marking panels

jpanhalt said:

I have used Frisket for paint masking designs. How durable is it long-term?

John

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I chose frisket film because I happened to have it on hand due to some air-brushing activity earlier in my hobby career. It is reasonably durable for light duty, but it is definitely not screwdriver-proof, it could be ruined if struck with a tool or something sharp. But I have an audio switchbox that's been here on my desk for almost 10 years, and the surface of the home-made graphic label is still in good shape, although the corners and edges are curling up a bit.

And of course, most inkjet inks are not waterproof. The power supply I showed earlier and it's bench companion, a constant-current load, was almost ruined when I went out-of-town during the summer and turned off the A/C. The humidity made an interesting shadow effect around all the black text.

With all these great pictures, I think I need to build something

Thanks Guys...........Just need ideas!!

Yet another way to do it is to blast a jillion .012" diameter holes in it with a laser engraver, paint over it with contrasting color, and then sand it down. Here's one I did that way -



The advantage here is that the lettering never wears off, or peels up - makes it especially good for hand-held devices.
Disadvantage is you need a laser engraver.

duffy said:

Yet another way to do it is to blast a jillion .012" diameter holes in it with a laser engraver, paint over it with contrasting color, and then sand it down. Here's one I did that way -

View attachment 59500

The advantage here is that the lettering never wears off, or peels up - makes it especially good for hand-held devices.
Disadvantage is you need a laser engraver.

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i could do that with a center punch and some black ink

Neil.

I also made a pretty cool front panel one time using Shrinky-Dink plastic. I ran it through an inkjet printing backwards on the reverse side. Then I cut the holes with an exacto knife. (all this sized up)

Then I baked it - it shrinks down and becomes like a little sheet of plexiglass. The images you printed get better resolution, contrast and color saturation. Any "D" shaped holes, odd connectors, square slots or whatever can be cut easily ahead of time with an exacto knife. Looks great and wear-resistant.

One thing with this technique is you need a thin sheet of glass to lay on it because sometimes it curls. You also need to make a test piece because it shrinks slightly less with the glass laying on it.

Dammit Modemhead, i've just spent nearly 6 hours playing with my paint program doing different designs for my front panel, thats almost as long as it took me to put the project together, all because you impressed me so much with your artwork

Neil.

ModemHead said:

I use a bubblejet printout on photo paper and cover it with frisket film, then attach it with spray adhesive (3M 77). It looks pretty decent regardless of what kind of junkbox engineering I have inside.

As a plus, during construction I temporarily attach a draft of the front panel graphic to use as a drilling/cutting template. Beats measuring and marking.

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Hey Modemhead, i don't suppose you have the circuit for this power supply you built by any chance? it looks really nice and is just what i need?

Neil.

well the image didn't transfere to this post, but i am refering to the 0-24V one.

Neil Groves said:

Dammit Modemhead, i've just spent nearly 6 hours playing with my paint program doing different designs for my front panel, thats almost as long as it took me to put the project together, all because you impressed me so much with your artwork

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I hope you had success! BTW, I use an old version of a vector-drawing application called Xara instead of a Paint or bitmap-editing type program. In a vector-drawing app you can specify that an object be a certain size (in inches, or mm whatever) and when you print it out, it will be exactly that.

Neil Groves said:

Hey Modemhead, i don't suppose you have the circuit for this power supply you built by any chance? it looks really nice and is just what i need?
Neil.

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That could be arranged, however I'm away from home for the holidays and don't have access to my files, so it will be a while until I can share it.

Have fun...

Thanks Modemhead, appreciate that!

Neil.

off-topic, but the OP requested it...

Neil Groves said:

Hey Modemhead, i don't suppose you have the circuit for this power supply you built by any chance? it looks really nice and is just what i need?

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Here you go. Keep in mind, this is junkbox engineering, ie. some "design decisions" were based on what bits I had laying around. It's based around a dual-secondary transformer that came from Electronics Goldmine. Unfortunately it looks like they don't stock it anymore.

One thing I've noticed about laser printing on transparency, transparent sheets tend to yellow pretty badly over long period of time (years) Bubblejet ink doesn't tend to stand up very well either, go to a copy shop and get a good high quality color laser print if you want it to last. Not sure if they sell transparency sheets that won't yellow over time.

Thanks Modemhead, even if i can't build it complete, it'll give me a start.

Neil.