Do white acrylic on the face piece, clear for the base/mounting surface. Paint the back side of the mounting face with Rust-Oleum 267727 "Silver Specialty Mirror Spray" paint, then paint the whole thing with a flat black and then the final color. The Rust-Oleum paint is designded to make a mirror on the oposite face you are painting - i.e. you'd paint the back of a piece of glass if you wanted a mirror. Reasoning: When you laser scribe the top face it will present the legend you wish to display. When you laser scribe the bottom face, it will provide a hole for the LED to fill the light pipe - the mirror coating makes the clear piece a volumetric light pipe speading the light aournd the entire backside of the white half. This makes the light more uniform. You can do an extra step and laser scribe a mirror image of the top-side legend "grown" 25% and then paint that white to provide a "frustration" to the total internal reflection of the light pipe, then paint the back of that with an additional coat of the mirror and then flat black. Do this to the front side of the clear piece before gluing together (and without the white or mirror paint after etching) and you can keep most of the light inside the light pipe until it gets to the legend exit points.
To make the steps clear if you intend to attempt it: 1) Fully cut out your 30% translucent top piece, and your clear base piece, flame polish edges for smooth/flat faces 2) Paint the entire base acrylic piece with the RustOleum Specialty mirror coating, top bottom, edges - everything (makes the base piece a full internal mirror 3) Paint only the top surface and edges of your 30% translucent piece with mirror coating, leaving the mating face unpainted. 5) Take the legend graphics and grow them 25-50% 6) Etch the grown legend into the top of the bottom clear piece to remove the mirror paint - this will be the light outlet, and bit a pitting here from over-etching is fine 7) Flip the clear piece, mirror the grown legend, and etch on the bottom - alignment is key here, you should almost be able to see through the part top to bottom 8) Paint the just etched bottom of the clear base part with a white paint - you are most worried that the bond of the white paint to the just-etched bottom mirrored+ grown legend. You should be able to see a very white (yet grown) legend appearance on the top face. 9) Glue both pieces together with an optically clear adhesive - just doing acrylic solvent bond won't work with the mirror paint between the two pieces 10) Once bonded, paint the entire part with the final color/luster paint 11) Laser etch the legends on your top 30% translucent piece 12) Install LEDs in holes (cleaning if necessary any paint) The bottom part will be your light spreader light-pipe. Due to the mirror paint, the inside will contain the emitted light and keep bouncing the light around on the flat specularly reflective surfaces (light bounces off at the opposite angle of incidence with no scatter) - only degrading by the acrylic's absorption coefficient. When the reflected light rays hit an etched surface on the top side at a steep enough angle that does not reflect it back inside, they will exit and pass into the top translucent material, scattering internally in the material, but exiting at the closest surface nearly perpendicular to the point of entry. When the reflected light rays hit an etched surface on the bottom side the white paint will be a diffuse reflective surface - meaning light will bounce off at almost all angles, including at angles nearly perpendicular to the white surface, providing the best opportunity of rays to find the top-side etch on the opposite face. You may end up finding that you have such efficiency of light output in the right places that you have to tone down the brightness. If you find areas of your legend that are too bright relative to other areas, a fix you can do is to scratch the back-side white paint (JUST A LITTLE) to expose the clear material again, then give it a squirt of black paint. This will obviously absorb some of the rays of light that would otherwise be specularly reflected towards the face of the panel. BTW, I didn't just pull this out of my tailgunner, this is how LCD backlight light-pipes are built.
Interesting video. Have to say though -- never try to cut something on your laser without knowing what the material is and whether it's safe to laser. You might damage your laser cutter, or worse, yourself. For example, ABS plastic emits cyanide gas when laser cut. No joke.
Just saw your comment on toxic fumes from laser cutting ABS. Accidently, this is exactly what I did yesterday. I feel well, no dizziness, no headache. I noted the strong smell from the burned ABS material, and kept all windows open, while the laser was running, and afterwards. Still I'm a little worried about long term health issues from the toxic fumes. I guess I will switch from ABS to acrylic, since the results of engraving ABS aren't looking so good, anyway. Also, I plan mount an enclosure and air ventilation to the laser.
