Warhog

This is the same issue I was having. I thought it was my circuit deign but since you did yours independent of mine and experience the same problem, then maybe it not the hardware. Saturday afternoon, any time after 12:00 is good for me. You two settle on a time and I'll be there.

Thanks Clay, I see what you mean. I should have said "common cathode" so they know that its the LED's cathode that gets solder on to that part of the board and then indicate the "digit no" for each section of LEDs that gets connected to the 7219. Although I do have the digit no.'s illustrated on the last page. It always helps to have other people read your stuff and report back. Thanks. Don't forget to post back how you make out with the CLP .

Hi Clay My CLP is not be a good example to look at as I designed the circuit board for the LED matrix a bit differently then the code Ian wrote for this panel. I had actually built it before DCS-BIOS was a reality. As a result we (mostly Ian) had to make changes to the code to sync my matrix with the correct cell labels on the panel. When we were testing mine we had issues with some of the cells lighting when they shouldn't have. But it went further then that. Ian wrote some quick tests for the 7219 and the bottom 3 sections of the panel (matrix) would not light at all. It appeared I had either a defective Pro Mini or MAX7219. Unfortunately I ran out of Arduino boards and couldn't look at this problem until now as I just received a new order. That's why I was interested in following your issues as now I can rebuild my circuit and retest me CLP. Don't worry about what board we use, be it a Pro Mini or an UNO or whatever as they are all pretty much the same. I will try very hard to be there whenever you two decide to get together to figure out the problem. I have had good success with this 7219 IC with 7 seg displays but I have never used it in a matrix

Let me know when you plan to do this. I would very much like to be there and listen in on the trouble shooting session. It would be a good opportunity to listen and learn. I just got a new batch of Pro Mini boards and 7219 chips so I can rebuild my circuit and then see if I can figure out what my issues are with this panel.

If I could offer a neat little technique that I use for drilling. I use a 0.025" diameter drill bit with a Dremel tool. Now I know the Dremel has really shitty run-out and trying to drill holes by hand with the Dremel tool is asking for disaster. BUT... if you draw all your hole locations on your drawing. Then, when you laser etch, pocket the holes as well to a depth of .0005" That's just enough to let a drill bit settle into each hole (BY HAND DRILLING) and you never ever miss or slide. It is super fast to drill holes after that. Its almost as if you center punched each hole first.:thumbup:

Well Tore I'm not exactly sure. I do have one sketch that seems to work reasonably well but when it comes to the zero setting steppers, all I can say is :helpsmilie:. Ian has said he planned to add a stepper class to DCS-BIOS. I, unfortunately, have not talked with him for a couple of weeks. My bad. I've been so caught up in building and then real life got in the way as well. I just haven't had a chance to get together with him. The last time we talked we got a sketch working with a stepper motor for my VSI and he helped me calibrated it. Now try and picture this. I have 6 PC's networked in the house. I do my development and gauge testing on one PC and I fly on another PC in a different room. So here we are, testing the VSI which I had just finished. It's hooked up to my development PC with a web cam on it so Ian can see what it's doing. I'm now in a completely different room flying the A10 calling out the readings I'm getting and, from Germany, some 6,500km away, Ian is watching my VSI comparing the readings I'm getting with what he's seeing on my new VSI. And then we switch roles and now he's controlling the aircraft from 6,500km away with me in the other room back at my development PC and the VSI I just built. It's such a strange world now a days. It was just such an odd scene. New friends, working together, separated by huge distances. But its as if he's beside me, working together on a project, having fun doing it. Anyways, back to stepper motors. Here is the code I'v been using which works well so far. #include <Stepper.h> #include <DcsBios.h> #include <Servo.h> #define STEPS 720 // steps per revolution (limited to 315°) #define COIL1 6 #define COIL2 7 #define COIL3 8 #define COIL4 9 Stepper stepper(STEPS, COIL1, COIL2, COIL3, COIL4); int pos = 0; int targetpos = 315; void onDcsBiosWrite(unsigned int address, unsigned int value) { if (address == 0x106e) { targetpos = map(value,0,65535,0,630); } } DcsBios::ProtocolParser parser; void setup() { Serial.begin(250000); stepper.setSpeed(30); // set the motor speed to 30 RPM (360 PPS aprox.). stepper.step(630); //Reset Position(630 steps counter-clockwise). } void loop() { // feed incoming data to the parser while (Serial.available()) { parser.processChar(Serial.read()); } if(abs(targetpos - pos)> 2){ //if diference is greater than 2 steps. if(targetpos > pos) { stepper.step(-1); // move one step to the left. pos++; } if(targetpos < pos){ stepper.step(1); // move one step to the right. pos--; } } // poll inputs DcsBios::PollingInput::pollInputs(); } void sendDcsBiosMessage(const char* msg, const char* arg) { Serial.write(msg); Serial.write(' '); Serial.write(arg); Serial.write('\n'); } Basically, you just hook the motor up to 4 pins on your Arduino board. Declare the pins in the sketch. You also need to tell it the number of steps in play. The max is 720 steps which is around 315 degrees. My VSI only needed 630 steps to sweep the total area required because I have gears on this gauge.. And since the halfway point is the actual starting point of this gauge, I set the start position to 315 steps. After it initializes, it move 315 steps (zero on the VSI) and stays there until the aircraft does something. You can take this and modify it for any of the other gauges without too much problem. But it will not work on the altimeter as I had previously stated, that gauge requires a zero setting stepper motor and I haven't the foggiest idea how that's going to work yet. In fact I don't even have that motor yet. Its been ordered but I haven't received the shipment. I won't be much help on this one Tore. Hopefully someone else has it already figured out and will make it available.

