>another idea would be to rub some paint on the letters, but>not very carefull, then wipe of with a soft sponge the>remaining paint. Do not press on the sponge. All paint outside>of the engravings should be removed.>>This is not tested yet, but I think it should workDoesnt a _white_ plexi work? I mean the "milk" colored plastic, it's white already.. Paint with dark primer, then the boeing color, then engrave..?Wouldnt need to paint at all..?//Tuomas

Did you use spray paint or brush.- spray paintAcrilyc paint or enamel.- water soluble paint How did you get Boeing brown (Paint shop, make it up yourself etc).- made by the paint shop. I used my aerosoft MIP and the cdu from FDS to compare with theur colour charts.Why didn't you use Black primer as a mask?- I did when I tried it the first time (with the wrong primer). Black does better block the light then white primer. But when engraving , sometimes you see a little black of the primer at some places of the characters. But that should not be a problem when you fill in the characters with white ink afterwards.If you use the white paint method after you engrave, won't this block the light?- I do not know yet, will have to experiment with it. Will show it here.Don't you love what you can do with Rams. (Thanks for pointing me in that direction)I'll post some pics when I have something to show as well.- yee, rams is perfect - ues , please show themNorbert

Yes , white plexi is OK. But you still need primer (normallt primer is also white) . Thats very important to use plastic primer and sand the plastic first. Otherwise you paint will come of (the triangle in the "A" for example).I think translucent plexi will even be better. If you sand it, it gets a withe cover. For backlighting the translucent plexu will be better (but I do not have experience with it).The other pic I showed is from a B737 made by a fellow dutchmen, Peter De Graaf. He is extremely talented and converts real analog instruments to be used in his cockpit. Unfortenately he has no website.I hope to speak to him next weekend (dutch flightsimweekend (with cockpitbuilders meeting) in a airplane museum at EHLE), then I ask him about the details about filling in the chazracters with white ink.Norbert

>Wow... Amazing work by dutch simbuilder... What's his name>does he has his own website? If so, that's great. I would love>to see his work. >>David & Nobert>> I don't mean to pry in your finanical business, but>asking you if you paid $500 worth of RamGold software? Arthur,I'm trying out a friends copy on his computer. While I can borrow it, all is good.$500 is a bit steep for software, but what you can do with it would make it worth it in a commercial venture.Norbert,Thanks for the info, will let you know how it goes. I am using the white translucent perspex for the light plate, so we'll see how that goes.David

The pictures show an excellent work and the topic is really full of info.But something slips away from me: what is the "rams" you talk about?This was my goal when i started building my cnc, unfortunately my cnc is now stuck a bit :(What software are you using to drive the machine?

ClaudioJust use anu CAD software you like. Export tthat as .dxf file.I use Kcam (kellyware.com) as CAM software to drive via the printer port my cnc machine. Between thes 2 comes ramsgols (www.rams3d.com)What doas rams do.Suppose you want to make a round hole for a switch with a diameter of 10 mm. Now your router bit has a diameter of 2 mm. The centerline that the cnc machine must travel is also a circle with a diameter of 8 mm and it has to travel internally in this case.Rams takes care of this. You can also tell in how many passes (depending on the material) you want to make. I drill a 3 mm plexi in 8 passes of about 0,4 mm each time.Rams produces gcode. That is read by kcam and fed to the machine. It can also read dfx or gerber files, but with dfx files it doesnot take care of the offset.Hopes this helps.regardsNorbert

Yes Norbert, thanks for all the info!

>The pictures show an excellent work and the topic is really>full of info.>But something slips away from me: what is the "rams" you talk>about?>This was my goal when i started building my cnc, unfortunately>my cnc is now stuck a bit :(>What software are you using to drive the machine?Hi Claudio,I use Coreldraw to design, then export as a hplt file (*.plt) import that into Ramsgold, workout in what order I want it to machine and what style of cutting, convert this info to Gcode import that into KCam, and away you go.Once you get the hang of it, it become very fluid.What is the problem you're having at the moment with your cnc. Perhaps between Norbert and myself, we may be able to help. I'm completely self taught, so I'm not sure how much help I can give.David

