FRONT PANELS
We offer the utmost flexibility for the design of your front panel. Information about design options is provided on this page. Also find out more about
- the range of features included in Front Panel Designer
- other options such as Bending
ENCLOSURES
Front Panel Designer can also be used to design complete enclosures. We offer different enclosure solutions. And you can, of course, customise all sections of the enclosure to your individual wishes. You can also directly order the right accessories for assembling the housing.
MILLED PARTS
Machine elements, prototypes, special parts: Make use of the full range of features included in Front Panel Designer to design customised milled parts for every conceivable area of application. Greater material thicknesses are also possible. Inner and outer contours can be designed freely using the DXF import.
SIGNS
Use Front Panel Designer to design company signs and doorbell nameplates, rating plates and warning plates for machinery and equipment, and information signs for buildings. Our UV printing process is also perfect for decorative printing with a metallic character. Practically any conceivable shape and dimension are possible.
- Materials and colours
- Invisible fastening using rear-side Threaded bushes
- Design options with Engraving and Print
MATERIALS AND COLOURS
We primarily work with anodised aluminium. We also offer other surface finishes and materials. Try out a combination of different surfaces and engraving colours here:
YOUR SELECTION
Natural anodised aluminium
Hardened surface
Matt and scratch-free front*
Bright (silver-coloured) milled edges**
In stock material thicknesses (mm)
1,5 - 2 - 2,5 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 8 - 10
Electrically conductive rear
Available for following material thicknesses (mm):
2 - 2,5 - 3 - 4Suitable for UV printing
Yes
Engraving
Night blue (RAL 5022)
*
The rear may have traces of machining.
**
Additional edge options: Sanding, Subsequent anodising
OTHER MATERIALS
Aluminium raw
Raw aluminium is unfinished. The surface is unhardened and the front may have scratches. It is an inexpensive alternative for front panels, enclosures or milled parts if the front does not have to be perfect.
Available material thicknesses (mm):
1,5 – 2 – 2,5 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 8 – 10
Perspex
Acrylic glass (Plexiglas®) is particularly suitable for display windows. We stock transparent acrylic glass in the material thicknesses 2, 3 and 4 mm and red acrylic glass (semi-transparent) in 3 mm.
Others
We can procure and machine the following materials on request:
Plastics
Polyoxymethylene (POM)
Bakelite
PTFE (Teflon®)
PVC
Laminated paper (Pertinax)
Epoxy resin
Engraving materials
Non-ferrous metals
Brass
Copper
Bronze
Aluminium types
Need another type of aluminium, e.g., cast aluminium or particular alloys of ‘aircraft aluminium’? Let us know!
We cannot machine steel, elastomers or epoxy resins containing fibreglass.
Materials in Online Help
Prices for Material procurement
Customer provided material
Got your own material that you would like us to machine? This is also possible, of course. We also machine customer-supplied material including finished or semi-finished parts (e.g., front panels, profiles or housing lids). Our CNC machines can machine all the materials listed on this page. If you cannot precisely categorise your material, just let us know and we’ll be happy to try out machining for you.
UV PRINTING
The advantages of digital printing are obvious: Thanks to a wide range of colours, the ability to reproduce complex graphics down to the finest detail and photo printing, this inexpensive process offers almost endless design freedom. Your company’s own typeface can also simply be printed on to the plate using UV printing.
Our UV printing process guarantees a high level of scratch resistance and UV resistance along with very good resistance to chemicals and many solvents. Because the ink remains on the material surface in this process, you get a brilliant and opaque application of colour and a large colour space. And it’s useful to know that we also print the colour white. This allows printing on coloured panels and light colours to be reproduced as faithfully as possible, e.g., your company logo.
You can conveniently position the graphics on your front panel in Front Panel Designer. All standard file formats are supported. Alternatively, you can also design your front panel with the engraving elements in Front Panel Designer and then switch to ‘Print’. You can control the price for printing directly in the software.
UV printing in Online Help
More information in Printing manual
More questions? Contact
MATERIAL COLOURS AND PRINT SETTINGS
You can use UV printing with all the anodised aluminium from our range. Achieve practically any effect by combining the material colour and using white as the print colour. For particularly bright colours you can use full white underprinting in your print graphics. The white colour has a very opaque, matt character. If you want to retain the lustrous quality of the underlying aluminium on the printed areas, use white sparingly.
More information in Printing manual
ENGRAVING
Engraving is an elegant and lasting marking method. It meets the highest demands. Front Panel Designer provides a wide selection of fonts and simple graphic elements. The HPGL import function can also be used to position complex objects such as graphics, alternative fonts or your company logo on your front panel.
Many RAL colours are available in Front Panel Designer for your design selection. We’ll also be happy to procure any RAL or NCS colour that you want.
So that we can guarantee impeccable quality, engraved areas are in-filled by hand.
Engraving in Online Help
Information about engraving file design service: Engraving manual
Want us to create the engraving file? Your logo engraved
More questions? Contact
THREADED BOLTS AND BUSHES
You can position threaded bolts and bushes on your front panel. We also offer heavy duty studs in addition to the standard version. These are suitable for heavier parts (such as transformers). Both versions are available in different lengths with M2.5, M3, UNC #4 and UNC #6 threads. You can simply select them in Front Panel Designer.
Threaded bolts in Online Help
ACCESSORIES
In our webshop you can find everything you need to assemble your enclosures. Side and housing profiles in any length, housing brackets, assembly kits and screw packs. You can also find silicon adhesive for fastening acrylic displays and electronic components. We check every housing order we receive to make sure the composition of the housing is correct and complete.
Comprehensive information on housing design and accessories in the Enclosure manual