Tore, I noticed the Vid stepper motor in the picture. I just wanted to point out that you can use that motor in most every gauge in the cockpit except the altimeter and the compass. Those two components use the zero setting vid60 stepper motors because they require continuous rotation. I'm pleased that you have been able to get your machine running in an acceptable fashion. Keep in mind that as long as you refrain from cutting harder materials and you ensure you calibrate your machine in all axis you will most likely be able to maintain this degree of accuracy. Unfortunately I have never seen a gantry style mill up close so I can't really recommend additional upgrades to improve your cutting accuracy. I would spend some time with the guys at CNCZone. That forum will be able to answer lots of questions and assist you in getting better results. Your doing well Tore. Keep reading and learning. There is so much more to CNC than you can imagine. :thumbup:

There are a numer of ways to make post lights that would cost less than your present method. Your focus on an easy to use, yet not fully developed technology coupled with your inexperience in manufacturing precludes you from finding a cost effective way to make these parts in a form acceptable to most cockpit builders. Offering crude reproductions and suggesting they are acceptable because they are hard to see is a ridiculous statement. It also goes toward defining your credibility as not being able to produce anything that one would buy with confidence. In my mind you need to spend a lot more time researching different methods of manufacturing before you even attempt to present a product. I can think of at least one of several methods you could employ with ease that could generate 10 light posts every 5 minutes. And that's using a method requiring no special tools or skills. And it would be an exact replica with even the correct color. There is no magic "make everything tool", an attribute you seam to associate with 3d printing and laser/cnc cutting. Manufacturing a product such as this community would value requires employing multiple processes that you apparently are unaware of. If you plan on having any success in this endevour I strongly suggest you build one complete cockpit before you even think of selling anything. And I mean building it to a level that any one part would be hard to tell from the real thing. At the same time, think about and research "how could i make 10 of these to look exactly like this one". By the time your finished you will have an appreciation of what's required to make this project of yours work. And you will have learned so much that you will look back on your beginnings and realize what a noob you were and thank goodness I followed that guys advice or..... continue on in a fog and produce junk that would be by most standards, embarrassing to be associated with. Please understand, I am not trying to be a shit or be mean. You have presented yourselves in such a way as to demonstrate your lack of knowledge and ability. If you truly wish to be successful with this project then you need to rethink your entire approach and research, research, research!

