Random Ebay Find Turned Interesting and Different Decade Box?

[3dclint]

So I was searching ebay for some type of project to do.
I happened to find this "set?" of 8 helipots with knobs attached to an aluminum plate with 40! binding posts/terminals (which if your counting...is 16 more then there are terminals on the helipots).
I was very bored. So, thought putting it in a box of some type and getting rid of a few terminals would be fun...?...or atleast interesting to do.

I ended up with 8 helipots with 8 of the 10 turn dials that go with them:

10kΩ 20kΩ 50kΩ 100kΩ   row 1
100Ω 500Ω 1kΩ 5kΩ           row 2

I thought 2 rows with 1 set of binding posts for each row. Trying to simplify as much as possible....and....Well that lasted all of 5 mins as I thought there has to be Some type of other function I could add to it as long as I'm building it to make it more interesting to work on.

so adding 1 3 position switch to every decade. I now have 8 deacdes 5 binding posts(added a ground) 8 switches and 2 handles. Now here is the laugh those items actually equal 49 holes plus pilot holes was almost 100 holes i had to drill...lol(helipot = 3 holes each and switches were two holes each) I ended up with 2 different switch types(DPDT on-on-on and SPDT on-off-on) to add the most functionality to what i was adding, Switch layout ended up as follows:

(Row 1 & 2 rinse repeat what is below)

on      serial      serial      serial
off      bypass      bypass      bypass      binding posts over here
bypass   parallel           parallel           parallel


As I hope you can tell I added the ability to be able to run from 1 to all 8 of the helipots at one time and be able to run them in either serial connection, parallel connection or just bypass the dial.

A few stats I gathered with my "not fluke" dmm:
187.15KΩ Total resistive value
165.50Ω total (with all dials on/connected and zeroed)
0.01-3Ω per row when set to full bypass....
0.02-4Ω when both rows connected in full bypass serial connection...

This ended up surprising me as the original posts on the aluminum sheet were getting readings of 0.04Ω-0.10Ω each post and those were nothing but a 3in wire and a post. Mine goes through 4 switches and has to be 2-4ft of wire per row, something must have turned out right..lol.

Few questions to sate my curiosity, for you all...

Any guesses on what the total cost of this project was?

I am looking for help with layout ideas on how to label this...can anyone do custom stickers maybe?...lol
Clear with white lettering is what I'm thinking so far, honestly not sure what would be a good idea for labeling this. But it most definitely could use labeling.

Did I miss out on any functions i should have added?
How does it look? (be gentle as this was drilled completely by hand with hand drill...lol)
IS this useful? It is atleast a lot of fun as a fidget toy so far besides its intended purpose...lol
Is this a project you would build? (I actually ended up having a ton of fun building this as figuring out the wiring for the switches and making the wire runs as short and neat os possible. This ended up a much harder brain teaser then i was thinking it would be. i remember thinking oh this is why i dont see decade boxes with a parallel options...lol.)

Any other constructive criticism is appreciated. As this was a project for the sake of a project or something to do, any thoughts are appreciated.

If this is something anyone is actually interested in, i do have a schematic/wiring diagram and more pictures if there is interest.

[Smokey]

That panel looks like something a safe cracker would practice on.  Interesting.