Front Panels

[Yoshiki Ohmura (Yoshi)]

With all this talk about front panels, I want to let you guys know of one
of the best services out there.  Its by a company in Germany called
Schaeffer Apparatebau KG
and they are located in Berlin.  They designed a software which lets you
layout your own front panel, and then they are able to manufacture it from
your specs.  You have a choose of aluminum thickness as well as
colour!!!!! (red, green, blue, gold, black and more)  You can have your
front panels drilled, engraved, negative embossed as well as whole
punched.  The program is very user-friendly and extremely easy to use.  

Here is my experience with them:  I talked to Kai (one of the owners) for
a bit, and since I was the first customer from the US (happy, happy, joy,
joy) they set up a credit card account so the could process my order.  So
now everybody from all over the world can order from them :)  Previous to
this I ordered my front panels from Paia, then brought them to a machine
shop to have them drilled and then sent them to the engravers to have the
lettering put on.  This not only took a long time, but cost me a bloody
fortune.  So I decided to check Kai's services out and sent them three
panels too do.  In about half the time and at less then half the cost from
my previous endeavors I got my panels back from Germany.  I must say the
look absolutely beautiful, especially since they where able to lay out all
the engravings in COLOUR!  It's still not cheap, but much cheaper then
doing it locally (postage included), and the way I see it, is if I'm going
to put so much time and effort into  building a module, it better as hell
look nice, my time is worth it.  

To be able to service the English speaking clients, I've helped Kai
translate the software over into English.  The first English version will
have everything but the help file translated, but the software is so easy
to use, I doubt you would ever need it.  However they are going to
translate the help file in the near future too.  To download this cool
software you can go to: http://www.schaeffer-apparatebau.de
or if you have questions send them to Kai at:
kschaeffer at schaeffer-apparatebau.de

I'm in no way affiliated with Schaeffer Apparatebau KG, but I think their
service is cool as hell, and I'm sure lots of people will find them as
useful as I did.

Cheers

Yoshi

Now I have to get that third circuit to work, since I hate this cool panel
not being in use.