Searching for Panel templates

[trib]

Anyone know of a good website to print standard instrument templates out from? Looking for some to print and cut out to play around with on my RV-6A instrument panel. I'd rather use the old fashioned way instead of purchasing panel builder software to sit in front of the computer for additional days. I've tried the e-panel builder, but didn't see any function to print the instruments out in actual size.

[RV7Guy]

Just take your panel and make some poster board versions. Works great.

Darwin N. Barrie
Chandler AZ

[tinman]

I made my first panel out of plexi and mounted it in place. This allows an easier job of "seeing" potential interference issues which may crop up behind the panel. I used the cardboard mockups of the instruments and moved them around countless times until I had it where I wanted it. Once this was done, I had a couple of my airline/ air force buddies sit in front of it for a bit to see if they could improve upon the layout. A few subtle changes were made, and it was off to the races...
Tinman

[Bob Axsom]

I believe you know the process but are looking for templates of the actual instruments avionics etc. King Radio/Allied Signal ... put out a package years ago for "redesigning your panel" which of course featured King products and probably something has been put together by someone else that I certainly do not know about. I think your instincts are correct in using the hard model approach. I used different materials but my approach is the same as the other guys. I used stiff insulating foam sheet from Home Depot for my instrument panel and cardboard as the base for everything that goes on it - everything was drawn on paper and glued to the base material which also served as a stable pattern for cutting everything out. There are several things like Tinman pointed out that you have to include in your work.
- All of your behind panel obstructions have to be visible on the front of your blank instrument panel model (I drew mine on the instrument panel paper).
- You have to know the shape of everything on the back side of the panel relative to the portion exposed on the front side of the panel (think of the circuit breakers with a little round front exposure but a large rectangular backside of the panel space requirement. So your movable game pieces have to have the larger shape of the backside and the accurate depiction and location of the front side.
- You probably will have to choose where your main items must go as in six pack flight instrument layout and radio stack work out everything else to fit neatly and compactly into the rest of the panel.
- You will eventually have to add something to the panel so don't use space for the initial layout that you don't have to, leave some blank space in ways that you can cut and install later.
- Be prepared to change you schematic to use combination toggle switches/circuit breakers.
I thought long and hard about what I wanted and started buying the hardware in as small quantities as possible to get the configuration for my models (game pieces). It was expensive and time consuming but accurate and no gotchas poped up during the implementation.

Bob Axsom

[N316RV]

Go to different web pages and download .jpg images of what you want. You can get some of them from Aircraft Spruce's web page and others from the manufacturer's page. Just put the cursor on the image, right click and save image. Insert them in to Word. Adjust size by dragging corner grip until they are the correct size. Print, cut out, and you have fairly accurate images to play with on your panel.

[KTM520guy]

www.epanelbuilder.com

[Rick_A]

I created paper instruments mostly from .pdf images. Gulf Coast Avionics has an Avionics catalog in PDF format that you can download. I cut the pdf images and pasted them into a Word Document. Word has standard shapes (cirlces and rectangles) that you can size to to match the instrument size. I then stretched the pdf images in word to match the blank circles and rectangles that I created. I found that I got better resolution by enlarging the pdf images before I cut them from the catalog in order to minimize the sizing in Word. GCA doesn't have everything, I found some images on the manufactures sites. The final images are good for play with panel lay outs but far far perfect.