Peten Kinda spoiled me. Acef, Peten and I were discussing how to create the TWP Jay-el switches, with something slightly cheaper.
Peten has the original things, and told me he, like a few other guys on VP, got theirs from Ebay by buying old RWR systems, the old IAF F-4 AN/APR-36 is pretty common around since they were retired almost a decade ago. The RWR itself is exactly the correct size, and the control panel has 10 Jay-El switches..
I’ve went to look for something, hoping to find treasures, buy I only found one busted RWR box, the price was about 80USD and I decided it will look good on the pit, to have one genuine piece of aviation hardware.
When it arrived it looked, well busted…
but I only wanted it for the Bezel anyway,
at some point I’ll put in a TFT display behind it and make a functional RWR, but for now, it’s decoration only.
I tried taking the bezel off, but had a little snag, the retention pins hlding down the brightness pot cap are held by an Allen screw in a size I didn’t have the key for. So I had to sit on it for a month waiting for a bunch of keys from ebay, I guessed that I need 0.05″ key, I was wrong, you need a 1.3 mm key to open it. unfortunatly, after a month of waiting, it took me 30 seconds to open one retention screw, and another 30 to discover that the other screw was “eaten up” and the key doesn’t catch the thread.
So I went to plan B, yank the crap out of it. first thing I’ve done was to get the screen glass out, so I’ll not break it, because the POT was the only thing holding it in place, I’ve turned it around got the screen out, and then I managed to free up the POT from it’s seating, and the bezel was free at last.
so I mounted the trim pots back, I’ll probably will eventually close the other screws too, but of now, that is enough. I’ve decided not to bolt it down for now, as I still have a lot of work on it in the future, and I didn’t want to make it permanent, so.. double sided tape it is!!
and behold! by new pit decoration, one less hole to stare at when I fly 🙂