PhuketAussie
Active Member
This is my design for a control panel for my workstation (Star Trek themed workstation under construction!). The idea is that the buttons (styled on the gumdrop buttons used on the bridge of the Enterprise rather than the plain black ones in the original design) will be used to power on and reset my PC, and other things. Using the oval gumdrop button tops I can glue to buttons under each, with an LED embedded inbetween. One of the buttons will be connected to the PC to power-on, while the other is connected to an arduino board to activate an animated LED sequence in the long triangular bar at the top. Similar for the second button, but for the PC's reset function. The other four buttons will be connected to the arduino to activate a bank of four relays for switching on/off nightlights, monitors, speakers etc.
As you can see I'm not going for screen accuracy, I'm going for practicality and usefulness, while maintaining the look and feel of all the sets from the TV show. My whole approach all along has been that if a new set was needed for a new function on the ship how would it be designed... That's been my parameters. I've no need of back-to-back dual controls like on the original, so I've cut it off like the other 'machine' shown under this picture below. I also think that the gumdrop style buttons would be more attractive than the WWII machine gun trigger style buttons and crazy toggle switches used on the original. I've already started experimenting with the electronics, this is the power button with LED using an old USB cable for the wires. Works perfectly. That LED will be embedded in the resin cast gumdrop.
Opinions?