Tore. I think you need to be more detailed when you ask a question about a circuit as I'm not understanding what connections you are referring to. Also you asked about how darlingtons are connected. I do not use darlingtons so I don't know. I think someone else made reference to them but I didn't as they would not be my choice for anything other than maybe running stepper motors with a high current draw. For high current applications related to leds, I use Mosfets. You might want to do some reading on using MOSFETs with Arduino's as they will come in handy for driving LEDs that use more than 20mA Now back to you questions. First, please understand I have very limited knowledge in electronics. I'm still at the learning stage so I'm not one to rely on for solid answers. Cnc is my forte. Electronics is my hobby and I am a novice. That being said I can at least provide some basic direction for you. I'm not sure how you are wiring everything. Can you draw me a picture of your complete circuit? Are you using a matrix or just connecting 48 LEDs to 48 pins on the arduino board or are you using a MAX7219 to drive everything? Yes one reistor in front of all those LEDs will fry. The simple method would be one led - one Arduino pin. That means using a Mega and one resistor per led. But I don't think the Mega can support 20mA x 48 LEDs = 960mA, almost one amp. So what you need is something to act as a switch that turns the switch on when the pin on the Arduino board goes high (5v) and then turns the Led off when the pin low goes to zero volts. The typical choice of switch for this application would be a transistor for each led. I prefer using a Max7219 to drive everything from just 4 pins and a Pro Mini. The sketch is a little more involved and the circuit design is specific to using a matrix. All 48 LEDs use just one single resistor located at the iset and VCC pins of the Max7219 to limit current. I would get the data sheet for the MAX7219 and read it carefully and get a basic understanding of its used and how to connect it and how the circuit would work. There are several articles on the Internet related to this specific topic which will provide additional background. I believe there is also a sketch at the end of the DCS-BIOS Users Guide that will get you started. If you wish to go the route of one led-one pin then you need to research using transistors as a switch for the Arduino. Basically when the Arduino applies current to the transistor, the transistor allows current to flow from an external power source through a current limiting resistor to the led, thus turning on the led. I don't know much about using transistors but I do know that there are numerous articles that explain how to use them as a switch with arduino boards.

Tore I would not suggest you build your own machine until you have a few years of machining under your belt. I know others will disagree with me on this point. But those who do disagree will have no where near the machine time and experience I have so consider the source when evaluating comments. I would also put my machine up against any of the home builds. I guarantee they will not be as accurate or consistently accurate as my mill. This is what I have used for everything related to my cockpit build. Its made by TAIG and sold under the TAIG banner in the US. Its also sold under the name Peatol In Great Britain. Its exactly the same machine. Please do not look at those PCB's. It was late and I set the cutting depth to way more than is necessary. With PCB's you only need to remove the thin layer of copper cladding from the surface of the board. There is no need to cut deep channels as it appears I am doing at the time this shot was taken. In fact the cutting depth I should have used is .003" and no deeper. Remember that Tore:P :smilewink: And yes the bed is small. In fact the cutting area is 4.5" x 7". With some creative thinking you can cut a larger panel than the table size with no problem. Panels like the CDU need to be cut in 2 separate operations. Its not hard but it is slightly inconvenient. But considering what you get with this machine and the huge amount of support world wide, it just becomes a good choice especially for beginners. And the price is competitive. It not cheap but it wasn't exorbitant either. Besides with any cnc operation its the tooling you need after you buy the machine that breaks the bank.:music_whistling: :lol: ........its not that bad.:music_whistling: really:P Anyways, the big plus with Taig mills is the accuracy you get. That makes up for everything. Most retailers of no name stuff never post the run-out or the the accuracy. I believe TAIG states backlash can be tuned down to .0003" (I think?) It pretty fcking low. And seeing is believing. Check it out. I have never been disappointed with it and I have had it running for almost 10 years now.

These VID29 steppers move with a fluid motion. Smooth as silk. In actual use they are unsurpassed by any other means. Servos on the other hand use only one wire (one pin on the Arduino board) so they are more efficient when it comes to wiring. But they do not have the same quality of movement and are sometimes a little jerky which looks bad on a gauge. That said, I still use them but only with gauges that have a very slow range of movement like the flaps gauge or the fuel gauge. From a cost standpoint they are similar to servos so the only point in their favor is that they only require on wire for the signal instead of 4. That may be an issue for some but from my perspective the extra cost is worth the performance you get. Speaking of beautiful, here is a picture of a PCB I cut that really demonstrates what my mill is capable of in terms of cutting accuracy. It is truly unbelievable that it could cut with this degree of precision. I actually had to use a microscope to solder the ribbon cable from the .91" oled display to this board as the traces were so fine. Thats a 5050 LED in the foreground for scale. And the small circles, soon to be holes for header pins, are 0.03" diameter. @Triise - Tore, I just had a look at your dxf file. Really nice job I must say. Your approach to the PCB is so similar to how I laid mine out. That will work very well for you. And you included pin connectors into the board...well done. But now I see why you said it was taking so long to cut. Those letters (sorry, font...) your using will take a long time to pocket. Substituting for romans.shx in AutoCAD will give you must faster cutting and the end result will be ... When you need to use a larger font I would suggest using Arial and then pocket it. This is an example of Arial in a large size. It didn't take long to cut this even though it was a pocket operation. I used a .010" tip V bit for it. (Sorry for the crappy pic. They are usually sharper than this.)

