daveblueozzie

 

I had the same idea as you!! Add the LED's later...... This is what happens...

 

I am the creator of this wonderful project....... It is my parents' layout "Pfaffenbrucke", first of all, let us start with the original 'semi' neat version of the panel....

 

 

Here you see the front side, which was produced on a laminated A3 sheet of paper by our local printing shop. This was then attached to the Perspex lid of the panel using aerosol photo adhesive.

 

 

Here you see the underside....

 

 

And finally, here you see the inside.....

 

BUT............Then I decided I wanted "Pretty lights" !!!!!

 

OOOOOps.......... That was not a bad idea......but it certainly spoiled the aesthetics of the panel.....

 

Now let us see the result of adding LED's......

 

 

Here we see the 'new improved version' of the panel lid.....

 

 

However the depth of the panel did increase almost by double to accomodate the extra circuitry to drive the LEDS

So now we move on to the inside of the panel......

 

 

Not looking quite so neat now....

 

And finally the overall view of the inside of the panel....

 

 

There is however 1 positive aspect of such a scary looking panel........and that is.....it disaudes would be wannabe faultfinders from 'dabbling'!!!!

 

And to conclude this story, there is further work currenly underway to make this layout a 'one man' operation, as we are currently adding the fiddleyard control panel onto the main control panel....... Of course this will also include the necessary 'pretty lights'!!

 

So you see, there is no "right way" or "wrong way" to build a control panel......So long as it does what you wish it to do.......That is all that matters....

 

I wish you well with your future projects...

Source: Control Panels - show us yours