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Gauging Interest in Custom Engraved Rocker Switches (similar to Aveo RockRack)

Hmmmm...metal switch tops instead of the plastic ones...?

Anodized in various colors and LASER etched with the icons? :)
 
I ordered some Carling switches as well as a RockRack (APEM) switch. I'll compare the quality and brightness, then decide on which ones to use.
 
Interested too...

CubedRoot said:
I will get some photos snapped of the covers I ran so far (even the melted ones for fun!) and post them for you folks to review and feedback on.
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Hey Lynn, I too am interested in seeing some pictures as well as buying some switches - I will be watching this thread for the upcoming info! :)
 
CubedRoot said:
Magento Commerce: http://www.ftfw.net/magento/
PrestaShop: http://www.ftfw.net/prestashop
OSCommerce: http://www.ftfw.net/oscommerce/
TomatoCart: http://www.ftfw.net/tomatocart/
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...not OSCommerce, IMO. At least, don't make your site look anything like any of the default templates.

Or if you want just the cart end, but not a complex "store" -- I've been impressed with these folks over the years...single page checkout: http://www.foxycart.com (It's a bit of a different approach...don't use them now, but did for a project. Was happy.)
 
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I passed all the info along to Lynn as he bought a laser engraver. However, I haven't heard from him in a few months now. I didn't follow up with Apem too much to see if we could buy the switches, but I could look back into it. A lot of interest for these, and I thought that Lynn was right there with getting them done. I'll reach out to him again to see if he's still planning to do it. If not, I'll take back up the effort.
 
Yeah sorry guys. Lynn disappeared completely, not sure what happened. I did talk to Aveo and they state the switches are being redeisned and will be in production late this year. We'll see....
 
majuro15 said:
Yeah sorry guys. Lynn disappeared completely, not sure what happened. I did talk to Aveo and they state the switches are being redeisned and will be in production late this year. We'll see....
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Yes...as a smaller size. So that doesn't help with the current-sized Rockrack covers. Bummer. Good thing I have lots of spares LOL!
 
Im still here.... I had some "life events" come up that is taking up a big poriton of my time as of late. New job, trying to find a new home, MBA, and training for the new job, etc.
I just havent had any free time to spend on the laser. It's kind of sad to see this nice laser sitting on my desk, not being used.
I am hoping things will settle down soon enough for me to spend some time on this again.
 
RV7A Flyer said:
Yes...as a smaller size. So that doesn't help with the current-sized Rockrack covers. Bummer. Good thing I have lots of spares LOL!
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Talking with the guy at Oshkosh, they don't have any molds made or any engineering drawings yet. He didn't think they'd have anything ready to ship for a solid year.
 
I'd be happy to do a few covers for folks just to get some feedback, and help me refine my design before I start offering them for sale.

I have been holding off doing it as a full fledged business until things settle down here at home (I am knee deep in SAP Hana deployments at work). But I would be happy to do some for you guys in the thread as long as I can get some good constructive feedback. I have some free time on the weeknends, so I could do them and send them out. I'd only do them at the cost of the covers.

If someone is willing to work with me, and in no big rush feel free to reply here, send me an email at [email protected].
 
I'd be happy to work with you and provide feedback. I'm a month or two from NEEDING switches, so it's a good time to test stuff out.
 
Lynn, good to hear from you! Hope things are going well at home albeit busy. Thanks for hopping back in the thread!
 
Aerosport Products switches are custom made for us from the manufacturer.
We have them built with LED's which are not available from other suppliers.
Our LED's are nice and bright and can be dimmed. We can custom laser
engrave them if wanted (additional cost) but we have found the way we label them is much better. We guarantee our switches for life of the aircraft.
We can do custom labeling for a small additional fee if needed.
We have sold many of these switches and they work well with the Vertical Power. They might not be too everyone's taste but they are more like a modern car type switch. Also not like the Aveo switches you can get exactly what you need for lettering. And they are a lot less expensive.

0_0_f61de0b8f02c0b1e6a855d4f24ef23e8_1


http://aerosportproducts.com
 
NovaBandit said:
I'd be happy to work with you and provide feedback. I'm a month or two from NEEDING switches, so it's a good time to test stuff out.
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NovaBandit, send me an email to lynn.dixon@gmail and we can get some details worked out. If you can send me a list of the switch covers you were needing I can go ahead and start working on the artwork, and send you some PDF's for review. Once we get a design you like, I can etch some covers and ship them to ya. Honest feedback would be much appreciated, and I welcome suggestions.


majuro15 said:
Lynn, good to hear from you! Hope things are going well at home albeit busy. Thanks for hopping back in the thread!
Click to expand...

I have been kinda lurking on the forums as time allows, but havent been very active. I am still subscribed to this thread, so when I saw the email come through someone had posted, I was like "OH COOL!". Things are going pretty good, just busy as heck. I got put on some really big projects at work that are very forward thinking for our company, and dove head in. I have been helping with a datacenter expansion design, (traveled all over the place looking for good locations), digging into Cisco UCS and learning about VCE vBlock. My portion also covers a fully hybrid VMware vCloud datacenter, so I have been having to learn some deep scripting using Orhcestrator. Then, during these huge projects, our CIO decided to deploy SAP Hana in our US and European business units, and since its running Linux, I was the guy they asked to help deploy it.

So, lots of really cool and expensive technology projects have been added to my plate since March, and I just havent had time to do anything but work and study for school. My life has been work, study for the MBA classes, and then reading through tons of whitepapers and documentation for all these new technologies.

