[simpits-tech] A couple questions

[Brian Sikkema]

Hey all,

I'm hoping to start construction of some of my panels once I get home for the summer, so I have a couple of questions I'm trying to get answers to.

First off, a little picture, to help explain my questions:
http://www.me.mtu.edu/~bjsikkem/ma10_13.jpg

Now, first and foremost, I'm trying to decide what exactly to make the panel out of. As you can see, unlike a normal aircraft panel, the Merc's basically sat out in the middle of nowhere. In other words, it's supported in the center, not along the edges like an aircraft panel. It was also pretty large, one continuous peice for most of it. Therefore, it needs to be fairly strong and stiff, so pushing buttons, etc, on the outer edges won't result in me bending and flexing the panel. 

My thoughts right now are to make the panel out of cardboard and fiberglass it. Unfortunately the only hands-on experience I have with fiberglass is on model rockets, and in that case you have the cylinder of the body tube adding considerable strength - I'm not sure how strong it would be in a flat design like this. Anyone have any experience, good or bad?

Secondly, I'm trying to decide how to do the indicator lights. The red arrows in the picture are pointing to the lights I'm referring to. The top arrow is pointing to a light that has had it's cover removed. MA-10 has been quite thouroughly scavenged, which has been helpful in this case, allowing me to see how the light worked. You can see it has two red lights on the outside, and one in the center. The second arrow shows one with the cover still there. And then on the bottom, I've pasted in the indicator light graphic that we're using in Mercury 5.0, to give you an idea of the three states.

My questions are these: 1st, any suggestions on how to make the cover "boxes?" And 2nd, what material should I use for the front face? It needs to be translucent to allow the light through, and I also need to figure out some way to put words on the front. The graphic I've put on there is blank, but each of the lights had writing on the front face - Retro Seq, .05g, etc. etc.

As always, any and all help is greatly appreciated!
Brian

The ultimate responsibility of the pilot is to fulfill the dreams of the countless millions of earthbound ancestors who could only stare skyward and wish.




---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.676 / Virus Database: 438 - Release Date: 5/3/2004
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.simpits.org/pipermail/simpits-tech/attachments/20040505/63e1e0e3/attachment.html