methos2523 wrote:wooohoooooooo
My PKE...
it's sooooooo gorgeous... thank you so much
No problem, it looks great with the RGB uniform too!
SpaceCoastGBs wrote:These are your best yet. What did you use for the main body and the viewscreen shrouds? I've considered rebuilding mine using styrene on an electrical gang box, but whatever you've used looks great.
Thanks man
The main bodies of both are just project boxes, most likely ABS, that I acquired through various means (shopping on eBay, thrift stores, electronic surplus stores and websites, etc). The viewscreen covers are square PVC cut at an angle. Square is kind of a misnomer for it because it's actually slightly rounded at the edges so it's not perfectly square. I got several sizes from a friend whose father owns a plastics company and they had some inventory they wanted to get rid of.
I recommend shopping on some of the electronic surplus sites for the size boxes you need, such as :
http://www.allelectronics.com/ and
http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/ It's tricky to judge just what size you need because they vary quite a bit and you want to get something deep enough for all the electronics and batteries inside. Radio Shack had some project boxes in decent sizes but since they're going out of business, and unless you can luck out and find one closing, this won't be available much longer. I aim for something about 4-5 inches tall, about 2-3 inches wide and 1.5-2 inches tall (or deep). If going for the conduit body boxes at the hardware stores you can find this type which comes in different sizes and configurations of openings and I use them for my Extreme GB style PKE builds:
The only thing about them is they are very deep, so I cut about 1/2 to 1 inch off of them, but the posts go all the way down so the screws will still have something to grab. The covers are found in the same area of the store and usually are a good fit with minimal work. For a RGB style build you can find the type with just one opening which you can use for the handle, and the other end flat which would be great for cutting and mounting the antenna. I just prefer to find the right size ABS project boxes for the RGB builds because there's more room to work on the inside.