New gauge faces… maybe?

Tried my hand at making some new gauge faces from vinyl on the wife’s Cricut. 

Sweet. Are you going to use some adhesive to attach them?

It’s already adhesive backed.
im getting some transparent lime green vinyl from Amazon. Probably red, too. So plastic gauge face backing (acrylic?), green/red, black from pics. 

might try to find some clear that will block UV from getting down to the colored layers. 

You can grab one of these for the colored sections in case you want to experiment with variations in color.
www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/45189-REG...olux_Swatchbook.html

photo: B&H Photo
 




If you need a bigger sample size.
www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/45190-REG..._Color_Selector.html



and once you decide you can get a 20inx24in sheet of that color.
 

Very Innovative!! Nice work, new technology for the hobbyist. I do my share of gauges and always try to avoid the "decals" but sometimes one has no choice. Keep up the Great Work!!   

Status update: 

Also replaced the 3 electrolytic capacitors on the tachometer PCB. Very easy to do, and now they'll last another 40 years.
Very easy to do. And likely needed replaced anyways. Electrolytic capacitors have a finite lifespan.
The values were: 6.3V 470uf, 16v 47uf, and 50v 2.2uf. I'm *assuming* that they were the stock capacitors.

Thats awesome! Worked out really well. Nice job

How does the software work? Do you start with a photo or copy or freehand. Curious as I want to tackle my tachs faceplate and was thinking scan and try MS Paint or similar to clean it up and print.

The software I used was gimp (photo editor, free), fusion 360 (optional), and the cricut design software. 

absolutely use a flatbed scanner. And the existing gauge face has to be touching the scanner. This is all to make sure that it’s scaled properly. 

in the photo editor, you have to remove everything that isn’t the color you want. It has to be a single color. That means anywhere a white region borders a black region, you have to choose exactly what to keep. Aim to have a strictly black and white gauge face to load into the cricut software. 

Thanks for the advice KeylAmi!

Sounds like Gimp is exactly what I need. I'll take the tach off when I put the bike away for winter in Oct and have a crack at it over the following few months. Hope to post the results here in the new year.

 

feel free to reach out to me if you're struggling.

You can absolutely get UV filtering sheet acrylic - there are different options like abrasion resistance and such as well. With the work you've done so far, it would be a worthy investment. It's usually used for archival framing and such instead of glass. If it's too thin (1/8") you can also get UV "protected" polycarbonate in different thicknesses. In any case, get an extra square or two to practice cutting it. Most larger cities also plastics fabrication shops that will do custom work.