Control Panel, Materials Other than Wood

[Marinewolfohbc]

Greetings folks,

Been hunting through the forums to see if people have built their own control panels/cabs out of anything aside from wood, and if so, what material?  I was debating making a control panel out of plexiglass, but every search I put forward always just comes back with using the fiberglass as a protective cover on the top of the panel.

So have folks done anything like this?  I'm looking to make a control panel for a friend, but need to ship it.  Wood is awfully heavy and expensive to ship, which is why I was looking at other materials.  So if you have thoughts, please let me know!  And if you've used other materials before, where did you pick them up and what was the specs on them? (1/4 inch plexiglass, etc).

[Raktageno]

A friend of mine works for an HVAC company. He was able to take the dimensions and button placement, and cut/bend a metal control panel. It's strong and probably lighter than wood, but not much.

[RandyT]

It's possible to make a very lightweight panel, with thin wood and some framing, but the density of the panel material is important, unless you want it to sound like a drum every time someone hits a button.

Acrylic has been done, but thicker pieces are extremely expensive, and the material is less forging if you don't have the proper know-how to deal with it. 

They do make some exotic plastics which are thick, strong and lightweight.  But they are also not cheap.  Look for things used in the sign business.

[mgb]

Metal

[lamprey]

You could make something out of fiberglass too. I don't much of an advantage, unless you wanted to make something that has some interesting shape to it.

[nitrogen_widget]

My dad has a sheet metal bender and dead washer/dryers are a great cheap source of metal sheeting for projects.

[surface tension]

We use aluminium for our panels, so they are pretty light. Should be fairly inexpensive to have laser/water-cut or punched. You then have plenty of finishing options such as anodising, powder-coating or painting.

[Vigo]

I'd think in most cases, if you are switching to another material to save on shipping, you would still be paying the cost in the bump in material cost price. (unless you had a source for used materials, like nitrogen mentioned used washer/dryers for sheet metal).

I would personally focus on using a lighter wood. Opt for plywood instead of MDF, throttle down to 1/2 thick instead of 3/4ths.

And maybe more details on what kind of control panel might help, too. Is this for something like a fight stick? If so, you can use a plastic project box as the base enclosure of the control panel. Then a sheet of hardboard over it. That is cheap and light.

[Marinewolfohbc]

Thanks for all the input guys.  Been helpful.

As to the type of panel -- two player, 6-8 buttons a piece with a track ball in the middle, little large because I'm going to fit the computer inside of the control panel so it can be hooked directly to a TV.