UK front panel maker

[TwentyTrees]

Wow. I don’t know if my eyes are finally failing or what, but I’ve looked at this several times, zoomed in, all that, and my brain is definitely still seeing white. Pretty impressive! Also, beautiful panels overall, congrats.

Thanks! To be honest it's a bit more obviously not-quite-white in person, but it's still great - I've used the light grey Sifam knobs on a more recent build and it complements those perfectly.

 

[Rob Flinn]

Does anyone know if Meface are still in business ? I have twice asked them for a quote through there contact page & have never had any response from them.

 

[ruffrecords]

Does anyone know if Meface are still in business ? I have twice asked them for a quote through there contact page & have never had any response from them.

I usually email them:

[email protected]

Cheers

Ian

 

[TwentyTrees]

Yep, the sales@ address is the one that I use. Their director Russ is generally very on it. I last heard from them mid-April.

 

[elskardio]

I've recently had a number of panels produced by Meface, and I wanted to post a quick report as I've been very impressed with both their products and their service.

As Ian notes, the result of the printing process is quite different to the UV printing I've had done elsewhere, and both looks and feels great. I tend to go with dark panels with white legends for my own projects, which wasn't possible with Meface as they can't print white (ink particle vs aluminium pore size, as I understand it) but in the end the natural alu legend with dark printed "background" looks rather sharp I think.

View attachment 80583

I will also say that their machining is absolutely beautifully done - very precise, and very neat. As well as the above, I had them make a couple of pieces to bolt together into a 500 series bracket for a custom switching and power filtering module, and it came together perfectly.

View attachment 80584

I should note that their service doesn't work for everything (they don't do bending or standoffs, and sometimes you need white print). That said, I've been really happy and I will certainly be using them again, given the relatively low cost and high quality of their product!

Hi TwentyTrees,

how much did you pay for the 500 series panel?
It looks good!

Did you send Meface a .FPD file?
Cheers

 

[TwentyTrees]

Hi TwentyTrees,

how much did you pay for the 500 series panel?
It looks good!

Did you send Meface a .FPD file?
Cheers

Yes, they accept FPD. Price is hard to say exactly, as I ordered a whole bunch of stuff together (some anodised and printed, some natural and unprinted for internal use) and the quote wasn't itemised. Average for both was £18, so the full printed ones are not expensive - certainly under £30 a panel I think.

 

[ruffrecords]

Yes, they accept FPD. Price is hard to say exactly, as I ordered a whole bunch of stuff together (some anodised and printed, some natural and unprinted for internal use) and the quote wasn't itemised. Average for both was £18, so the full printed ones are not expensive - certainly under £30 a panel I think.

It used to say something along the lines of the following on their web iste: "For a 3U high panel in 2mm thick aluminium the price is usually £1 per HP" It does not really matter how many holes of what size it has or what the printing needs to be. Special additional mechanical steps like counterboring are extra but basic panels usually turn out to be very close to the standard price.

Cheers

ian

 

[fragletrollet]

nice, cool to see some alternatives. So they don't do white print at all? Or is it just under certain circumstances...?

I've usually gone with engraving with white infill, but am thinking to try UV print or the subsurface method MeFace does. Text and such can easily be printed instead of engraved, saving a good chunk of money. Still want engraving for the artwork/logo on the frontpanel tough, but the possibilities with high definition color print is exciting; who says the panel needs to be monochrome etc; you can really make textures to fill the metal with, as a much more exciting alternative to a fixed "background" color.

Would love to see some comparison photos of FPE's UV print and MeFace's subsurface method, if anyone have panels from both!

 

[TwentyTrees]

Don't think Meface do white at all I'm afraid! Or at least they didn't when I got my panels in a few months back.

 

[znjamznjam]

About a year ago I got made two panels with UV print on 4mm thick Kapafix material.
UV printing is great! It's basically inkjet but with special ink that polymerizes under UV light. It hardens in a fraction of second, immediately after it touches the surface. The print is solid, very durable.
In the meantime, a friend of mine who has a small printing shop got the UV printer and told me that the machine can accept any material I provide him. So I guess printing directly on 3mm aluminum is okay. I plan to have him try that for me, but I'm still trying to finish current builds and not think about upcoming ones.
And the best part is it's cheap and I can do designs in any software I prefer since it prints from pdf file!



Luka

Dou you test printing op alu panel? If is it ok which printer is used? Hvala

 

[shot]

Dou you test printing op alu panel? If is it ok which printer is used? Hvala

I don't know exact model of the printer, but it's some modified Epson A3 inkjet. It's a custom mod that some guys here in Croatia do and sell to print manufacturers. Guess there's DIY in other areas too

Since then I've tried it on aluminum 3mm panels. My mistake was to have solid color print on large area (background) and that didn't turn nice since there are lines that can be visible. But lettering and other graphics turned out super nice!
Other drawback of having UV printed whole area of front panel including background color is that it takes really long to print. We were babysitting that printer whole afternoon to have it print five front panels. Guess that's just a slow printer model.
Next time I plan to paint the front panel by myself using car spray or air brush in my workshop and have UV print only for lettering. That'll be quicker and without problems.

@znjamznjam Nemaš frke!



Luka

 

[abbey road d enfer]

I don't know exact model of the printer, but it's some modified Epson A3 inkjet. It's a custom mod that some guys here in Croatia do and sell to print manufacturers. Guess there's DIY in other areas too

I don't know of any over here. Do you have a contact for one? For example, the one you have yourself.

 

[rock soderstrom]

I don't know exact model of the printer, but it's some modified Epson A3 inkjet. It's a custom mod that some guys here in Croatia do and sell to print manufacturers. Guess there's DIY in other areas too

Sounds very interesting!

Can you provide us with more information? The exact model name would be very helpful. Do you have a link to further information on this topic?

I have already dealt with this topic in a neighbouring thread.

https://groupdiy.com/threads/printi...toner-transfer-experiments-on-aluminum.83433/

 

[madswitcher]

+1 for Metface. I tried them out for a couple of panels - good quality work from a PDF drawing done in Visio. Very helpful and pretty quick delivery.