metalnwood

Had a look but one question. Who are they partitioning?

Similarly, a lot of places have makerspace, a place where you can go and usually pay a small monthly and then a small amount per minute for using a variety of machines. I believe Gadroc uses a place like that for his CNC needs, in fact.. just checking his website he uses this place. http://columbusideafoundry.com There is sure to be something within reach of you that is similar.

The online idea is not such a good one when I think about engraving etc. Ponoko for example have all the plastics but you can't paint them and then laser engrave away the writing. They dont have the lasermax type material to do it properly.. so it's a bit of a tough one to use an online shop, now I think more about it. If you adopt a process that requires cutting then you taking away the parts for painting then taking them back for engraving the costs will go up a lot as well. Anyway, check to see how much you can get done for what cost. Be realistic with them about how the process may go. I.e. dont lead them to believe it will be simple if you think they will have to do it piece meal while you paint or do things in between. Worst case doing that you may invest hundreds and then they tell you they are fed up and you have to find some way to finish it.. You get the jist...

That is true too, if you can find a local company that will cooperate with you. Some may and some may not. Paying commercial rates can cost you a lot to do the panels, especially with some trial and error. Finding some kind business who will help you out without charging you for every minute will be hard when you keep coming back for each panel. If you can find it then that's good but through many forums I know many people can't. BHawthornes advice is gopod and some research should be done on that front. Also, this is one company that has had a bit of marketing done on websites so the name is familiar, I dont know if their pricing is good or bad but it wouldnt hurt to put a panel in to their cost estimator and see what it tells you. If you can get 20x as many panels made for the cost of a reasonable laser then... http://www.ponoko.com

This one would be cheaper http://www.wklaser.com/product/11_191.html Out of the factory they are ready for good fume extraction. Mine has a 8" outlet and the blower clears the machine nicely, these would have similar. I think the one you listed from ebay will require modding to get it done well.

I asked for a price for it and the smaller 3040 http://www.wklaser.com/product/11_186.html I only just noticed that it is already in the UK so it includes your VAT already (I think?) From memory the one I first posted is around $2500usd, but more when VAT is applied. I am just suspicious of those very generic ones on ebay, no matter what the price.

Dont do it. I wouldnt pay that kind of $$ for a small chinese one like that. You are in the same $$ territory as this http://www.wklaser.com/product/11_190.html which is from a well know chinese maker whom I got mine and I know a number of other people have.

Cowboy, you can now play with settings until your heart is content :) There is a drop off in FPS when you span the cockpit over the touchscreen as you then have to create a viewport of around 6000x2000 which is 12MP rather than a common ~8000x1000 (8 MP) used for a helios config. I run with PLP so I use the resolution off all monitors but because of the orientation its ~ 4000x2200 which is nearly 9 MP but some way from 12. Re using helios. It's free so I would try it for sure but donate if you decide to use it! I prefer heiios when I have a profile. I set the headpoint in the lua so that I dont see two sets of mfd's/instruments when flying straight and level. When I dont have a helios profile then I do as PeterP and GregP. What I dont like the most is moving my head around with track ir to be able to find stuff. With a setup like PeterP and GregP I think snapviews would work really well to position the panels on the touchscreen.

Also, my machines are much bigger than the ones you are looking at. Mine were more plug and play. When you look at the forums you will see a lot of mods made to the basic lasers that increased the cost a lot to make them more functional. Gadroc has documented his changes in his thread. It sounds like he has a good laser out of it. While in theory possible to do aluminum on a small router I would want to see youtube, examples of a small machine you would get doing it. CNC routers can do it, mine rips through it but it weighs a couple of tonnes and has a 6 HP spindle to do the work. The smaller desktop machines will give you vastly different results that may not really make you put a +1 in the 'pro' column.

I have both machines, a cnc router and a laser. There is overlap with what each can do so while I might have a job that the router is capable of I may still use the laser instead or vice versa. There isn't much the laser can do that the router cannot do but the difference is in the quality - specifically when it comes to engraving and the speed of it. IF I had to have only one machine and it was to make cockpit panels then I would take the laser over the router. This is because it can cut the material, it can engrave it giving a professional look that the router cannot and it can do it a lot more quickly. Parts can be cut quickly without as much waste and you can cut inside corners squarely which can't be done with the router. You dont have to clamp your work on to the table. This is more important than you would first think. It saves a bunch of time and often material as well. The only downside is you cannot mill a panel from solid material, you need to cut layers of a panel from sheet (usually acrylic) and assemble them. No real problem with this method though. So, strickly for panel building - I would go with the laser.

Next posting will need to be dome in cockpit shots please :) Looking nice so far!

Just describe it and I will imagine what it looks like. Failing that a video!! edit: oops, too late to the party, a whole page of threads since then

No you cant do that. You can make the main view span across to the other monitor but you can't render independent views on it.

Oh, you're in Auckland. Small world. I am on the shore. Did running it windowed do anything?

I will just add that a Friend recently went from an 8500 to a i7 sandy bridge and saw his frames go from around 20 with lower settings to ~70 with high on a 7970 - food for thought :)

Oh, too bad, those settings are perfectly fine - I was hoping there would be something strange as I see you had two monitors I was thinking you may have been trying to span them with fullscreen on or some resolution setting that also crashes the game when you run it in fullscreen mode. Although your setting show me that it's not what I was thinking, do you get different results when turning off full screen?

It could be something simple, we need to know more about your setting first. Can you post a picture of your options/graphics settings.

You can make it look good but the sim doesnt use it.

I would be dead keen to see a bunch of existing lua configurations as I dont want to have to jump in and out of game, i.e. multiplayer to use a different target profile when jumping between aircraft.

I think I have seen that one advertised somewhere. Other than the large commercial ones, which would do the job perfectly fine for me if it wasnt for the price tag, I have only seen the results of repraps. The output from those told me that they could acheive the basic shape but would require filler and sanding to get what I wanted. I know a number of them can be milled on my CNC ok but I just havent got around to tryin, mostly because I have not tried to model the knobs yet. I have not seen close up pics from the cubify machine, do you know how it's output compares to a well made reprap?

Yes, I didnt think you said it would be removed but as it has so much existing content/missions etc I imagine it will still be popular for a long time. That was making me think if any new content made for the edge engine would require work to also make it work in the old engine. Just thinking out loud.

Thats kind of strange, I think. I couldnt see one map, Nevada, being a good replacement for all the stuff in the current map which puts a bit of a divide between the two. I wonder what that could mean for new content being made, e.g. buildings, units etc. Would they require more work to run in the old engine and the new?

Which printer do you use? I havent seen a 'cheap' one that would give me the results I would like for instance printing knobs.

Frank, not sure what you mean by print? Are you using a 3D printer to make the panels or ??

I mention it because I know for xplane the tools already exist and people are converting things like aerosoft, orbx complete with buildings/textures in to xplane and the results are good.