My Airbus A320 flight simulator for home is getting pretty complete (photo towards the end), and recently my ECAM (Electronic Centralized Aircraft Monitoring) panel from WinCTRL (formerly WinWing) arrived and the panel I planed to mount it on in the pedestal is a steel ventilated 19” rack mount panel. I attempted to put a cutout in the grille to mount the panel (what an unmitigated disaster!) I could have tried milling it on my Tormach but sheet metal tends to mill poorly (although honestly couldn’t have been worse than cutting it with a Dremel!) So I needed a new panel that fit the ECAM panel. Originally I was going to 3D print the panel, but even my large Prusa XL can only print a half-panel, and while some of the other panels are in fact 3D printed this way with a flange in the middle to be bolted together, the flange wouldn’t work here since the ECAM panel is centered on top between the MCDUs (the flight computers). So thick acrylic was the goto material. Luckily I just exported the 3D printed surface as a DXF to keep the screw holes in the right place, and converted that to SVG then put the cutout in the middle for the panel.
the acrylic cutout panel. I only had clear thick proof grade so took a few layers of black spray paint before putting the Airbus RAL 5014 blue-gray spray paint (it’s actually 3-part automotive paint, which is expensive enough, because I can’t imagine what actual Airbus paint would cost!).
And now mounted. When I first tried it, I found that the panel is surprisingly flexible over that span so I printed some stiffeners and CA glued them to the back.
That is a very impressive setup you’ve got there! It’s all way above my head, but I do like how you describe and show your process. Thank you so much for always sharing your work with us!
Today’s project was finishing the captain’s emergency oxygen mask (cosmetic but not functional in any way). The oxygen masks on the Airbus, Embraer and Boeing aircraft is made by Eros. On Ebay even a janky used one is almost $700 and a new condition one is $3500. These masks are extremely complex and as a doctor I would call them a BiPAP mask since they are positive pressure since at 41000’ the low pressure means even 100% oxygen is insufficient, so the mask includes a high pressure regulator, similar to what is in a SCUBA/SCBA unit. The model in the Airbus has an integrated smoke goggle set, and today’s project was making the smoke goggle. I 3D printed a buck the shape of the lens with a small inset around the edge for mounting.
Here is the 0.5mm PETG sheet in the vacuformer over the buck (That is putty smoothing out the layer lines).
