I have the design of the gauge panel pretty well finished. The circles around the perimeter mark where either bolts or welded studs will fasten this panel into a cut out original panel. I'll probably do studs because that will allow me to use filler and make it look like one piece.







A larger view of the indicator light concept.







I picked up some LED's from fry's to play with. Apparently there's more to them as one blew almost immediately and the other was getting hot. Anyhow, they are available in several different colors which will simplify things. With a clear lens, the color is quite rich. This will eliminate the need for colored lenses and I think a clear lens will look better against a white background.


Lawrenceville, GA

Charley, LED's are made to operate on 4-5 VDC so a dropping resistor is required. They are also polarity sensitive. Its been so long since I worked with any I don't remember the exact voltage or what polarity the identifed terminal is.

http://ford-y-block.com 

20 miles east of San Diego, 20 miles north of Mexico

That's exactly what it is. The instructions on the packaging weren't clear to me but a visit to the manufacturer's website cleared it up.


Lawrenceville, GA

Looks nice Charlie, I like the asymmetry.

       A  L  A  N   F  R  A  K  E  S   ~  Tulsa, OK    

I am very pleased with the layout. I normally like symmetry but 3 big ol gauges would have been too much. And there's room to spare! I do wish I could have had all of the gauges be the same brand and series.

Ford really ruined any chance of symmetry without major work. The gauge panel is sorta tapered. I think it's about 1/4" difference from one side to the other.

I just finished printing my test template on some scrap paper. Now I'm going to print it on the heavy stuff which will be used to transfer to steel.


Lawrenceville, GA

And the template is finished.







The heavier paper shrinks the drawing slightly along the X axis for some reason. I'll have to take note of that for future templates and keep it in mind when I'm cutting this piece out. I verified it against my test print out and my final draft of the instrument panel outline.



Edit: It was about .090" off which will throw my clearances way out of whack. So I scaled X by 1.004 and now it looks right.


Lawrenceville, GA

I got new LEDs and appropriate resistors. The blue one is a nice shade of blue but it might end up being too bright. The shade of the green one is not quite what I want and it might be dimmer than I need for the daytime. They are different, maybe different series; the blue one is clear but when illuminated is blue. The green one is green when not illuminated. I'm also doing my preliminary testing with a 9v battery so they'll probably be brighter when used as intended. Comparing the brightness of these on paper is not as straight forward as comparing bulbs. With a bulb you just look at the wattage. With LEDs you consider the intensity and beam angle. So a more intense but smaller angle LED can be as bright as a less intense, larger angle LED. Welcome to the world of electronics, I guess.

So tomorrow, I'll swing by Fry's to see if there is a different green and a dimmer blue. If not I'll work with those I have and deal with it later.

Now I need to adjust my drawing according to the pitch of the prototyping board so that the LEDs are centered with their respective symbols. ...That will most likely mean I have to print another template.


Lawrenceville, GA

Lookin good Charley!. Have you found what causes the heavy paper to shrink? Heat from the printer?

You might be able to dim the blue one with a higher value resistor. But eventually you will reach a threshold voltage where it probably won't light at all. I know you can run them at less than design voltage. It will increase life and run cooler but I don't know how much it will dim.

Sounds like an interesting project.

http://ford-y-block.com 

20 miles east of San Diego, 20 miles north of Mexico

I'm sure my printer isn't designed for this paper. I think it is affecting the feed speed. If it goes through the printer slower than necessary it will shrink the drawing... I think. I used three pieces of paper so it looks like about .030" per page.


Lawrenceville, GA

Ah yes. Another night that I won't get to sleep early.



Here is my plan for the light panel.







The block in the center will be a white plastic. I figure that will help make the lights as bright as possible.

I'm thinking that the back piece will be aluminum and there will be a thin gasket of some sort between that and the block. The LEDs have thingies so that they can be mounted to a panel and they will fit in the 3 larger holes of the aluminum part. And the two smaller holes are for fastening to the instrument panel. I'm also planning to support the circuit board with the same fasteners and some spacers just thick enough so that the board is supported but not under tension.

The front is going to be clear. I just gave them color to make the rendering a little more dramatic. The plan is to use printer labels to print my templates, figure out some way to stick them to some polycarbonate and have them lined up properly, paint it white, then peel of the stickers. This part will be glued carefully to the white part.


Lawrenceville, GA