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Christopher's Web Site
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Date: 12-27-2015
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Number of Hours: 7.00
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: New Instrument Panel
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I have to say that I am completely impressed that I was able to pull this off! I love the way this new panel came out. As you may remember from earlier logs, my buddy Tom laser cut an extra panel for me to use, but I have elected to add 4 additional gauges to my helicopter and needed to redo the panel layout.
I’ve been playing with exactly what I wanted and where I wanted it, so the final layout is not by accident. In addition, there were little tweaks that I wanted to make in regards to hole spacing, and this was the perfect time to make modifications. The small changes I made were: 1. Move the GPS away from the lower corner a little, 2. Move the indicator lights down towards the GPS in order to make room for labeling, 3. Move the 2 1/4” holes towards the GPS in order to clear the mounting brackets on the pod, 4. More precisely install the cutouts for the gauges with knobs since the laser cut panel did not exactly match the gauges, and 5. Reduce the size of the holes that hold the gauges to the panel because they were a bit oversized. You can see some of these changes in the side-by-side photo.
I used a special instrument punch that I bought for about $140 that can cut standard 3 1/8” holes and 2 1/4” holes through aluminum up to 1/8” thick. I will also need to use this on the console for the two quad gauges. For the attachment holes, I used an instrument hole gauge that I picked up at OSH this summer. Both tools made this a lot easier than it could have been. The remaining cuts were done with a jig saw and files. It is a ton of work, but the file allows you to take it slow since even one mistake could tank all your efforts. I still need to cut out the Hobbs meter location, but that doesn’t arrive from Safari until this week.
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Layout and pilot holes
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Chris vs Laser!
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Just need the Hobbs meter cutout
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