There fine Tore. I have a couple of engine instruments working with no problem. Its even able to push a single gear ratio of 2:2.5 as some instruments need just a little bit more than the 315 degrees these steppers offer up. I tried three gears and there isn't enough torque but 2 work fine as long as its not 10:1 or something that extreme. The pointers should be very thin plastic like mine. See my photo site for more examples. http://s221.photobucket.com/user/MRAR15/library/A10%20Cockpit%20Panels?sort=3&page=2 BTW, you had asked about pocketing with that fine tip cutter and it was taking for ever...You should use a wider tip and set the tip diameter in CamBam. It will make a big difference in how long it takes. That said, if I pocket .2" high Arial fonts with a .005" tip it still takes a while. That's a lot of code. Even Mach 3 might bach at dealing with that much code.

Thanks for pictures Peter. I just may have to do that if I can't get my hands on the displays that fit and look like the original.

With respect to potentiometers, they are somewhat problematic at the moment. It all because of how they were manufactured. The more expensive ones do not act up as much. I believe that DCS-BIOS will be revised in the near future to deal with this. However, you may wish to go the same route as I have done. That is, to substitute pots for rotary encoders. Rot. Enc. work really well and noise will not make them jitter unlike pots. Other than the fact they have continuous rotation there really is no other reason not to use them. Ian's DCS-BIOS provides the same cut n paste code for rotary encoders. Every control that uses a pot, there is code for both pot and rotary encoder.:smilewink:

:That's perfect Tore.:thumbup:

Any pictures of it Peter?

Hi Boltz I think the problem pocketing with CamBam is when you get to a part of the font that is actually narrower than the cutting tip, CB ignores it. If it tried to pocket that spot it would end up cutting beyond the edges of the cut limit or rather the outer edge of the font. As a result, you will get areas totally missed during the pocketing operation. Triise Excellent choice on cutting tools. 60 degree cutters are much less likely to break their tips off when engraving...I know:music_whistling: and the choice of material is right on. So far so good. Now here's the scoop on engraving properly. The idea here is to cut only deep enough to just remove the top black layer. That applies to PCBs as well. Your cutting depth should not exceed .003". But then the cut lines of the font are to thin. So that's why they have multiple widths of tips. To obtaing consistency in your engraving you should start with these settings. I see you already use some of them but I'll reiterate just in case. This is only for engraving Tool tip width... 0.010" Font ...Romans Font height.. 0.15" Feed speed approx 2/3 of max set in mach3 Spindle speed: can you tell me what you speed range is. Depending on your machine you may have to adjust the cutting depth to .004". These could be set up as a template so they always preset for you. Here's a trick you may want to employ if you are using backlighting on you panels. I take my panel in CB and mirror it. I then draw a rectangle around each block of text. Those rectangles then get pocketted out to a depth of between 1/2 to 2/3 the thickness of your engraving plastic. Now your green LEDs will light the text areas very nicely. Feed Rate- When you are engraving your feed rate can be faster but going to fast will cause you to loose steps because your cnc controller may be unable to process the data as quickly. Are the cables from the controller to the stepper motors shielded? That will make a significant difference in your machines output if noise is introduced into the incoming signal of the motors. How do you keep you material flat on the table? Use double sided tape...Scotch brand ”Poster Tape" I believe it's the same name where ever one lives. I have tried many, many products and believe me, this is soooo! much better than anything else I found. What is the thickness of the engraving plastic? You had asked about the spiral bits. I believe chamfering edges is what they are designed for and scoring hard materials but nothing that you might do on the average panel. Cutting acrylic I use .0625" or .125" diameter end mill. 2 fluted end mills work best for acrylic although you can also purchase end mills specifically designed to cut acrylic. At the very least use 2 fluted end mills.cut depth increment should not exceed .02". Problems will occur if you exceed that. Reduce your spindle speed to1/2. If the material starts melting one of two things are happening. Either the end mill is no longer sharp or you need to adjust cutting depth to less and increase feed rate. The idea is to reduce the time that the end mill is in contact with the acrylic. I'll leave it there for now. Let's see if that makes a difference. Let me know when you have something to measure with. Btw I didn't see what you ordered. No link. Happy Easter. John

