grjtucson

grjtucson

Well Known Member
Hi All,

Starting to plan the panel and although I'm a full-on computer geek, I want to use cutout pics and the actual panel to play with alternatives...

...so I need pics of stuff & their dimensions (so I can print them accurately).

I've searched the forums and the web and haven't hit a treasure trove yet, but would love to. The alternative is going to a lot of different vendor sites and compiling what I need, which I'll do if I have to but would really prefer a shortcut and I suspect what I need is already out there somewhere.

In any case, I will happily create a "treasure trove" and make it available on my website once compiled - it may not be the first or the only but it'll be another.

If you have link(s) to any post(s) or site(s) that have lots of downloadable .jpg's, .gif's, or really any other format, that'd be great.

If you have scanned pics or anything on your computer, please email me, I'd love to get copies.

Lists of dimensions would be marvelous too.

george - at - georgejenson.com

Specifically, I'm looking for:
- GRT Horizon + EIS
- Dynons Big & Small
- AFS Big & Small
- MGL / Stratomaster Engima, Odyssey, & the new one being planned
- Garmin 496 in a dock
- Garmin SL-30, SL-40, GNS 430, GNS 480, 300XL
- Garmin GTX 320
- Garmin GMA 340
- TruTrak Autopilots both Square and Flat
- AK-450 ELT switch panel

Anything else is most welcome and I'll gladly include it as a resource for others. If you want to Zip all of what you've got and email it to me, I'll sort through it and save you the time.

Thanks in advance!

George
 
Panel Planning

You will also want to plan for all your switches, circuit breakers, indicator lights, control pushrods (like cabin air/heat if any), air vents, Hobbs meter, ELT remote mini-panel, etc. Anything that will need you to cut a hole in the panel.

...Bill
 
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Proably not the easiest way...

I've been doing this too (isn't everyone?). Using plain paper cutouts doesn't give me a good enough idea what the panel will really look like so I came up with a compromise between having real life sized cutouts and just using plain paper.

My method:
1) Find a pic of the instrument on the company website
2) Cut and paste the pic into MS Word
3) Crop it down to just the face of the instrument
4) Right click on the pic, select "Format Picture", select "Size", uncheck the "Lock Aspect Ratio" box and put in the actual dimensions of the instrument as provided by the manufacturer.

I'm sure a similar process can be used with other software.

Not perfectly accurate, occassionally a bit distorted but good enough for me to get my panel looking like I want it.

Jim McChesney
Tucson, AZ
-7A finishing kit
 
Check out ePanelBuilder.com. They have templates for the RV panels and a lot of the most popular instruments. They used to have a free trial site but I believe you have to pay to play now. I put together these sketches in a few minutes:
avioni1.jpg
 
Print, rescale, cut and stick it on!

George,

This is how I did it, took me less than an hour to do the entire panel!:

Go to the website of your preferred vendors, click on the images of the items you are considering and print them. Ones you have a print you can measure it and rescale it to the actual size, (which you will also find on the vendors website), using the zoom-function of a copy machine (even the most simple home- printer/fax/scanner/copiers can do that). Than you cut them out and tape em on your panel. You can copy a few at the time so you can play around with them or use some heavier paper.

Dynon do ?actual size? pictures on their website, that you can print out for this purpose! Maybe some other vendors have them also, but I did not bother to find them. Rescaling was simple anyway.

Have fun
 
KISS

Norman CYYJ said:
Just get the sizes for everything that you want to install and make paper cut outs. Cheap fast and works.
Click to expand...
Amen brother.....your idea of simplicity works for me! I just print out actual size images from various websites then paste em onto cardboard backing and with plenty of scotch tape, play mix and match while sitting in the cockpit making airplane noises. :D


 
Thanks so far...

Big thanks to Gil A and Brad Vier for emailing in their pics. Anyone else that has a folder full of them on their hard drive, I can handle duplicates with no problem.

Just get the sizes for everything that you want to install and make paper cut outs. Cheap fast and works.
Click to expand...

Norman, that's what I'm doing, I'm just trying to save time by getting what others already have before I start making my own :)

You will also want to plan for all your switches, circuit breakers, indicator lights, control pushrods (like cabin air/heat if any), air vents, Hobbs meter, ELT remote mini-panel, etc. Anything that will need you to cut a hole in the panel.
Click to expand...

Bill, absolutely. For much of this stuff I can use a plain paper cutout since I don't need the detail of a switch to see how I'll interact with it. For the big stuff, I want the pics so I can see how I'll handle button pushing, etc.

Not perfectly accurate, occassionally a bit distorted but good enough for me to get my panel looking like I want it.
Click to expand...
Jim, This is exactly what I'm doing, I'm just trying to get files that have already been created as a work saver. I'll compile everything I'm provided into one resource for those that follow.

Check out ePanelBuilder.com
Click to expand...
Jorge, I've played a lot with EPB and like it, I just want to do the final on a life size panel that I can interact with.

This will help if you are planning on using any round gauges.
Click to expand...
Marvelous Mike, thanks!

This is how I did it, took me less than an hour to do the entire panel!:

Go to the website of your preferred vendors <snip>
Click to expand...
Pilotonny, this is exactly my plan, I'm just casting a net first to folks such as yourself that have already surfed many vendor sites and have the already downloaded pics on their hard drives. For any that I don't get this way, I'll surf to get myself. If you've got a folder full on your hard drive, how about zipping them up and emailing them?

Amen brother.....your idea of simplicity works for me! I just print out actual size images from various websites then paste em onto cardboard backing and with plenty of scotch tape, play mix and match while sitting in the cockpit making airplane noises.
Click to expand...
Rick, exactly my plan, I am just getting the images from others first to save myself the surf/download routine for stuff I know is already out there. Again, I'll build a web page for all this stuff to make it easy on the next folks.


Soooo, if you've got a folder full of images on panel items on your computer, feel free to zip them up and attach them to an email to:

george -at- georgejenson.com

No need to sort them or try to figure out what I need or don't, I'll build a full on archive for public access and publish the link here.

Thanks all,

George
 
Laminator

I printed all my pics on paper, in color, and then laminated them. The first time around, I had so many tape marks I couldn't tell which instrument was which :)
I got a cheapo laminator and sheets from Harbor Freight Aviation Supply for about $20. Now I can move things around all I want. I imagine I'll go through 30 or 40 drafts of my panel before I finally decide how I want it.
 
Since you are a computer geek you probably have access to MS Visio. All of the listed manufactures have hi res pictures of the instruments on their web sites. Copy them from the respective web pages and past them into Visio. In Visio, size them to the published dimension and adjust to your hearts content. This is how I did my panel.

It dosen't say what you are building but here is a Visio file for an RV-10 panel with AFS EFIS.

My Panel Page.
 
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