Dan, I was thinking the very same thing when I started this video. Looks like M. L. will look into this and be safe. Some Acrylic actually attacks the metal parts inside the machine... Causes them to corrode. ESPECIALLY bad on the Bearings. There is a test you can do with a burner and some acrylic and a copper wire. Depending on the color of the flame it will tell you if the material is dangerous to Laser. Sawmill Creek has a pretty good Laser Engraver Forum and some posts talk about that flame test and the danger. Still liking your video M.L..... I have a rotary to do the Acrylic and a laser.
@@digitalwoodshop thx for commenting. Enclosure is mounted, ventilation in place. Also got a second (stronger) laser engraver, incl. Enclosure and venting. At the end, I actually used the ABS (laser engraved with air vent). Reason: I want the material to reflect and shine through, good readability with front light and/or backlight (day vs. night scenario). ABS simply did the best here.
FYI, you are essentially duplicating the way these things are made by the OEMs, just w/ a few modern tools (Laser etching etc). I was a micro-mini repairman in the Navy and I was trained to repair these panels. Now this was during the early 90's and the hardware I was working on were up to 30 years old. So, good job!
What was the trade name of the recommended product? I have had so many bad buys (laser is a 10W Optical diode but I do have have access the a Thunder Laser Cutter-Nova 100W CO2)
I use a cheap K40 laser off of Ebay, I design using Inkscape and import the finished file to the K40 whisperer program that you get with thre laser. Pretty easy. I am trying to perfect the painting of the Panels. I use a gray form Home Depot.
IIRC, the translucent acrylic is usually called "opal" acrylic. Oh, and Polycarbonate isn't any kind of acrylic - it's polycarbonate - a different plastic altogether.
Thanks for the video! I also own a K40 and spray painted the white 3mm Acrylic Opal with Gray Spray Paint (1 Layer). When I wanna engrave into the spray painted side, letters are becoming black. I could swipe it away but it will not look great. Tested with different settings. 5mA/200mms and more. Which Layers of spray paint do you have? Will test with two white Spray Paint layers, then gray and then test. Hoping, that I only burn the gray layer and the white spray paint will get visible.
I do not use white spray paint. Sounds like the paint you are using might be the issue. When you cut or engrave with no paint do you still get black burn?
So you recomend white (not transparent) acrylic with 30% transmission, is that right? How thick it has to be to prevent deformation when pressing buttons on lets say 1m wide panel? What type of gray paint you use on that acrylic to be easily engraved? Thasnks :)
I will include all these questions in the next video. I will try to have it out early next week. You will need to use a combo of white & clear. The white being the top layer and the bottom layer clear. I will explain how yo cut these so that switches will be able to be added without any issue. I will also cover the painting process.
I just moved so most my supplies are still packed up. If you can watch my other videos where I take you step by step how to make them, I show you the can of paint and color.
Hello aaron, is there a good way for me to use acrylic panels and make something similar to what you made without using a laser? I do not have a laser and in my city there's no place which allows laser for non employee/professional use.
I do not. I would hit up some facebook groups. I had to scan the CRJ from the poster and rebuild it so I know mine are not 100% accurate considering I had to take some liberty in the creation process. Close but not 100%
@@AaronWerner Hey Aaron, I noticed if you watch the video "a sim is born" by twin sim.eu a little after 2 min you see him peeling a very thin matte paper and sticks on to the acrylic. I paused the vid and it called gravograph all know as gravotech. I just don't know exactly which product it is from gravotech. I emailed them hoping they could tell me because it's definitely the way to go. Cut your acrylic then laser cut through the gravograph and stick it on. No painting needed
@@Rotor-Sims I was thinking just that, I noticed his burn marks from the smoke on his work. I had that issue with paint but had to apply the air to get rid of it. Do you know if they have multiple colors? Any gray colors?
hi Aron, nice video? could you share the power used and the speed used by your k40 laser? i mean according with the thickness... to cut and engrave? Thanks this info i will waste less time and material 😊
@@sandroape I use full power to cut. I do the engraving about about 60-70% power. When cutting I had to do a couple passes at 10 speed. Engraving I do at 100 and only 1 pass.
wow, what type of laser printer do you have? I would like to print my own panel builds and have them back-lit. do you also have to have a 3D printer too? and does your laser etch-printer cut through different colors of backlighting lenses. not sure how all this works but this is what im after.