Excellent Tore, CamBam will let us talk with a much better understanding of how to solve some of your problems. BTW, when I work on panels I use imperial instead of metric so I will speak in imperial units for this. Do you have AutoCAD on the same machine as CB. If not, can you make that happen. AutoCAD has a font romans.shx that I use for all panel lettering. If AutoCAD is on the same machine it will have installed this font in windows. Now in CB you can select the text, change it to Romans and set the height to .16" height and cutting depth to .003". The text should be selected with the engrave icon rather than the pocket icon. You should always create text with justification set to centre. It makes it much easier to rearrange your text when you apply other CB operations such as resizing that causes your text to move slightly out of position. If you need larger text for something like a gauge, the altimeter numbers for example, use Arial and then pocket them instead of selecting engrave. Cutters, are 60 degree v-cutters, tip width .10", cutting depth for everything related to engraving type operations which includes pocketing larger text should be .003". Where do you get the V-cutters from. Chinese cutters are not very good. I buy American made cutters from https://www.2linc.com/engraving_tools.htm C-125x2.0-60-.010-G is what I use for all engraving. They are expensive but they make such a difference in quality. I will not use anything else. It looked like you are using engraving plastic, white base with black top. Is that correct? How do you ensure your material is completely flat on the machine bed? What is the feed rate set too on Mach3? This is very important as it possible that you may be skipping steps if it's set to high. Is your spindle speed adjustable. If so it should set to max. Have you ever accidentally run your mill against something hard that might have stopped it. It can be somewhat disastrous if that happens and it can cause the same type problems I see here. Even after 12 years doing this, last month, it was late, I was very tired and I set something incorrectly...SMACK...right into a clamp and snapped the cutter right off. I smashed 2 lead screw bearings. $50 later with new bearings in place I was back to normal. Besides all of the questions I've been asking, can you try an experiment for me. Make a 2" circled for me and cut it from plastic. Depth only needs to be enough to actually see it. Use a v cutter. Then do a 1" circle and then a .25" circle. I want you to measure the height and the width EXACTLY and tell me if they are the same or not. The last thing I would like to know is how you cut with CB and your CNC machine. These are the typical selections I make in CB Cutting large holes...select profile...inside...cut depth interval .02" Cutting perimeter of panel ...select profile...outside...cut depth interval .02" Cutting small holes...select pocket...cut depth interval .02" Select cutting tool... 0.063" diameter end mill Could respond in imperial for me just to be consistent. BTW, what exactly did you order for measuring. There are several devices that are virtually indispensable. And sorry with all the questions but the more I know about how you do various operations, the easier it will be to find and solve the problems.:) John

I am looking for 2 components and I have been all over the internet trying to finding the very best solution without breaking the bank to badly. I'm starting the CMSC but I can't even get my drawing finished until I pin down the displaysal . I've looked at oLed's and character displays and I cannot find anything that fits properly...except those really expensive 5x7 matrix displays which are almost exactly what is used in this panel. Except there $40.00 a piece. That's just a little too much for this panel. So has anyone finished their CMSC panel yet. I would love to see what you did and the displays you used. The other component I'm looking for is for the CDU display. I was anticipating using a typical 3.5" display with VGA output from my graphics card. That would have me installing a second video card since I'm presently out of video ports. And the big question - has anyone found a display they feel is just outstanding for the CDU?

