Magic Panel and a few more hinges

Got a few more hours in this weekend and managed to get a few more ultimate hinges installed and the magic panel.

The hinge installs were all similar to the previous ones, just have to be careful lining them up as there is little tolerance.  Once they are all installed I'll have to bend them a bit to improve the fit and in some cases file either the opening or the hinge slightly.

I found the best way was to line the hinge up then clamp it in place and actually drill the first hole with the hinge in place, that way the hole is definitely in the correct place.  On one of the pie panels I had to cut the corner off the hinge mount so it cleared the lower panel hinge, a simple dremel cut sorted that out.

Here are a few pics of the hinges so far.

I now just have the two small hinges and the top hinge to mount.  Need to decide where to place the top hinge, but will probably be to the left of the periscope hole - speaking of which, that panel is not hinged as eventually the pie panel will rise with the periscope.

Next up was the magic panel, I managed to source this from the junkyard on astromech and it's the first lights to get installed!

I first had to solder on the headers and power/I2C terminals. I only had some odd ones which is the only reason the I2C one is so big!  

Cutting the hole for the magic panel was time consuming but simple enough. I started using my dremel to make a whole that was about 5mm too small. I only did this to ensure I didn't go to big as the lip on the panel is only small and I didn't want it to be able to come through.  After much filing and measuring I got the panel in.  I then just fixed it using the same captive studs as the hinges.  Powered it up and now have a cool red panel!! I'll be modifying the code for it later to respond to my I2C commands but for now it looks great.  The edges will be covered by the outer panel when it's installed.

To finish up I started to think about how the other bits will be mounted.  I don't have my holo projectors  yet but do have the mounts.  I could have a problem with it overlapping the hinged panel. After some advice on astromech, I'll worry about this when I get the hp's.

I've also started writing my android app, but more on that later!