Designing New Control Panels: Taming the Wiring Chaos

So, this is really starting to bother me. This is one of four areas around the layout where I'm using toggle switches to control um my sidings as well as my power blocks. And I know I'm hopelessly analog. Creating the control panels and having these switches finally installed is important, but I've been putting it off because I find everything else more interesting. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that I'm overthinking how I want to do this. I've been thinking about all these different approaches with like stencils or stickers cut in a plotter. And the more I keep thinking about it, the further away it gets from being done. So, I've decided to sit down, figure out a solution, and just finish this project. So, I worked my way around the layout. Uh, I do have a little pad of graph paper here, and I drew out the schematic for each of the areas that I think I need a control block for. And as far as I can tell, I think I want two separate control blocks for Union Station. a single panel for Aldershot and two panels divided between West Harbor and the Stewart yard. So, I was up way too late last night working on some ideas for my control panels and I saw another railroad and they had these really tidy acrylic panels along the fascia to control each of the zones on the layout. And it dawned on me that I could probably make something similar using my laser cutter. So I jumped into Adobe Illustrator, came up with a concept, ran the laser cutter, and I'm excited to show you what I came up with. Now the layout is wired for DC. It can be future upgraded to DCC. But as it is DC, it means that I want individual siding control and block control, and I need to reflect that in the design of my control panels. There's also an aesthetic that I want which is that sort of postc cold war uh industrial feeling and for that I decided to use these standardisssue double pole double throw toggle switches. The wiring end of these take up quite a bit of room and I had to take that into consideration when I was designing the control panel. So the control panels are a little bit bigger to accommodate um for the size of the switches. So let's talk about the general concept. The control panels are two layers. There's the back plate and the face plate. And my original concept was I would cut out the schematic from the front plate. It would mount onto the back plate. And what I was going to do on the back plate then was paint this the different colors of the power districts and they would show through the cutouts. However, this morning I started looking at the leftover cutouts that I had and I realized that it might be a lot easier for me to paint the front plate and then just paint the cutouts the color I needed and reassemble them. And then I started to rethink my color choices. So, the first idea that I had was I would paint the face plate black and then I would paint the individual power districts, let's say, green and yellow. But because I now have an option to paint the knockouts and reinsert them, I started to rethink the color scheme that I might use. So rather than black, I was also thinking I could paint them like my handheld controllers. I designed and painted these earlier this year and they they have this industrial yellow paint job. Um they've got rust and tarnish on them and some great wear marks as well as some of the Leo branding. However, I'm a little bit concerned that having a bunch of yellow plates, six of them around the layout is going to be way too distracting um for the overall feel. So, now what I'm thinking is maybe I'll paint the front plate to match the fascia. Um I'll distress it a little bit, add a little bit of wear to it, much like the handheld controllers. And then I'll paint each of the inserts to match the power districts and snap them back in to the template. I'm not totally committed to that idea because I do love the yellow. But I do need to make one additional plate that I forgot about, which is for my DC and smooth DC control panel, which eventually will become my DC and DCC control switch. So, maybe I'll go with the green. [Music] [Music] [Music] So, I've decided on the industrial green, and I'm going to separate the different power blocks by painting those zones with either white or yellow. That said, I am going to make one little panel match uh the controllers. This will be done in sort of the weathered uh industrial yellow, and it's going to have black schematic markings. As a quick aside, I'm using 1 and 12 mm uh basswood plywood for all of my laser cutting. I use it because I can get it easily. It's inexpensive and it cuts really beautifully. However, it's not the ideal material because it is subject to warping. So, that's part of the reason I need to laminate these and I need to weight them. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] [Music] Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Hey, Heat. So, I got the yellow plaque prepared and I did the inlay and what I wanted to do was use the laser cutter to etch the labels onto it. And I've done it before and it's worked. However, this really scorched the paint. I'm wondering, can I clean this up at all? And then I need to decide if I want to do it again. So I did decide to redo the yellow plaque. The thing I did differently this time was I etched in the lettering before I painted it. The spray paint doesn't take well to the laser etching. So this is just a few coats of yellow spray paint and really it barely affected the letters. I put it into the laser cutter one more time and I ran a quick pass to reetch the letters and it just defined them perfectly. Everything's been painted and glued together. Now I want to give it a quick clear coat uh to seal it in before I start looking at weathering. So while the clear coat is drying, I'm going to prepare a handful of screws um to mount it onto the fascia. I've just got some regular number six machine screws and I'm going to give it a couple coats of brown spray paint to look like worn out weathered bolts. [Music] So before I put on the clear coat, I just took the control panels and quickly hung them up around the layout and I'm really happy. But I'm looking at my throttles and now they've just been hanging on a nail. So, I think what I need to do is come up with some sort of holder so that these mount uh beside the control panels and look a little better than just a nail. [Music] [Music] Success. I managed to come up with a bracket that keeps my little wired throttles in place. Um, I need to give it a bit of a sanding coat of paint. Uh, and I'm going to try to make it match the throttles himself. But there we have it. A cheap and cheerful little laser cut throttle holder. Heat. [Music] Hey. Hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat [Music] up here. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]