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| Those Little Things That Bug You. |
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| Zad:
As it is the weekend, I thought I would have some time off "proper" electronics and have a play around designing the enclosure and panels for my project. I used to be hardware manager in a computer games company here in the UK, and learned a huge amount off the artists and graphics designers there, so I always love to play around with stuff like Photoshop and 3D Studio. Anyway, there is something that is bugging me. Something stupidly simple, but which I just can't get "right". The point that's bugging me is this: Which side should the power light go on? Almost all my hi-fi gear has power indicators on the left, and I want to put it there (yes, it's not a piece of hi-fi gear, I know). It just seems to look wrong for some reason! Here is a render I did with a space for the 'status' LED just to the right of the model number, which looks okay, but I don't want it there! Looking at it now though, it might be better shuffling up the connectors, putting the model number along the bottom and the name to the right after all. AAARGH! I should stick to being an engineer, its easier than having to make aesthetic decisions! *Scratches head* You know what will happen don't you? I will totally forget about it and end up mounting the sockets on a blank panel with Dymo tape stuck on it. Nil desperandum, back to the CAD progs :) |
| DJPhil:
You could pull a King Solomon and put it top center on the faceplate! Perhaps a bright blue LED that shines down from the bottom and lights under the case? Ah, how bout replacing the plastic frame around the faceplate with an acrylic cutout and use a diffused LED to light it all up in a big ring? Whenever I'm stuck like this I take out the crazy idea hammer and pound the fine details into finer powder out of spite. :) |
| EEVblog:
I feel your design pain. Considering that you have symmetry in the connectors, I'd say LED smack in the centre. I like symmetry ;D Big jumbo 10mm LED maybe? Blue? Make sure it's not too bright! Or make the logo transparent somehow and have the logo light up blue! Dave. |
| RayJones:
Yeah I also looked at the image and the most obvious place was centre top due to the symmetry of the BNCs. |
| Zero999:
Another point people have raised is the colour: blue seems to be popular but I don't like it for an on indicator which should be red, orange or bright green in my opinion, unless it's an air conditioning unit, a fridge or a freezer. Blue LEDs have their place but I think they're overused nowadays, a prime example was a vending machine where I worked which had blue LEDS next to all the drinks, when it should've been red for the hot drinks and only blue for the cold drinks. Funnily enough blue used to be my favourite colour when I was about 10, now it's just whatever colour is fit for the purpose: make the power indicator pink if it's on a Barbie style radio aimed at girls, green if it's Ninja Turtle style for boys. In this case would recommend a red LED for your project and possibly another LED to indicate the presence of RF on the input but it should be a different colour, possibly green or maybe green for power, red for RF, whatever looks best. I think an oversized 10m would look tacky, perhaps a square LED shining though a black sticker with white or transparent text saying "ON", "POWER", RF or whatever. |
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