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Backlit switch labels

M

MTBehnke

Well Known Member
Received my cut panel yesterday and couldn't wait to try out the backlighting for the switch labels. They came out really nice.

Backlight.jpg


I have to credit Bret Smith for sharing the backlighting idea and Jim Wright for doing a great job water-jet cutting the panel. The placards are from Aircraft Engravers with ovals cut in the panel behind the lettering to let the light from the LED strips to shine through the placards.
 
Nice...

Nice and clean look. Do you have a pic of it all (front / back) in the daylight?

Thanks.
 
Here's a pic of the back side of the panel. The oval holes are aligned with the letters. The placards are adhesive-backed and you can see its pink protective plastic through the oval holes. The LED light strip and the aluminum channel I'll mount it in is right below the panel. It will run right above the switches.

Backside.jpg


Here's a pic of the front of the placards in daylight. You can't tell any difference between what will be backlit and what will not be.

Daylight.jpg
 
Now that is nice - very well done. I believe I'll be remembering that...
 
Sweet! Mike - what did that cost you for the placards? I looked on AE website, but didn't see the backlit type engraving, just the standard at 50 cents/word.
Thanks.
 
I refuse to be jealous...I back lighted my switches....but...that looks very very cool. Back in the day and even today I'm sure...switch cover plates on the fighters I worked on were made of plexi with the lettering engraved into the plexi and all but the lettering covered with a matte black finish. There were small wattage bulbs behind each panel that would illuminate the letters that were left uncovered by the black finish...yours looks great and very similar to the F-4, A-10 and F-16 switch layouts I worked on, cept "blue"!!
 
Carl,

I'm just using their standard matte placards shown on their custom placard page. They are thin enough that the lighting shines through nicely from the back. I'm using blue LED strips from superbrightleds.com.

I had five different placards, two with labels for the switches and the standard passenger warning at the end, one for my throttle bracket, one for the Gretz pitot heat LEDs and then my N-number. I don't have a breakdown of how they priced each of them so you'd need to call them for a quote.
 
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