Triise, I've been into CNC for 12 years now. I have a full metal machine shop and although I'm not a professional machinist, I've made some amazing things. So lets see if we can't get you beyond this problem. If you follow my advise you will be producing much better results. First off, I suggest you get CamBam and start using it to set up your drawings from a dxf file. It is so easy to use. Just watch a couple of 5min videos. The software allows around 40 uses for free. After that you need to buy it.$150.00 Everyone who starts into CNC at a novice level should use this to learn the basics because its so easy and will do a great job. My initial motivation was that I needed a quick an easy way to obtain professional looking engraving on a variety of materials. After some time spent researching various packages, I found this to be one fo the best packages for CNC engraving at a novice level. It was very easy to learn, fast to use, accurate and also had sufficient controls to manipulate whatever it was that I needed to engrave. After CamBam, you need to spend some good old reading time with the Mach3 manual. There are videos as well to get your machine set up properly. In that respect, Google is your friend and will find what you need. CNC machines need to be tuned properly before you get into making things. It needs to know specific information and thats what the setup will provide. One example is to have Mach3 move one axis 150mm in one direction. You tell it to move that distance and then measure the distance it actually traveled and see what the difference is. It will not be the same. You must use accurate measuring equipment for this such as a dial indicator, 1-2-3 blocks, digital scales, etc all being able to measure to within 0.001 of an inch. When Mach3 knows that 150mm is, for example, really 150.045mm, it will then start correcting itself for this error. You will do this for all 3 axis. I believe there is a routine in Mach3 that you use but its been a long time since I had to do this with my machine. Read the manual and it will explain all. That's was just one example as part of the initial setup. Without doing this setup, your machine will never cut properly. Stop doing anymore work with the machine until you get through this first part. At the same time start to learn how to use CamBam. If you have questions about it, you can PM me and I'll try to help. You can even produce your panel drawing right in CamBam if you wish. It`s reasonably good as a means of drawing panels and the text for them. I work exclusively in AutoCAD and have for the past 25 years. I never draw with anything but AutoCAD. However, lately I started to use CamBam for making corrections or additions before it goes to g-code rather than going back into AutoCAD to make some minor changes. That`s when I realized it was pretty good at drawing. And its excellent for engraving text. If you get CamBam and start to learn to use it and go through the Mach3 machine setup you should see a marked difference in the quality of your engraving and your cutting in general. That is, of course, assuming your machine is not damaged or flawed in some form so as to contribute to the error we see. In that case its repair time. But lets not go down that road right now. We can assess that once the setup has been completed and if a large error still exists then we look deeper into it. So basically your success rate will climb dramatically by using good engraving software and getting your machine tuned to maximize it`s accuracy potential. BTW, the PCB`s look good. Thats also where you see CamBam excel as setting up PCB`s for g-coding is identical to engraving. 2 quick points, if you have an inspection microscope or some kind of very high powered magnifier, check your traces very carefully for tiny wee bits of copper. You can't see them unaided but sure as hell they will short you board out if you don't get rid of them. 2nd, your cutting depth for copper clad board should only be 0.003" deep.

Thanks Anton. The visor thingy came off that full cockpit print you've probably seen many times. The Fuel panel on that print is just a little bit classier than our DCS version so I added it to my panel. It gets my LEDs high enough to properly light the pointers on the hydraulic gauges. So it actually does have a purpose. Yes those 1-2-3 blocks are great. You can never have to many. I'm up to 8 now and it's still not enough sometimes. I've been buying these Czech made blocks for something like $18.00 a pair. They're not the ultra accurate ones that cost $100 but they are at least ground to .0003" which is way beyond what I ever need to work at.

Oh, I'm sure you will. I did, the 7219 that is :doh: several times actually :music_whistling: shhh! don't tell anyone. I always buy 3 more than I need. Its a good rule at my age. Too bad I can't use that rule for FINGERS :cry:....just kidding. :lol: One thing Weeb, don't try and solder the 7219 right to the board. Lots of people will but it just makes it hard to replace when it catches fire.:helpsmilie: (kidding again) I mean when it starts smoking. Buy a handfull of the 24pin sockets and plug it in. http://www.ebay.com/itm/10PCS-24-pins-narrow-DIP-IC-Sockets-Adaptor-Solder-Type-Socket-IC-Brand-new-/321624878832?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ae2562ef0 And when you make your connection to the 7 seg displays, use ribbon cable instead of a shit pile of wires. It looks much more professional and the connectors are easy to use/install.