Honestly you can use any plexiglass that has the 30% Translucent material. I started ordering it directly from my local glass company. I found very little difference between the expensive sheets on Amazon and a local store.
If you look at my other videos they explain how you program them using arduino, joystick controls, FCUIPC, mobiflight. These are 4 things you must understand in order to connect all the hardware to the sim. FSUIPC is a plugin for Flight Simulator, it allows you to assign button presses, switches, and more to functions of the aircraft. So for example, if you purchased a joystick controller card-connected your hardware to it and plugged it into your computer, FS will recognize it as a joystick. You open FSUIP and go to button assignments. You press a button on your flight panel and then assign it to a function in the aircraft. That is the simplest explanation. It is not always that easy. Some items will require you to setup LUA scripts, Macros, etc. Mobiflight works with Arduino and is a "Point and Click" type software. It writes all the code for you for the Arduino. You do not need to have any programming knowledge to use it. I would recommend you do a deep dive into the above-mentioned resources. Pick a very very simple process for your first panel. Something like an on/off switch and start there.
@@AaronWerner Thanks! I’ll be learning about arduino, joystick controls, FCUIPC, and mobiflight. These will be researched and I’ll learn how to use them to connect them to interact properly with the simulator. Thanks!
I am not sure if any sim build will ever admit to being done...lol. I am wrapping up the backlighting on my panels. As soon as I complete that and get everything back into the bird, I will publish a video. I am also in S. Utah so if anyone ever wants to take a flight let me know.
lol- Man my garage got super hot (like 10,000 degrees) I live in Southern Utah. Now that it is cooling off, I will get out there and knock it out. Any specific questions you have that you want me to cover on it?
I think the clear over the grey looks horrible. You're just going to get fingerprints everywhere and I don't really get the point of it? Especially because it is a simulator of an actual thing which doesn't do that method
Do white acrylic on the face piece, clear for the base/mounting surface. Paint the back side of the mounting face with Rust-Oleum 267727 "Silver Specialty Mirror Spray" paint, then paint the whole thing with a flat black and then the final color.
The Rust-Oleum paint is designded to make a mirror on the oposite face you are painting - i.e. you'd paint the back of a piece of glass if you wanted a mirror.
Reasoning:
When you laser scribe the top face it will present the legend you wish to display.
When you laser scribe the bottom face, it will provide a hole for the LED to fill the light pipe - the mirror coating makes the clear piece a volumetric light pipe speading the light aournd the entire backside of the white half. This makes the light more uniform.
You can do an extra step and laser scribe a mirror image of the top-side legend "grown" 25% and then paint that white to provide a "frustration" to the total internal reflection of the light pipe, then paint the back of that with an additional coat of the mirror and then flat black. Do this to the front side of the clear piece before gluing together (and without the white or mirror paint after etching) and you can keep most of the light inside the light pipe until it gets to the legend exit points.
Could you make a video of your process? I would love to see it from start to finish, I will also try this on my end. Thanks for sharing
@@AaronWerner I have lot access to the laser engraver/cutter I used to have access to. I can try to make a video but I can't quote an ETA for it.
To make the steps clear if you intend to attempt it:
1) Fully cut out your 30% translucent top piece, and your clear base piece, flame polish edges for smooth/flat faces
2) Paint the entire base acrylic piece with the RustOleum Specialty mirror coating, top bottom, edges - everything (makes the base piece a full internal mirror
3) Paint only the top surface and edges of your 30% translucent piece with mirror coating, leaving the mating face unpainted.
