label making for dash?

[John Z]

I am getting ready to put in my new heater fan motors, and have decided to wire them up seperately, so if i want the left fan blowing heat on my feet on high, and the right side defroster fan on low, i can do that. I salvaged a switch panel out of a school bus so have a good supply of 2 position switches to use. But i am wondering what different types of label making you guys and gals have done? What has worked for you, and what has not? Thanks.   John Z

[TomC]

I'm not picky-just used a normal label maker for my different switches.  Then again there are those that have new panels made up that have the new switch labels embedded in the panel so the back lighting works and you can see the labels at night.  Curious about links to those types of dash panels.  Good Luck, TomC

[frank-id]

I have used a dyno  label machine, vibro engraver and a black marker.  I made an inquirey at a local tropy shop.  The shop wanted $45 setup charge and $7 per letter.  I may buy a set of letter stamps and make the
words from brass strips.   Frank

[Jeremy]

Suppliers of vehicle switches will also be able to supply you with a sheet such as the one below, so you can label them professionally yourself - I did this myself sometime ago in one of my 'modified' Range Rovers, and it worked fine

Jeremy

[JackConrad]

If you want the fancy backlighted panel like the yatchs use, Wards Marine Electric will custom make them for you. Many choices of base layer(lettering color) and top layer (dash color).  www.wardsmarine.com  We used a Brother label maker (no backlighting), so we added red LED lights in the top on the instrument panel to light the panel at night. Not that we do much night driving anymore.  Jack

[akroyaleagle]

My labels were made by a decal sign company. they are inexpensive and may be made any colors or style you desire. Go see what they can do.

[John Z]

Just got home and was tickled to see all these good ideas. Not sure which i will use yet, but thank you all for your input.   John Z

[busguy01]

If you can wait until I get home in the spring I can laser them into a multi layer plastic for you. Surface color solid, back layer transpart so you can back light it. I can cut the panel, engrave and put holes where you need them.
JimH

[John Z]

Thanks Jim for the offer. Maybe by then i will have a more final layout for my dash and i will take you up on it. For now i have to build the panel for the left side of the driver and decide what i need in it. I will make it with a thin wood insert for the time being and play around with how i want it to look. I would appreciate it if you have the time, if you could email me with the approx cost for making up a 3" x 18" with perhaps 12 - 15 labels cut into it? Thanks again,   John Z

[busguy01]

Maybe we could trade some work. Drop me a note when you figure out what you want. Do you use Corel for your stuff??

[HB of CJ]

Thank you everyone!  This has to be one of the best posts in a long, long while.  I alsoss am looking at a great (and $doable$) way of marking all the weird extra stuff on the planned dash extension on my Crown, like various altitudes, atitudes, temperatures, pressures, levels and all that stuff.  Thanks again.  CROWNS FOREVER!!!   

[John Z]

Thanks Jim, i will for sure be in touch with you when i get things sorted out enough to make that step. For my work, actually a simple low res jpg works the best. Your artwork has to go through 3 different systems and the jpg works on all of them. The embroidery industry does not keep up with the rest of the world i guess.

[zimtok]

I made my own...
I first drew them up in Auto Cad and then converted them to PDF to print on paper that I then laminated.
I printed the top text, color and blacked out areas on one sheet and then to make the black darker and the hidden text I printed a seperate black only with text.

I have the PDF's if you want them.
E-mail me at sdavis@orionpackaging.com


.

[Tim Strommen]

The way most OEM gauge faces and switch/button legends are made is by silk-screening (well, now they use polyester to replace the expensive silk).

If you plan on backlighting the item, I recommend a thin (1-5mil) white plastic sheet, optically bonded to a clear acrylic/polycorbonate subtrate this gives a white diffusing face which should be very visible as "white" without any lighting during the day.  You would then create your pattern (black for the parts you want to have protected from the paint), and have it printed to clear sheeting.

With the appropriate preparation and products, you create a negative of this print-out on the polyester (what was black on the clear film, will not allow paint to pass through the screen).  When you squeege black paint across the face of the screen (laid on top of the item to be painted) - the paint attaches to the item where it is allowed to pass.  If you use a good black paint, this should block the light except where you had your pattern.  This should allow light through at those points (so backlighting would only show the numbers, words, and markers).

Alternatively, you can do the opposite - use a white paint on a black surface and a negative of the pattern you want to print (which would block out everything but the pattern on the screen).  This should print a white (or whatever color you chose) pattern on the black face - which you can foreground light (if you need to).  This is how they print legends on the turn-signal arm for instance.

If you want to go crazy, and get a nice/neat "invisible display", you can use a anti-reflective face plastic and print your pattern on the back side of the plastic in black (this would be a mirror image of your design on the clear sheeting).  Then, you would optically bond a 1-5mill film of mylar (with cutouts for your pattern's pass-throughs) and then optically bond a mid-grey-colored "matte" film to the back (on top of the black paint) except over areas where there would be pass-though.  Using to layers of brightness enhancing film (rotated 90degrees in relation to eachother) on top of a white film and thick light pipe (1/8" to 1/4" thich acrylic or polycarbonate), and a backing layer of optically bonded mylar (very reflective) - you can side inject LED light of your color preference.  When the LED is off - the low transmissivity of the mid-grey-colored film would dampen the light that gets reflected - this would cause the non-printed numbers, words, and markers to blend into the black background so that the whole face looks dark.  When the LED is on, the light should only go through the open (unprinted) portions of your pattern, showing very clearly the information you want to show.

If you make cut-outs for things like character or numeral Daylight-Readable LED displays, you can mix your backlit legends and read-out information, without having needles for example.

Cheers!

-Tim

[kd5kfl]

Silk screening without the expense and mess:

http://www.ezscreenprint.com/

http://www.ezscreenprint.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2