Shame you can’t get green into the lettering to keep the theme going. Or am I missing something.
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I haven’t seen any green lacquer stick. Only white/black/yellow/red. There may be green…I just haven’t found any.
But…I don’t actually want the green. That was just the resin that was in the printer when I started printing these and I was too lazy to swap it for something else.
I tried to use my other printer that has the last of my home dyed blue in it - I added more white so there would be enough to print with…but the machine is jammed. I need to let it warm up and see if it starts moving again…and if not need to do some surgery…and probably some cleaning.
But I did finally swap resin in the other printer - but went with the grey since it blends well with the resin I had in there and I didn’t want to give the tank a full deep cleaning.
Changing resins is just an annoying messy job. And with blended resins like the homemade blue - I don’t have anywhere to store them so they just sit in the tank (sometimes longer than they should) until I use them up.
I’ve heard about people dying resin after printing - but I’ve yet to find any details on what dyes and none of the ones I’ve tried have worked. That’s one of the things I love about Nylon in the FDM printer - it takes analine dye great. So I can use my pysanky (Easter eggs) dyes to get all kinds of colors from a roll of natural nylon.
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Oh green and many other colours are out there thanks mostly to shady car dealers. But I get your point.
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Have you looked at the Posca range of paint marker ?
They are acrylic, but I think in a recess it won’t wear off…
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I’ve used them. No undercoat and they lift off or crack in under a year. Ink washes on a plastic undercoat work really well.
Edit: I use the red blue and white for marking headers, Dupont cables and ribbon cables as they do stand out better than Sharpie
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I’ve heard of the Posca markers. But…I lack the skills to color them that way 
Keep in mind…the tallest of these letters are 2.5mm - with most of them being 1.8 or 2mm tall - and some as short as 1.5mm.
The lacquer stik I can handle since it’s just a matter of rubbing some goo in there and wiping off the excess. But trying to fill them manually with paint or a marker. I just can’t pull off that level of detail manual dexterity.
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Got the other SLA printer working (the lubrication on the threads had just gotten a bit stiff in the cold) and ran a plate of caps in the custom blue resin. Had a few break off and fail…but the ones that did come out I like more than the grey:
Will have to install them tonight and see how they look in place and how accurate the sizing is. But I’m thinking this will be how I do the final versions.
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Still waiting on my black resin. But got the other colors of laquer-stik I ordered and gave them a try:
So far white wins out for readability by far.
yellow is close…but also left some staining on the blue turning it kind of green. I tried wiping it off with some alcohol which helped - but there’s still a noticeable cast.
Red also had staining issues - and just doesn’t have good readability…but I’ll probably still use it on the stop button when I get to it.
Black was surprisingly disappointing. I suspect it would be more readable on the grey or white resin. But it was a dryer more crumbly texture than the others and harder to work with. It also left some staining but was easier to clean up with alcohol.
I still want to try giving a few of these a light coat or two of urethane to make them smoth/shiny before adding the lacquer to see if that helps prevent staining and gives a more finished overall look. But so far white is winning for the lettering.
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If you primed these, you might could apply a wash it ink that would pop. You would need to apply a sealant to prevent wear though.
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excellent walk-through. thanks for taking the time to do this.
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Always glad to hear someone else finds my ramblings useful
Last night I saw a few posts about colored jack nuts. I like the idea…but had only seen the the aluminum ones for 1/8" jacks before. These were for 1/4" jacks though…and…they were plastic.
Hmm…I wonder…
Fired up fusion and modeled up a quick nut. The hardest part was determining what the thread were. (Side note…I really need to get myself some thread gauges!) But after some rather extensive googling and reading of datasheets I finally found a listing at StewMac for jack nuts that mentioned the threads as being 3/8-32.
Side note - for you guitarists out there StewMac is an incredible resource. When I was in college I actually lived almost directly across the street from their building and didn’t even realize it until a few years later because they didn’t have any signs and don’t do walk-in retail. Though I did enjoy the impromptu informal Friday night jam sessions they held on their loading dock!
That’s their dock on the right…the brown house on the left is where one of my oldest and best friends (who I still work with) lived a few years before I moved into a house on the cross street that backed up to it. Oh, and according to google street view…they still don’t have any signage on the building indicating what they are.
Anyway. Yeah…the nuts kind of work. But the threads aren’t perfect. I’m still having an issue with modeling threads in Fusion where one “side” always winds up closed off and I can’t figure out why. Or…maybe they aren’t quite 3/8-32. Or maybe my print is a bit off. Will have to do more testing. But…looks like I may be able to get some custom colored nuts without having to wait for shipping
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I’m impressed a printer can even get close to “cutting” those threads
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Wondered if you could make the nut without a thread and then use a tap and die kit?
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The detail the SLA printers can do is really impressive. The X/Y resolution on them is about 0.047mm and the Z is potentially 0.01mm…though that’s tough to actually achieve and 0.05mm is what’s usually used.
With the SLA prints…not really. The resin is too brittle. With PLA/PETG FDM prints - that can work. Though It’s a bit tricky because the plastic tends to start to melt and gum up taps/dies. So if you make the holes the size usually specified for a tap you wind up removing too much material and it takes some experimentation to find the proper hole size.
I usually print the threads to get them close and then chase them with a tap to get them just right. That works on both SLA and FDM prints. But I don’t have any 3/8-32 taps. I have a great selection of metric taps since I prefer working with metric fasteners…but only a couple of common smaller imperial taps/dies.
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btw, what printer are you using. not that I need another rabbit hole…
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It is indeed a deep rabbit hole 
For FDM printing I have a mostly homemade prusa i3 inspired kit…and an actual prusa i3 mk3s with MMU2s.
For SLA I have an Elegoo Mars Pro and a Phrozen Sonic Mini. They’re both nearly identical in specs but the Phrozen has a monochrome screen that’s more efficient and supposed to last longer so it’s a bit faster. I’ve also found the Phrozen to be a bit more reliable even though the Elegoo’s fit and finish are far better.
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@juggle - firstly thanks for the github at the start of the thread! - I’m just starting out with the whole modular world, I’m a self taught guitarist/bassist so am WAYY out of my depth here 
I’m running a Ender3 FDM and a Photon S for SLA. Being able to print these panels is gonna save me a bit of cash just starting off.
I may or may not have splashed a whole bunch of cash out on components over the past few days all arriving tomorrow, luckily the other musicians I know have a tendency of spilling beer and other questionable liquids in their gear so am often repairing gear 
Hopefully will get a couple of panels together tomorrow and start buzzing
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@juggle - and so it begins 
- still waiting on a few components but could not resist throwing some bits into a panel
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Awesome! I really need to get on this bandwagon, DIY analog drum sounds are just too tempting of a thing to make.
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@Caustic - can you spot my labelling mistake?!