How to make an escucheon?

[SuzyC]

I made a neato-keeno LED display 3/8-in hi by 15/16 wide, tried to make hole for the three LED 7-seg display and chipped off an extra 3/16 piece of plastic at the top of the display outline rectangle, just with a slip of the skill saw.

Now I need an escutcheon, something to hide the 3/16 semi-circular gaping hole on the right side of the display hole.

It must be waterproof and look nice, and the display is connected to the internal appliance's 240VAC PCB.

What would be an easy to find,  easy to work with, but durable, non-conductive, washable, looking-good material to try to do this?

[Fank1]

If it is ABS plastic just melt some of the piece you cut out with a soldering iron and over fill the hole then file, sand and paint.
You will really need to clean your iron afterwards.

[German_EE]

This is one of the jobs where a 3D printer comes in really useful. Why not head along to your local Fablab / Maker Space and see what they can do for you?

[miguelvp]

Just don't do a google image search on it.

Apparently it's a lower area hair stile 

[SuzyC]

It is difficult enough to make an electronic project work well, but often even  harder to make it look good.

I have often wanted to have a LED display on some of my projects but also want the thing to look good, and that requires a bezel or escutcheon to dress up a front panel where the LED display protrudes.

Could anyone share how they have managed to do this?

PS melting plastic with a soldering iron results in a dirty looking white  surface result and a soldering iron you want to just throw away.

There is one shop that just opened in town that sells 3-D printers and also does custom 3-D printing, but they would charge me over US 100 to make me just one tiny escutcheon, that is a bit much!

[Deathwish]

I loved the description Neato-Keano, I had visions of you dancing about doing a whoopi goldberg.

Anyway, a picture would help (for me ) in working out, as well as looking for a answer to your problem.

[German_EE]

My electronic projects look reasonable, you can still tell that they are home made but I make the effort. One thing I have found that helps is to ask around and find those who have the skills that you need, especially if they are willing to teach. This is why I mentioned the local Fablab / Maker Space people who always seem willing to help.

You can also try some of the local model shops where there is a good source of materials plus, hopefully, someone behind the counter who knows what they are doing. Small shops rather than the larger stores will probably be the best here.

I have sometimes made small parts such as your escucheon (I had to look that up) from small pieces of polystyrene that have been cut to size and then glued together using model makers cement. This is not a standard glue, it actually dissolves the plastic either side of the joint and is therefore closer to welding than anything else. After the glue has set I then sand the piece using fine grit paper which a) gets rid of the bumps and b) gives a matt finish.

The other secret is to have a good junk box. Although not electronics related I repaired a cat toy this morning using a scrap piece of 50mm plastic pipe, a length of rope and two caps from some pill bottles. I was once told that good engineers never throw anything away, limited space means that I cannot follow this rule to the letter but I do have lots of boxes in the cellar full of 'useful' items.

[0xdeadbeef]

Is laser cut acrylic an option? It's my default approach for somewhat professionally looking front/back panels.
To some degree, you can also create three-dimensional objects by gluing or screwing together layers of cut acrylic.
Next step is creating your own 3D design. Again, my personal approach is to create layers in QCAD, then import them in PTC Creo Elements (free), extrude them, combine them, retouch them and export them in STL format. I couldn't construct the simplest of forms in Blender or whatever, but this QCAD/PTC Creo is really working for me.

[SuzyC]

I had decided to upgrade my old toaster (that often enough burned the bread or under-toasted) from it's dumb original 555-timer controller to my own MCU timed circuit. I was able to salvage the original potentiometer control and knob from the original PCB and so I have a toast control knob that looks identical, but to get a precise, repeatable toasty-time setting I decided I wanted to add a 3-digit LED readout of toasting-seconds display.

The toaster works great now, as my design employs a thermistor-based algorithm to compensate for toaster internal temperature so that a second pair of slices is toasted just like the cold-toaster's first pair.

Things were going oh so well until I tried to cut the LED display hole.

[SuzyC]

I went to a local business that makes signs for local shops and I was able to purchase a beautiful 9 by 12-in piece of deep red transparent polystyrene plastic stock, approx 3/16-in thick, but I haven't a clue on how to cut it without creating uneven edges. I have discovered using a reciprocating skill-saw melts the plastic as I am trying to cut a straight line, a hand knife takes forever and a hacksaw is too difficult to control!

Where do I get access to equipment to laser-cut my plastic?

In my town there is now no hobby or model shops anymore, they've all closed their shops to now sell their wares upon the WWW.

