hadn't a clue. They charge by the inch, (of the cuts)
plus whatever setup charges are involved.

I'm not sure if I am going to let them cut my instrument panel or not. It's
tempting, considering the amount of work that it will take to flycut and drill
one. But at any rate, I now know a whole lot more about laser cutting than I
did before. So I thought I would share.

Dave

How about water cutting? We had half inch aluminum plates cut with a water jet
and they look like they were machined that way.

Jim