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Where to have instrument panel cut?
Where is the most cost-effective place to send a panel design for manufacturing?
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Why not do it yourself? If you can build a plane you can build your panel.
Carl |
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But, to answer your question ........... Stein does them. http://www.steinair.com/ Up North does too. http://www.upnorthaviation.com/contact-me.html I think Aerotronics does them. http://www.aerotronics.com/ I think Walt also. http://www.expaircraft.com/L-3.htm Just to start the list. Check yellow pages for water jet cutting shops in your area-----wherever that happens to be. |
You definitely can do it yourself. I elected to use Upnorth Aviation http://www.upnorthaviation.com/
Less than $200 and he worked with me back and forth until I had a layout I was happy with - and since it was all CNC-cut everything fit perfectly. I'm sure had I done it myself I would have made 1 mistake somewhere that I would be staring at the rest of my flying life...I used xpanel software to do the layout. Chris |
Up North for mine - same results as above.
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Water Jet
I designed my own using Visio, converted it to a CAD file and paid a local water jet place $100 to cut it out. Turned out exactly as intended.
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I've just had one cut. I found a local sheet metal fabricator with CNC laser cutting (Eclipse in Redwood City).
I planned it out in CAD and sent them an iges file. They cut it all for $100 cash including the #6 screw holes with nice clean edges. I had been quoted $300 for water jet, possibly a slightly better kerf, but I was very happy with the result. |
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Then email it to a water jet shop and you'll be amazed at the precision you get for about $100. There is a radius minimum with WJ, but its pretty small and shouldn't be a factor. Example: I have a few 1/4" switch holes in the panel, they were drawn and cut with the anti-rotation tabs. These are very small and turned out functional but less than perfect. For everything else its fantastic, takes about 20 min to cut. BTW, laser CNC shops near me agreed to do it, but said with aluminum there would be a slag mess to clean up when done, and suggested WJ instead. Tim Andres |
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I use a laser shop in Orlando and they do superb work. Everything comes fitting perfectly. It needs to start as a good CAD file, though. Laser is MUCH cleaner than water jet. I have used both, and after using the laser shop, I wouldn't even consider using water jet again.
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