I've finished the ultimate HVAC faceplate. This is 3D printed in black resin with cutouts for the light to pass in the correct places. I was thinking I may need to put clear epoxy in those cutouts but it looks like there is no problem leaving them blank. The OEM faceplate left the three indicator warnings blank anyway. With this in my car I only see a very little light bleed at the top if you look closely in the dark. I solved all the bleed around the push button switches, sides and bottom. I think the little top is just that there is not enough pressure to hold it flat against the metal plate.
This was designed for perfection to the DMCH decal. I've not checked it to the other decals offered. I know one of those used a larger font for the lettering.
With this cutout faceplate I noticed my LED board the placement of the LEDs was not perfectly centered in the cutouts. So if I spin another set of LED boards, I have fixed that in my PCB layout for next time. But I do not see any irregular lighting with the REV C (present) board.
I was able to print it with ABS on my filament printer but decided to use resin for the stronger and more accurate result. The resin print takes 24 hours because it has to be printed at an angle to fit in my printer. The filament printer takes 8 hours because it will fit laying flat with no supports. The resin print sands much better than ABS. It sands off in a powder where as the ABS kind of melts off when power sanding. I polished the inside cylinders where the push buttons are to get the same black color as the decal.
I don't plan to sell these unless I can get the part injection molded. I also went with aluminum pins (0.125 dia.) on the four corner standoffs rather than printing plastic pins which can break off.
Last edited by Bitsyncmaster; 03-07-2021 at 12:48 PM.
Dave, well done, as usual. but im curious, why did you develop this? whats wrong with the original one?
I've seen so many that post photo's and people don't paint the sides and push button holes with black paint and you see light bleed. I started thinking of just adding some more light blocking walls onto the clear faceplate but then painting it was a pain and it really needed more than one coat. Then the idea hit me to make it with black plastic and use cutouts.
I'm really flooded with orders on my old products which is why I'm not pursuing getting these injection molded right now. I had done a little research on injection molding thinking of getting covers made for my relays. But that would require I pack the parts even tighter onto the circuit boards to make the boards smaller. Also for injection molding you need to have a little taper on the wall design so it releases from the mold.
I would much rather spend my time designing things than building inventory. So if anyone wants to workout a deal for purchase of my designs let me know.
Dave M vin 03572
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Originally Posted by Bitsyncmaster
