Ground station Build MKII

Yeah you know them. Those who have so-called CNC machines, 3D printers and laser cutters . They do it one after the other bag build and the rest of us sit there and envy.
I do not have access to either or so there will be a manual build and here is how I did it.

I built my first bag but became well not too happy with the result but it worked for now . But over time , I found more that I did not have enough room for everything I needed to have with me and the placement of the switches took a lot of space. And that they built out very far , which meant that I lost a lot of space in the lid of the case .

Here is how my fisrt bag looked like

I started by measuring the bag and draw it in Adobe Illustrator. Then meshured all the parts and placed everything where I wanted it and see that it really got the space.
I made it a little transparency so I could see what would be under cover and where. Also marked out the center of each piece or where I would put the hole to place the electronics.
Here was the end result:

Then when I was happy with the way it looked so I printed out and taped the parts together then I could not be bothered to go to work and print on large printer. But the texture helped to ensure that it was lined up correctly. I used out of 2mm hobby plastic (acryllic) as they call it.

I used the "scoring " tecneque that is cutting with a knife then break and you get a smooth cut.

I will then remove the openings that would cut into the plastic. then I cut it out of the paper so it will of course mark in the plastic as a guide. Drilled even with a small drill bit in the center of each mark for holes .

I cut out the holes but then left about an inch and then I could grind down to the right size so I got nice finish. Once again I used the cut marks as reference.

Here I drilled all the holes and sanded the edges. I have also marked out where to place the brackets for the panel.

Bought plastic L from HK that suited very well for this. Had to cut them down a bit so they not ended up in the bend on the lid.

Do a test fit. Drills holes for the fasteners .

Now time to put on the plastic sheeting . In this case, chosen from carbon fiber. A good tipp is to clean up around your workbench it absorbs everything. So I got some small pices here and there between the film and the plastic. but do not care about that right now. The film will probably need to be replaced in future and only at side light is visible . To get coverage over the rounded corners , I did see in the picture below.
I put the back part that was for the screen when I put on the plastic film when I otherwise got creases.

Perform another test fit to see that everything works . Has put in all the electronics . 1.3GHz video link needed 20mm spacers to fit well . I missed those at this time but now replaced. Was then also removed the silver screws. Noticed that the screen ended up a bit on the side so had to drill the holes in the mount so I could shoot over it a bit.

Wanted a little soft insides and used me as out of the speaker cloth which I glued with 3M SPRAY 77
When i cut the fabric I made so they would overlap a bit in the corners. Made shure that I had extra so it went up well over the edge. I cut it as a X shape then folded it so i coud lay fat on the botom. then took it out, sprayed it and started with the bottom thenthe sides. Used Acitone to get wrid of any oversrays on the fabric.

Now I cut into what will be the cover and drilled holes for the hinges. La since the plastic film on both sides so the entire piece is covered with carbon film .

Now for the inside

Starting cut some 4mm Acrylic. using the same teqnuice as before. Rounded of the corners. I fount that a milc carton cap was the right diameter so i used that as a template by marking out then sanding it down.

Cut all the pieces and make final measurements before screws together.

Final fitting after having assembled together all the pieces. Drill all necessary holes in the bag. Then write down on a paper and mark up every angle so I know the right angle in the right place so it will be easier when the fabric come on as i drilled all wholes by hand no one is exact the same:

Gluing the fabric to the panels

All soldering done time to mount the panel. Taped a little bit behind where plastic film ended. I was a little cheap on leting it fold over propperly so it got loose a little in some places so I put some tape to hold it in place.

Result. The only thing left is to solder the connections to Eagle Eyes FPV Station that will come to later and XT60 connector. Will also attach labels so I know what each button and sockets does.

Tools I used for the build:

dremmel
knife
ruler
3M Super 77 (glue)
wire cutters
soldering iron
screwdrivers
cone drill bit
1.5 mm drill bit
3mm drill bit
heat gun
sandpaper Coarse
Cloth (upon application of the film)

patience

I hope that this could be of some help. To make it a bit easier I also upload the adobe illustrator file:

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