My Announcer Panel

[388TH_A]

Here are some pics of my Announcer Panel. Any ideas on how to make the LEDs glow the panel better. And ill have to redo the paper with the words on it and make the background black or something... Also any thoughts on how to make the whole thing better all together?

http://ttd.g11.us/FSPics/FSBUS/Announcer/DSC03162.JPG
http://ttd.g11.us/FSPics/FSBUS/Announcer/DSC03167.JPG
http://ttd.g11.us/FSPics/FSBUS/Announcer/DSC03170.JPG
http://ttd.g11.us/FSPics/FSBUS/Announcer/DSC03171.JPG
http://ttd.g11.us/FSPics/FSBUS/Announcer/DSC03172.JPG


Trevor

[wojteku]

Hi
what IO card are you using for that?

[gokhotit]

you could take a sheet of styrene plastic and make each light an individual compartment, so there is no bleed over. Or do what I did and convert a real annunciator panel. They can be cheap on Ebay, and Its not that hard. Just my .02

[kiek]

building tips by Jeroen op den Akker (http://home.hccnet.nl/jwopdenakker/building%20tip.html)

[388TH_A]

Its for FSBUS. And i dont have access to a CNC so doing what i can with what i have. And thanks for that last post i like the first one for an idea. Maybe i can put some
plexiglass in between the other plexiglass and the pcb or something.

Trevor

[Buddym]

I would say to switch to diffuse, wide-angle LEDs as well. The ones I have using are referred to as 'straw-hat' and have a flat top. They are low profile and fit the same size hole as a normal T1 3/4 LED. In my annunciators I am building I have 2 of them in each compartment and the light is spread out MUCH better than with regular LEDs. I will try and post some pics in a while. I am still working out how to best make the front cap with the legend, but I have some laser-cut paper stencils that look great sandwiched between a peice of white printer paper and peice of clear plexi. For your panel we could get Skalari to laser cut the legends on a sheet of black construction paper (unless my pal will do it for us), then cut a compartmentalized section to go behind it and hold the LEDs on my CNC machine.

My brother made one like this using balsa wood. He is an RC flyer, so he just cut all the peices and glued them together and painted them, it works great.

I cut my housings from plastic, with mounting holes in the back, and a divider to prevent the light leaking to the other compartment. I am building the indicators for my landing gear lights, but other than different size the implementation should work for you too. Why don't you PM me and we can exchange emails...if you want you can send me a drawing and maybe I can cut something out for you that will work more to your liking. The CNC is a second hobby and I enjoy helping on other member's projects too, I get lots of help, nice to repay it to fellow members.

Buddy

[388TH_A]

Sent you a PM and are you talking about these lights? http://www.futurlec.com/Pictures/LED_FLUX.jpg http://www.futurlec.com/LED/LEDFLUXRED.shtml