5) Take the legend graphics and grow them 25-50%
6) Etch the grown legend into the top of the bottom clear piece to remove the mirror paint - this will be the light outlet, and bit a pitting here from over-etching is fine
7) Flip the clear piece, mirror the grown legend, and etch on the bottom - alignment is key here, you should almost be able to see through the part top to bottom
8) Paint the just etched bottom of the clear base part with a white paint - you are most worried that the bond of the white paint to the just-etched bottom mirrored+ grown legend. You should be able to see a very white (yet grown) legend appearance on the top face.
9) Glue both pieces together with an optically clear adhesive - just doing acrylic solvent bond won't work with the mirror paint between the two pieces
10) Once bonded, paint the entire part with the final color/luster paint
11) Laser etch the legends on your top 30% translucent piece
12) Install LEDs in holes (cleaning if necessary any paint)
The bottom part will be your light spreader light-pipe. Due to the mirror paint, the inside will contain the emitted light and keep bouncing the light around on the flat specularly reflective surfaces (light bounces off at the opposite angle of incidence with no scatter) - only degrading by the acrylic's absorption coefficient.
When the reflected light rays hit an etched surface on the top side at a steep enough angle that does not reflect it back inside, they will exit and pass into the top translucent material, scattering internally in the material, but exiting at the closest surface nearly perpendicular to the point of entry.
When the reflected light rays hit an etched surface on the bottom side the white paint will be a diffuse reflective surface - meaning light will bounce off at almost all angles, including at angles nearly perpendicular to the white surface, providing the best opportunity of rays to find the top-side etch on the opposite face.
You may end up finding that you have such efficiency of light output in the right places that you have to tone down the brightness. If you find areas of your legend that are too bright relative to other areas, a fix you can do is to scratch the back-side white paint (JUST A LITTLE) to expose the clear material again, then give it a squirt of black paint. This will obviously absorb some of the rays of light that would otherwise be specularly reflected towards the face of the panel.
BTW, I didn't just pull this out of my tailgunner, this is how LCD backlight light-pipes are built.
Interesting video. Have to say though -- never try to cut something on your laser without knowing what the material is and whether it's safe to laser. You might damage your laser cutter, or worse, yourself. For example, ABS plastic emits cyanide gas when laser cut. No joke.
Just saw your comment on toxic fumes from laser cutting ABS. Accidently, this is exactly what I did yesterday. I feel well, no dizziness, no headache. I noted the strong smell from the burned ABS material, and kept all windows open, while the laser was running, and afterwards. Still I'm a little worried about long term health issues from the toxic fumes. I guess I will switch from ABS to acrylic, since the results of engraving ABS aren't looking so good, anyway. Also, I plan mount an enclosure and air ventilation to the laser.
Dan, I was thinking the very same thing when I started this video. Looks like M. L. will look into this and be safe. Some Acrylic actually attacks the metal parts inside the machine... Causes them to corrode. ESPECIALLY bad on the Bearings. There is a test you can do with a burner and some acrylic and a copper wire. Depending on the color of the flame it will tell you if the material is dangerous to Laser. Sawmill Creek has a pretty good Laser Engraver Forum and some posts talk about that flame test and the danger. Still liking your video M.L..... I have a rotary to do the Acrylic and a laser.
@@digitalwoodshop thx for commenting. Enclosure is mounted, ventilation in place. Also got a second (stronger) laser engraver, incl. Enclosure and venting. At the end, I actually used the ABS (laser engraved with air vent). Reason: I want the material to reflect and shine through, good readability with front light and/or backlight (day vs. night scenario). ABS simply did the best here.
@@m.l.5284 Very Nice work !!!! Thanks for the reply.
This video series is EXACTLY what I was looking for!!! Thanks for posting! 🤙
Your welcome! I hope it helps you!
