Control Panel Questions

[jmcginley]

I'm trying to start the process of building a Control Panel, but I'm just confused on how to get a template to start cutting.

If I plan to have some sort of artwork that corresponds to joystick and button placement, will an artist do the layout as well as the artwork for me? OR will I have to get on photoshop or some other CAD program to create a blank template to scale and send that to the artist to put the graphics on top of?

I have zero confidence in my ability to create a control panel template that will be evenly laid out and to proper scale (unless there is some dummy proof program out there that I don't know about).

[Vigo]

I suppose it depends on who you go with for art. I'm sure many individuals here could build you an art piece and build control placement right into it for you as long as you provided the dimensions of the panel and the controls you wanted. Probably even throw a cutting template version in as well.

That being said, if you have too complex of a control panel shape, you would probably have to provide a measured diagram of the panel dimensions for them to start with as a base.

[severdhed]

i've made many controls panels over the years, but my latest one was the first one i did artwork for.  i saw many examples of people with awesome graphics surrounding their controls, but i know that if i was off but a just a little, it would drive me nuts seeing it off center.  so i opted for artwork that filled the panel, but didn't require pinpoint precision.  The shape of my panel was pretty basic, so I took some measurements and made a full size (46"x18") 300dpi photoshop file.  I laid it out with guides and used button/joystick/trackball images that were sized to the proper scale to lay out my buttons on the panel in photoshop, then just removed those layers before printing it. (I actually made the image an inch larger than the panel in both directions so i had 1/2" of bleed area around the edges.

as for the drilling/cutting.  i went old fashioned and used a ruler, square, pencil and compass to mark out of the holes and drilled them, i didn't use any paper templates.  once the holes were cut in the wood and plexiglass,  i placed a bright light inside the control panel box so the hole locations were visible through the graphic overlay.  i lined it up the paper overlay, cut out the holes with an xacto knife, then placed the plexi on top, inserted a few pushbuttons to hold everything in place, then trimmed around the outside.

[jmcginley]

Thanks for the info. I was able to get Brad Bowman to send me a template of a CP that I can at least use to cut and whenever I've decided on a theme I can send that to the artist. Thanks Lucian045 for being so helpful!