10 blank plates for $3.63 a piece with free shipping! I highly recommend sendcutsend.com
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If I designed a panel they can custom cut the LED, switch, knob and jack holes? What if they could inscribe the labels on the panel? Is that asking much? I havenāt gotten panels for my @TimMJN PCB sets which this seems a good option to fix this if given the above is true.
-Fumu / Esopus
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Iām not sure that they can engrave anything, but I know for sure that they can cut cad files! If you can make the file with the holes cut out, they can cut it. Although Iām not sure itās super cost effective, which is why I opted to get blank panels and cut the holes myself. There was a price break at like 10 pieces
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is this what you mean ?
this is a face panel made of frp I think it is called , basically circuit board material .
this is from JLCPCB , holes any way you want them . different colors to and the extra $ isnāt very much .
there are others all over the world if you have a preference , the shipping will cost as much as boards usually .
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Thatās awesome! Iām definitely going to have to check that out
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They can do aluminium as well if you want to pay extra for it, but I think most of the panels you see here are PCBs. Some people do really cool things with the different layers available as well, so youāll see art with nice silk screens, exposed copper and even semi-transparent areas.
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At JLCPCB, Al and FR4 cost the same. (Al is 1-sided only, FR4 is 2-sided, but for front panels that doesnāt matter.) At one time there were more reports of printing defects with Al so Iāve mostly stuck with FR4, though I havenāt heard such reports lately. In theory Al should be stiffer than FR4 but Iāve found them to be pretty similar.
Printing resolution and uniformity isnāt spectacular, itās one color only, and at JLCPCB you donāt get to choose the printing color. So for a really professional product youād go for Front Panel Express or the like. But FPE costs way more.
Minimum order is five copies so thereās much waste involved if you only want one and canāt find four others people who also want one. At JLCPCB, five copies of a 10x20 cm panel costs $12.30 plus shipping.
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Another fan of using pcb,s as faceplates here. I am sure youtube has plenty of tutorials on the subject, but here is a good example, using all free or open-source software.
I am also one of the people @analogoutput mentioned that has had disappointing results using aluminum. The black looked like it had been smeared on using a sheep dipped in black paint, and the white silk screen was smugged and cracked. I was also charged additionally for cutouts.
All the panels I have had made using FR4 have been with no issues.
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Finally I got the bass restrung but the bluetooth audio started making a rumbling noise whenever I played a note. It sounded like a thunder storm but subsided as soon as the note ended.
Although the guitar plays well, the neck pickup needed tightening a little. It seemed possible that the pickups were the source of the noise. I switched to my 3 metre patch cable, though, and the tone was as good as new with no unwanted sounds.
Itās been nearly four days since I charged the Getaria bluetooth dongles and theyāve been switched off ever since. Iāll check for any signs of external damage, then charge them up and give them a serious session test, which for me would be 45 minutes maximum. I donāt want to be risking long sessions anyway simply because Iām ancient and havenāt yet trained my body to relax while playing, so the risk of serious muscle injury is very high. In practice Iāll probably keep the sessions to 30 minutes maximum. I do like the playability of bluetooth dongles, but I really should have a 5 metre cable or longer instead of 3 metres, ājust in case.ā
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I agree on the jack circuit. It makes much more electrical sense to isolate the pickup circuit from the power switch.
I like the idea of permanently incorporating the Bluetooth transmitter innards into the guitar body. Iād need to provide a toggle switch for the transmitter and take the USB charging port to the outside. Iād also keep the jack, but rewire it to turn off the Bluetooth when a plug is inserted. There may be more elegant solutions so Iāll think about it some more.
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Maybe you already know this but if you want to tighten the pickup you have to access the screws inside, if you used the visible screws on each side of the pickup, they are there only to adjust the height of the pickups.
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Iām aware of fr4.
As much as Iāve discovered thereās no inscribing on aluminum which is a pity. Ever since the sets from @TimMJN were available it seemed like a special project more so than the sets in FR4 I ordered from JLCPCB as experiments but decided not to build. Iāve explored the ideas of doing the panels for Timās modules in clear plastic, plywood and reconstituted street signs but the thing that really seems to not make it worth the merit is I want to do inscribing rather than screening the labels on in ink (EDIT: I didnāt want ink on the aluminum anyway.) I canāt find anything that would probably be a reasonable price. The main real problem is I have no workshop to get holes made with any precision and if it looks ugly trying to just file holes out Iām going to just throw it in the trash.
Thereās a bunch of other threads I got all the information about ordering FR4 also but thank you anyway.
-Fumu / Esopus
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Does anyone know where Sam gets his faceplates made? I love the look of the black and the silver!
Iāve been ordering aluminum panels from JLC for some time now. Al and FR4 seem to have similar stability against bending of the panels. The only thing I could see happing to an FR4 panel is tearing at some of the thinner pieces, for example the space between the mounting hole and the edge. But thatād only matter if you, say, drop the panel, which you shouldnāt anyway.
Oh and FR4 is definitely nasty stuff the machine, so donāt use it on any panels you plan to cut e.g. blanks.
That being said, Iām actually considering switching back to FR4 panels. Mainly for the quality of the mask and silkscreens. A black FR4 panel definitely is deeper black than a black FR4 panel. And after seeing the incredibly cool art @popflier does with PCB panels, this seems the way to go once I start adding artwork.
Thereās a shop around my place that does laser cutting and engraving of a wide range of materials, various woods, plastics etc. . They do single pieces and the prices arenāt too crazy. Iām pretty sure you could find something similar around you?
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Took a while, but jlc finally dropped of my active and passive bus boards. No more FC Routemaster for this guy
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If I donāt just give up in frustration thereāll be something.
-Fumu / Esopus
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I might want a couple of those!
And a crossfaderā¦ 
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Give me a week to test things properly (:
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A nice long 8 metre cable shown in the litter trap that is my bedroom.
I recently decided that the massive double bed which dominates this room is the problem, so in a few weeks Iām switching to a much more compact sleeping arrangement.
Now I have a guitar lead with oodles of slack I no longer feel I need a wireless setup.
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