FYI, you are essentially duplicating the way these things are made by the OEMs, just w/ a few modern tools (Laser etching etc). I was a micro-mini repairman in the Navy and I was trained to repair these panels. Now this was during the early 90's and the hardware I was working on were up to 30 years old.
So, good job!
Man that means a lot coming from someone who actually did this in the real world!
What was the trade name of the recommended product? I have had so many bad buys (laser is a 10W Optical diode but I do have have access the a Thunder Laser Cutter-Nova 100W CO2)
Falken Design was the material I used, K40 was the laser. (Cheap like $250 on Ebay)
Hoping all is well, and anxious for the rest of the story. Your output looks fantastic, would also like more info on laser used and settings, etc.
I use a cheap K40 laser off of Ebay, I design using Inkscape and import the finished file to the K40 whisperer program that you get with thre laser. Pretty easy. I am trying to perfect the painting of the Panels. I use a gray form Home Depot.
IIRC, the translucent acrylic is usually called "opal" acrylic.
Oh, and Polycarbonate isn't any kind of acrylic - it's polycarbonate - a different plastic altogether.
Thanks for the info!
Thanks for the video! I also own a K40 and spray painted the white 3mm Acrylic Opal with Gray Spray Paint (1 Layer). When I wanna engrave into the spray painted side, letters are becoming black. I could swipe it away but it will not look great. Tested with different settings. 5mA/200mms and more. Which Layers of spray paint do you have? Will test with two white Spray Paint layers, then gray and then test. Hoping, that I only burn the gray layer and the white spray paint will get visible.
I do not use white spray paint. Sounds like the paint you are using might be the issue. When you cut or engrave with no paint do you still get black burn?
So you recomend white (not transparent) acrylic with 30% transmission, is that right? How thick it has to be to prevent deformation when pressing buttons on lets say 1m wide panel? What type of gray paint you use on that acrylic to be easily engraved? Thasnks :)
I will include all these questions in the next video. I will try to have it out early next week. You will need to use a combo of white & clear. The white being the top layer and the bottom layer clear. I will explain how yo cut these so that switches will be able to be added without any issue. I will also cover the painting process.
what is the brand name of the proper acrylic ????
You cam use any brand with 30% transparency
is acrylic toxic? 4:53
The fumes released from lasering acrylic is toxic yes
Thanks! Will try that acrylic from HD - almost more importantly, what did you use to paint the panels (spray? which RAL code)?
I just moved so most my supplies are still packed up. If you can watch my other videos where I take you step by step how to make them, I show you the can of paint and color.
Beware about lasering Acrylic due to the Damage to your Laser and the Poison Gas.
Hello aaron, is there a good way for me to use acrylic panels and make something similar to what you made without using a laser? I do not have a laser and in my city there's no place which allows laser for non employee/professional use.
You can do the same thing with the CNC router
@@AaronWerner Thank you for the reply. I will consider finding how to use and get one.
Which software used for designed
www.scorchworks.com/K40whisperer/k40whisperer.html
and inkscape for the design
I’d recognize a CRJ cockpit anywhere haha
Amen!!!!! Thanks for stopping by!
Do you know where I can download aviation CNC Router projects?
I do not. I would hit up some facebook groups. I had to scan the CRJ from the poster and rebuild it so I know mine are not 100% accurate considering I had to take some liberty in the creation process. Close but not 100%
Do they make acrylic panels that already have a layer of black on them that can be etched? Would be able to avoid the spray painting of panels
Not that I am aware of but if you discover any, please come back to this video and post a link.
@@AaronWerner Hey Aaron, I noticed if you watch the video "a sim is born" by twin sim.eu a little after 2 min you see him peeling a very thin matte paper and sticks on to the acrylic. I paused the vid and it called gravograph all know as gravotech. I just don't know exactly which product it is from gravotech. I emailed them hoping they could tell me because it's definitely the way to go. Cut your acrylic then laser cut through the gravograph and stick it on. No painting needed
@@Rotor-Sims very cool. when you know more, please post here. I would love to try it out.