In answer to your three questions: 1. No they don't 2. Sure they can 3. Anything Arduino based needs libraries 4. not sure why force feedback would be involved with steppers controlling gauges. So you actually don't have any functional machines yet. And your planning on building them your self? Have you experience in CNC and working to extreme tolerances? DCS_BIOS will have a stepper class added to it in the coming days, weeks or whenever Ian has time to include it. Thats why you see my gauges on here. While you waiting for all this stuff to be delivered it might be to your advantage to actually build a couple of these gauges so you fully understand the complexity and inner workings of each gauge. Now that I have been through the process I see many potential issues to be dealt with prior to going to mass production. If not, you will be years before you can produce anything. Designing pretty pictures with 3d software is one thing. Taking that to production is a very large leap as I can attest to. I do all my initial design in AutoCAD so I know it will fit together. But will it work? Not always as I discovered since many other factors come into play. You need to build prototypes of every instrument to be sure. I would be making that the priority before everything else. You might find that its either a money losing operation or your prices will be much higher than you have been suggesting. The prototypes will answer that and also provide credibility.

The double axle I made myself. Its just 2 pieces of brass tube. They size brass tube such that the next size down is always the inside diameter of the next larger tube. That way they always fit nicely one inside the other with excellent tolerances. Those are the VID29 Steppers as indicated in the eBay listing. And yes you would use those for most everything that doesn't require continuous motion and zero setting. They have a sweep of 315 degrees which covers many of the gauges we use. These are what I bought. http://www.ebay.com/itm/6-Pcs-Instrument-Cluster-Diagnostic-Tool-Auto-Gauge-Stepper-Motor-DC-5-10V/321499764351?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131003132420%26meid%3D3f0a4ca9a7684f0b8c1779c137cdd3e5%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D311319515399&rt=nc Much better price. You should shop around as some of these venders have terrible prices. These are the VID60 http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6548499324.html?orderId=66332974733697 Thats $28.00US for 5 stepper motors. Thats not bad at all. You should spend some time doing a search for information on the VID series of steppers. Use different search parameters. You will find sites that have all sorts of good info. Also Switec steppers are the exact same knock off. Actually I think the VID is the Chinese knock off. The VID29 series have several different models. Some with the pins on the front and some on the back. ie VID29-05, VID29-03 etc. There is data on the models and their configurations on my GITHUB site here (compliments to bnepethomas for his efforts and making that information available to us) https://github.com/JFWall/bne-arduino-flight-simulator-interfaces/tree/master/Fuel%20Panel Hope that helps. So any update on your machine error yet. I saw the original video you did. One problem immediately apparent is that you had 3" of your end mill sticking out of the collet when you where cutting some plastic. You should expose the least amount of your cutting tool in order to reduce flex. I noticed you were cutting a circle. Have you tried cutting a circle using a smaller diameter end mill such as a .0625" diameter or a .125" diameter. I would scribe a perfect circle on a piece of scrap. Then write code for the same diameter circle and cut it. Measure the diameter of the cut circle from left to right and then top to bottom. They should be exactly the same. It verifies if your mill is calibrated in both axis. If not you will get an oblong shape. Another little trick is to tape a large piece of paper to the bed. Chuck up a fine tipped marker and load up some code with a series of squares, circles, text etc. Run the mill with the spindle off (obviously) and set your cutting depth to just let the marker touch the paper. Now instead of cutting your just drawing. It will help to determine flex as well. As there are no lateral forces acting on the mill all you get is what the steppers and controller are doing with no outside influences on the machine. Its an easy thing to try and if you get the machine to draw a line from left to write and then another line right to left you could see if its doing the same distance in each direction That will help determine if backlash is causing problems. You do that in both x and y axis. I saw machines just like yours with much less error. The results they were getting indicates that your machine either requires proper setup or repair or possibly both. The point being that you should get at least the same accuracy as I saw in other videos of the same machine.

I really like the lines of the control panel. It gives it a lot of character as apposed to just a flat plate with switches. It would be really outstanding if you could add a few digital readouts even; if it was only a clock and a volt meter for your PSU. Who cares what its for. It just adds to the visual interest and the dynamics of it would be even more enhanced. Well done!:thumbup: