Panel Test

Since we now have a new CNC, we can now professionally mill and engrave the Mustang’s panels.

But of course we have to do some testruns to see how it works, and what settings to use.

The following pictures show a testrun with the “oxygen control valve”-panel.

Obviously the engraving did not work perfectly, which is mainly caused by the wrong milling bit. I just ordered new bits so the next test should run smoothly.

But on the other hand, the look of the panel is amazing, just look at the surface. It looks and feels amazing. And also the backlighting works as expected (if only the engraving was better… 😉 )

 

CNC’ed Rotary Knob

The first “real” CNC-job our new machine did,
was a model of the Cessna Citation Mustang rotary knob you’d find on the lighting panel or on the temperature panel. 

These knobs are obviously not available to buy, so we have to make our own. The plan is to make a mold of the model and cast it with epoxy resin to get exact replicas.

We probably have to make another model slightly bigger than the original, because the epoxy resin shrinks while hardening. 

new CNC

Since the last blog entry much has happened. We sold our first CNC machine in exchange for another, bigger one. Maybe you’ve already heard from it. It’s a shapeoko 2 from inventables. This amazing thing has everthing one could wish for. It’s driven by an arduino, therefore I can operate it with my MacBook which is an immense plus. The workspace is way bigger than our old one, measuring approximately 30x40cm. It’s a much sturdier machine made from special aluminium extrusions called “makerslides”. Thanks to those, one could expand the machine up to 1x1m workspace! Anyway, we’re looking forward to work with the machine, so stay tuned for the next posts. 🙂