I have thought about this and am all out of idea's, I have adopted the photoshop method to produce my front panel layout which someone suggested last time I asked about this topic and it works very well, however I am stumped when it comes to providing the calibration marks for the front panel rotary controls, how do I get the Cal marks in the right place prior to actually glueing the template design to the panel so that the start of the rotation lines up with the start mark.....sorry not very good at describing this

Neil.

 

I have only used Photoshop in a limited way but not sure if there is a way to set degree's exactly?
I usually use a CAD program which is very precise.
Also to make a front panel, reverse engraved Lamacoid gives many options including various colours.
Max.

 

ok Thanks

i'm going to make a pretty backdrop to the controls and manually make my cal points.

Neil.

 

If you are creative, you may be able to use Excel with a radar graph or similar radial co-ordinate system.

Once drawn, you can past it into the rest of your front panel image.

 

I'm doing just this thing this weekend (a little home- OT for a work project) where I have some rotary switches to number the positions.

My solution is always to use an engineering tool such as AutoCAD so the workspace is in real inch increments and I can rotate objects by exact amounts. So rotary switches with 30 degree spacing get hash marks at 30 degrees. Temporary layout lines are also used as "snap to" markings so text can be placed in the same relative places on each stop.

While I'm blessed to have a copy of AutoCAD on hand I'm sure there is also some freebie open source program anyone can get and use for this.

 

For more than 15 years, up to now, always Corel Draw. There are tools allowing drawing circular masks, with degrees marks and text to suit.

What I am not sure is about the techniques to "fix" the printed thing to the panel.

 

What I am not sure is about the techniques to "fix" the printed thing to the panel.

I just buy 8 1/2 by 11" label paper (full sheet one label) and place that down. It helps to first put a blank sheet down to get white-white (the paper is slightly transparent).

Then I cover it in a sheet of clear contact paper.

PAC-TEK makes some boxes with a sunken area that work very wekk with this method.

 

I do something similar to the above, but I use carpet tape, which is extremely sticky, then the printer (laser printer in my case). To protect the paper I then use clear shelf paper.

For text I just a labeler, they truly are a God send for hobbyists.

 

Once upon a time, I removed an OEM pot label with 320 degree hash marks and numbers, scanned it, and returned it. Since then I have had that digital copy; I changed it up a bit to avoid any copyright infringement that might apply. I used it several times, and I would share it with you know, except I recently lost that HDD. Actually, I think I may have shared that file before on this site, not sure. If you search you may find it or something like it.

 

Here is a before and after using Lamacoid.
Max.

 

Characterise your pots by testing. A lot of them these days rotate X degrees, but the actual resistive element is quite a bit less than X degrees, with largish dead zones at the end limits.

 

call me nostalgic but I prefere the before version lol

Neil.