We are wrapping up the SAP Hana project, and turing it over to the business units in a few weeks. The datacenter build out is in progress, so I am just keeping an eye on the contractors until completion, and the vCloud stuff is on hold until the datacenter is completed. Then we start the vBlock installations and the cloud buildouts. I am hoping to have my busy life settled down in a few months once these projects come to a close. It will be bittersweet, because they are a ton of fun to work on, but I am needing a break to work on some of my own personal projects....like the laser.

I did laser etch the top of my laptop with the company logo:
http://i.imgur.com/25CgjDT.jpg
And a closeup:
http://i.imgur.com/4hwXc3V.jpg

I get some neat comments when I open this thing up during meetings.

Sorry for the long winded post, but I wanted to give you guys an honest update.
 
To resurrect and kill an old thread, don't get your hopes up on these.

I have gone to the end of the world and back trying to get my hands on these switches to start reselling them all to no avail. The manufacturer won't sell them direct, won't reply to vendor's quote requests, and only DigiKey has a few in stock (red/red color only). Further more, I can't get anyone that can laser etch the caps with them looking anywhere close as good as Apem did.

So I'm finally giving up on this. I hate to admit defeat. Sorry to those who were holding out hope, but I tried!
 
FWIW I used these multi colored dimmable LED Rocker switches in my panel. To label them I used a label maker with black ink on clear tape. Then I sprayed a clear coat on them so they would look good and the label would not fall off. They look real nice, you can read the label on the switch and the color coding (they come in RED, GREEN, BLUE, AMBER and WHITE) is awesome. You can probably get them a bit cheaper if you search on line. I will take a photo when I get to my hangar and post it.

:cool:
 
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I can't remember if I posted this earlier in the thread, but as the original goal has been kiboshed by the manufacturer's lack of interest in making sales, I offer another alternative. Carling Switch makes a staggering array of options, listed here on their website:

http://www.carlingtech.com/rocker-switches-sealed

Digikey carries one of the simpler designs, here's an example of one of them:

http://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/V1D2B60B-A9C00-000/432-1095-ND/483667

I bought a few samples to evaluate and am very impressed. When I re-do my panel I plan to use them everywhere. They can be purchased with LED or incandescent lighting, and in a variety of poles and throws with latching and momentary operation.

(reading back a bit) It looks like the switches Aerosport offers above in post #67 are the same style as the ones I found. That would save the effort of doing your own labelling.
 
I tried the Carling switches, but found them to be quite dim. Maybe they have brighter models or the LEDs can be switched out?
 
grayforge said:
I tried the Carling switches, but found them to be quite dim. Maybe they have brighter models or the LEDs can be switched out?
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The samples I bought are completely disassemble-able. One of the local electronics shops carries a couple of them but with incandescent bulbs and I debated just buying them there and swapping in the LED's myself. I bought a couple so I could gauge how hard that would be and found that it would be pretty darned easy. But finding that Digikey had them with LED's already in made the point moot.

I do seem to recall a website somewhere that discussed the LED ones and how they have an internal resistor... You could swap that resistor for a lower resistance and boost the maximum brightness.
 
Well of course Murphy's law strikes again. No sooner did I finally post this than Apem calling me this morning with news they found all the lost artwork.

So who knows. I'm not holding my breath, but I have a guy now who knows me by name and is getting a custom quote together after we spent an hour on the phone talking about details.

I'll keep everyone posted one way or another.
 
www.newwiremarine.com does custom engraving of Carling Contura V actuators. They will sell you either the switch, or just custom engrave the actuators for you.

I know of another RV'r that sent them Rockrack artwork from the web, and they vectorized it, and did the engraving. So he was able to get his custom stuff done at the same time they used some "stock" artwork.

The results looked sweet, and were posted on VAF, but I can't find it right now.

Edit: *** Ha, talk about being lost! The thread was this thread, way back in the earlier pages! ***
 
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Hello, I am new to laser marking, I am a car enthusiast and want to engrave my own switches for the people in the 4x4 clubs I go away with. Can someone please point me in the right direction as to what machine will mark these switches?

I know the Fiber Laser machines will work but they are a few thousand above what I want to spend.

Will the 50w Co2 ebay lasers do the job?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I've spent a few weeks researching now and have not found a low cost machine that is sure to do the job.

Thank You
Ryan
 
toggle / rocker switches

Hi guys!
I'm designing the panel for my RV8 and it's hard to find an interesting switch...
Did you had any progress on finding an alternative to the Aveo Rock Racks?
I'm open to a nice toggle swith, military style... so far, the only ones that seem nice to me are the Honeywells TL series...
Rgds!
Alex
 
I ended up with Otto toggles and installed colored rubber tips on them. Nice quality. I also like the Honeywells.

DSC01508.JPG
 
Carling Rocker Switches

Thanks Guys,

I got in touch with newwiremarine, and they submitted me to their site for "custom" switches, sweet!!!
www.RockerSwitchPros.com
I could design using all the existing logos but one, and they can do the one I need on special order.
The only bad thing is they do not have Green led, don't know why... but I believe it should be pretty easy to replace by any led I want, even hi birgthness ones...

I guess this will be my choice if nothing else appears!

regards, Alex
 
I'm working on some CAD images with RockerSwithPros but haven't completed them yet. There are green LED's available from Carling, so other distributors may have them.

That Aveo panel looks pretty cool for the iPad generation. I'm sure there will be a string of posts complaining about their availability and customer service, not completely unwarranted. I don't think I'll be paying/praying for that little swipe panel in my plane, however.
 
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