Sometimes the project customers are working on require a very high degree of customization. In Marcel Felde's case, this was very much the case as he took upon him to modify an existing Dornier 27 panel in such way that he could use all the original intsruments faceplates, housing and bezels.

Marcel kindly wrote us a note with pictures explaining his "modus operandi" and we are very pleased to share his experience with you.

Marcel worked with the electronic print version of the generic gauges. This is the gauge without the bezels and needles and with the stepper motor not soldered to the base in order to be able to displace it.

"The most important thing you need are tubes of plastic and metal with small diameters and wire. They can be bought at modelmaking shops, especially for R/C models. Shrinkdown plastic tubing is also very helpfull. With those materials I got nearly every needle plugged on the stepper motors. If a plastic tube is to narrow you can easly make it wider with a needle or a soldering bolt. Or use a small drill. If it is a little bit to wide use pliers. Normally you can make the connection strong enough to not use glue – which can be dangerous if it gets in the near of the stepper or some other kind of mechanics. "

This is the instrument for oil pressure and temperature – housing, dial, glas, needles and the bord with the steppers. Fortunatelly the position of the needles fits exatly to the position of the stepper motor axis. So this is an easy convertion.

With a sheet of plastic I built the connection of the board and the gauges mechanics.

After it has been sanded and painted, I used some separators used in electronics for the printed circuit boards. They are hexagonal and are available with internal and external threads in several combinations and lengths.

After the gauge has been reassembled, the needles are pluged in with those
white plastic tubes. Be sure to drive the motors to the right position before
putting them in place.

This is also an easy one : The manifold pressure gauge.

Only the holder of the dial has to be in the right place. Then again a tube on the steppers axis and the needle on top

.
Sometimes it is difficult to connect the board with the housing. I made a mould to produce boxes (the white-plastic one) which are endued with holes and threads for the separators and the axis.

Now the plastic box is painted black and acts as the linkage between the instrument and the stepper board

This was one of several attempts to make the two steppers board driving the needles more than 180° degrees – it doesn’t work as those small motors stop even the lowest resistance.

So I used two generic boards to drive the normal steppers which travel more than 180° degress to get the ...

...fuel quantity needles all the way.

The attitude indicator in my panel is much larger than that of Flight Illusion. So I placed a mounting on top of the small scale of the delivered gauge. That moves the two horizontal line. The scale is screwed on the original dial for the rolling movement. It was not easy because you have to take care that none of the components blockades the mechanics of the Fligth Illusion gauge nor touches the housing of the gauge.

for more info: Marcel.Felde@gmx.de