>What is the problem you're having at the moment with your cnc.> Perhaps between Norbert and myself, we may be able to help. >I'm completely self taught, so I'm not sure how much help I>can give.Money :(I have motors and controllers, guides and software (NINOS) and even 3 perfect ball screws, but i lack the structure.I thought of making it in wood, but that's a lot more work...So i am struggling on money vs time :)And if i remember well it's me that started Norbert on the cnc way ;)Eighter Norbert or someone else who asked me info on email.Edit: yes it was Norbert himself back in september last year ;)It took me months to finish the controller and housing for it with power transformer and everything.It has been a real pain as i burned about 6 finals (L298) and 3 L297.After this slaughter i started looking for a final solution.The problem appeared casually: once just after powering up, then the next time after 5 minutes of test.So i didn't have a clue.Luckily on a forum i knew a guy who had had the same problem.And he gave me the solution: filtering the high power (the one going to the motors as the logic power was already filtered and regulated).Everybody on that forum say (still) that is not needed (i would say the contrary... but as you know in every forum big personalities forms...).Well after i put regulating power transistors (they give me linear regulation on the voltage from 0 to 40V and can feed 5A, i have one for 2 motors, 2 in total for the 4 motors my controller is able to drive) on the transformer secondary i never burned a 298 again.So should you have such problems you know at least one place where to look at :)

>Everybody on that forum say (still) that is not needed (i>would say the contrary... but as you know in every forum big>personalities forms...).In the Internet, everyone can be an EXPERT! :)//Tuomas

I just did some experimenting. I used white drawing ink to fill in the caracters to get more contrast in daylight.That looked better with the white ink, but the backlight looked less good. (the white ink blocks the light a bit). I am planning to backlight the panels and use my sim in a room without windows. So before I go further I want to have my overhead and center pedestal ready and see how that looks.Norbert

Mhh...Maybe you could give this a try: pour some white ink or paint in a long-drying liquid resing and use that to fill the letters.Resin would scatter the light while ink/paint would make it white.What do you think?This comes from my initial idea of aluminum panels: just cut all the letterings from side to side, then use some kind of plastic to cover up the front side (like food cellophane or something that sticky or even stickier too) and fill from the rear side with white resin.

>I just did some experimenting. I used white drawing ink to>fill in the caracters to get more contrast in daylight.>>That looked better with the white ink, but the backlight>looked less good. (the white ink blocks the light a bit). I am>planning to backlight the panels and use my sim in a room>without windows. So before I go further I want to have my>overhead and center pedestal ready and see how that looks.>>NorbertGood to know. I guess there are also different kinds of white plastic to engrave from.Also, the backlight does not really need to look like a christmas tree, the whole idea is that it is fairly dim - as a pilot it is very important that your eyes adapt to the dark environment, so the backlight does not need to be _bright_ at all. Remember your eyes take about 30 minutes to adapt - it's essential to avoid bright lights and to get used to the dark environment in advance before a night flight - so do your preflight etc in a dimmed room. Then you can also see outside the sim windows :)Most people seem to concentrate on getting the cockpit to look like on photos on airliners.net - remember that a camera averages the light metering on a dark scene - so little spots of lights do turn out brighter than they really are. And of course, you can make them _bright_ too, but one really should dim them when flying at night.//Tuomas

>This comes from my initial idea of aluminum panels: just cut>all the letterings from side to side, then use some kind of>plastic to cover up the front side (like food cellophane or>something that sticky or even stickier too) and fill from the>rear side with white resin.You'll have trouble wiht letters like "O" though.See my thread about aluminium panels btw, FrontDesign was pretty darn nice. Not backlightable of course, but I'll be trying "frontlighted" with "blacklight" sometimes in the future..//Tuomas

>I just did some experimenting. I used white drawing ink to>fill in the caracters to get more contrast in daylight.>>That looked better with the white ink, but the backlight>looked less good. (the white ink blocks the light a bit). I am>planning to backlight the panels and use my sim in a room>without windows. So before I go further I want to have my>overhead and center pedestal ready and see how that looks.>>NorbertNorbert,I tried the white translucent perspex, coated with black undercoat (2 coats) then top coat (2 coats).The hardest part was getting the engraving depth correct (my z backlash was wrong so some letters were too deep).When it engraved correctly, it worked perfect, the bits in the a's and r's remained, and when you put an led behind presto backlit panels. Because the perspex is white any way, when you get the depth right, the letter are white. No white paint needed. So it's a win/win.I couldn't get the right colour for the panel so I just used a darkish brown for the test.I'll see if I can post a picture soon, just remember that it came out a little rough in parts due to stopping the cnc to adjust the z axis.David