@@Rotor-Sims I was thinking just that, I noticed his burn marks from the smoke on his work. I had that issue with paint but had to apply the air to get rid of it. Do you know if they have multiple colors? Any gray colors?
nice work mate. I am in the process of building the panels for the C172 sim. Be keen on see how you go with the laser on next video.........
I am going to record that today. Any particular questions that I should cover in the video
@@AaronWerner thanks Aaron. Probably some of the settings tips for the K40 used to achieve cutting vs engraving. Look forward to seeing it.
hi Aron, nice video? could you share the power used and the speed used by your k40 laser? i mean according with the thickness... to cut and engrave?
Thanks this info i will waste less time and material 😊
@@sandroape I use full power to cut. I do the engraving about about 60-70% power. When cutting I had to do a couple passes at 10 speed. Engraving I do at 100 and only 1 pass.
THX for sharing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GREAT stuff from you!!! Cheers :)
Hey, that is really cool, how do you make the 2D model with the writing etc. because it looks absolutely spot on?
This is part of a series of videos, If you check out the videos on my channel you will see how I walk you through each step of the process.
wow, what type of laser printer do you have? I would like to print my own panel builds and have them back-lit. do you also have to have a 3D printer too? and does your laser etch-printer cut through different colors of backlighting lenses. not sure how all this works but this is what im after.
I have a k40, no you do not need a 3d printer. If you check my other videos, I explain the process and show you my setup.
Do you have a link to that falken plexiglass on Amazon?
Honestly you can use any plexiglass that has the 30% Translucent material. I started ordering it directly from my local glass company. I found very little difference between the expensive sheets on Amazon and a local store.
Let’s assume I have created all of the panels and bought all of the knobs and stuff. How would I wire all of it to work with MSFS2020
If you look at my other videos they explain how you program them using arduino, joystick controls, FCUIPC, mobiflight. These are 4 things you must understand in order to connect all the hardware to the sim. FSUIPC is a plugin for Flight Simulator, it allows you to assign button presses, switches, and more to functions of the aircraft. So for example, if you purchased a joystick controller card-connected your hardware to it and plugged it into your computer, FS will recognize it as a joystick. You open FSUIP and go to button assignments. You press a button on your flight panel and then assign it to a function in the aircraft. That is the simplest explanation. It is not always that easy. Some items will require you to setup LUA scripts, Macros, etc. Mobiflight works with Arduino and is a "Point and Click" type software. It writes all the code for you for the Arduino. You do not need to have any programming knowledge to use it. I would recommend you do a deep dive into the above-mentioned resources. Pick a very very simple process for your first panel. Something like an on/off switch and start there.
@@AaronWerner Thanks! I’ll be learning about arduino, joystick controls, FCUIPC, and mobiflight. These will be researched and I’ll learn how to use them to connect them to interact properly with the simulator. Thanks!
Can we see your final cockpit build?
I am not sure if any sim build will ever admit to being done...lol. I am wrapping up the backlighting on my panels. As soon as I complete that and get everything back into the bird, I will publish a video. I am also in S. Utah so if anyone ever wants to take a flight let me know.
thanks for the informative video
Your Welcome!
Could you tell me the font your using for the engraving please, looking good man 👍👍
Sans Serif
@@AaronWerner thanks for that much appreciated 🤙
The font used in A-10C Warthog is MS33558.ttf You can google it and download it.
thanks, helpful'
where's that second video man
i gots blueballs
lol- Man my garage got super hot (like 10,000 degrees) I live in Southern Utah. Now that it is cooling off, I will get out there and knock it out. Any specific questions you have that you want me to cover on it?
I think the clear over the grey looks horrible. You're just going to get fingerprints everywhere and I don't really get the point of it? Especially because it is a simulator of an actual thing which doesn't do that method
That was just an example. I preferr the method I did, where it is not covered by the clear. Thanks for watching!
How many mm? This acrylic? The one that is better for the simulator
see minute 4:44 it has the details on the label. Thanks for checking out the video