[Kalvin]

If one has access to a CNC, milling may be an option:


Manual milling is also possible if one has patience enough:


Press drill with the manual XY-table and patience:


I have no experience on these, so I cannot tell how well these perform.

[Deathwish]

I used to use a 1/4" hand router with a aluminium cutter in some years ago. Had to make a template up in mdf first though.

[Kalvin]

If you want to fix something, maybe a liquid plastics is something you need.

Something like this:

[SuzyC]

I have a hand-held Dremmel with a big selection of various disks and nibs, but haven't a clue on how to use these to cut plastic with any precision and not melting the plastic after a few seconds of use.

What seems so difficult is to create a shape or even a rectangular hole away from the edge of  a piece of plastic stock.

[Kalvin]

I have a hand-held Dremmel with a big selection of various disks and nibs, but haven't a clue on how to use these to cut plastic with any precision and not melting the plastic after a few seconds of use.

If you take a look at few PC case modding videos at Youtube, it looks that you have to progress very slowly and let the tool do the work. So, do not try to force the tool, otherwise you will just melt the plastics and ruin the tool as well.

Just practice with some junk plastics.

Protect your eyes and be careful!

[SuzyC]

That Bondic stuff looks ok for tiny repairs, but this stuff does not resolve the problem of creating large objects, to end up with an esthetic interface between panel holes and things that protrude through or sit upon it, that's what an escutcheon does so well.

[Kalvin]

That Bondic stuff looks ok for tiny repairs, but this stuff does not resolve the problem of creating large objects, to end up with an esthetic interface between panel holes and things that protrude through or sit upon it, that's what an escutcheon does so well.

It was just an idea, if the area to be fixed is small.

[0xdeadbeef]

Where do I get access to equipment to laser-cut my plastic?

Did you have a look at Ponoko? I used their German partner Formulor, but AFAIK the service is more or less identical.

[nali]

If you're looking to cut a thin plastic sheet as an escucheon I find a good way at cutting rectangular holes for LED or LCD displays is with a steel ruler and the BACK of a scalpel or preferably Stanley knife (may be called something else in your country). Takes a lot of care and patience but leaves a very clean straight cut.

[rdl]

This sounds wasteful, but it can save a lot of time and trouble. Look on ebay for cheap digital panel meters. Find some that are about the size you need and order a few. When they arrive rip the guts out and use the case/bezel for your own project.

Here is just an example:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-DC-5-120V-Voltmeter-Blue-LED-Panel-3-Digital-Display-Voltage-Meter-2-wire-/151440905015?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item234294d337

You can trim away the part that fits into the case and just glue the front bezel section over the hole you cut in your project box. If you size your opening correctly it will even hide the rough edges of your cutting from view.

[Deathwish]

Not in relation to making your escutcheon Suzy, but I think it may be useful later.

http://www.theplasticshop.co.uk/plastic_technical_data_sheets/perspex-design-guide.pdf

[SuzyC]

Thanks to everyone for their help.

I resolved the damaged hole problem by finding in my salvaged parts bin a 4-digit microwave oven 7-seg display that was much larger than the smaller one that I originally made the hole for.

My motto: if the the hole you make is out of shape, make a bigger one to erase your mistakes.

I made a makeshift escutcheon using a Stanley Knife to easily cut a faceplate from the thickest inkjet/ laser photo paper I could find, spray painted it with epoxy hi-gloss black. I then covered the faceplate with transparent shipping tape for some degree of waterproofing.

It doesn't look professional, it is not so durable, but it was doable, only required a razor knife and the display itself as a cutting template to make a very tight fit.

Just as it seemed like the best solution,  the local 3D printing shop guy called me back and said he would make me a faceplate for just $60(he said that their cutoff point was usually $100), but even at that price I decided to stick with my replaceable makeshift solution.

I need to save up and get a 3D printer.

[McBryce]

How about putting one of these over it: http://www.reichelt.de/LCD-Zubehoer/LCD-FRONT-1/3/index.html?&ACTION=3&LA=2&ARTICLE=54613&GROUPID=3013&artnr=LCD+FRONT+1

McBryce.

[SuzyC]

Thanks kDeathwish, that guide to working with plastic stock will help with future projects!

McBryce, the problem with your solution is got to do with the problem of a wedding dress only fitting one bride. Besides, the local 3D print shop will make one for just a little more.

[SuzyC]

Thanks Oxdeadbeef, but the most remarkable thing that caught my attention looking at the Ponoko site was that there was nowhere on their webpages to be found any mention of price for anything they do.


This puts this service in the yacht category, things for which if you want to ask for a price, you just can't afford to buy one.