The Apollo Education Experience Project
Building a full-scale Apollo Command Module replica
Well, like the title says, this update has been long overdue. A lot has been going on over the past few months, some of which has had a direct impact on the construction schedule for the CM. For example, there was a period of time during which the project partner
I don’t think anyone will argue with the statement that the Main Display and Control Panel (MDC) is the single most iconic piece of the Apollo Command Module. I mean, with literally hundreds of switches, buttons, gauges, dials, indicators, and lights, nothing really illustrated with such emphasis the complexity of
Since I’m shifting the current focus of the Project to completing the Main Display and Control Panel (MDC), I needed to get the last of its acrylic overlay panels completed. I sent the next files to S&T GeoTronics (www.stgeotronics.com) for cutting and engraving the overlays, including the main overlay for
Now that I’m cutting and fitting panels for the upper portion of the Lower Equipment Bay (LEB), I realized that the first completed control panel to be installed in the CM was probably going to be Panel 101. This is the vertical panel just to the left of the sextant/telescope
One of the goals of the project is to have working lights around the crew cabin, and hopefully working dimming circuits for them as well. There are three types of dimmers in the Command Module: those for the floodlights, those for the numerics (digital displays), and those for “integral” lights
I’m beginning to work on Panel 101, which will be one of the first completed control panels to be installed in the CM. Although the switches will be non-functional, the one gauge will be backlit. Using the same patterns for the round gauges described in an earlier article, I 3D-printed
The real Command Module had literally hundreds of circuit breakers all over the place. These were aircraft-style “push-pull” circuit breakers that could be pushed in to connect a circuit, pulled out to disconnect it manually, or would pop out when tripped. Circuit breakers of this type run around $25 or
I finally completed a number of “cut and etch” files to send to S&T GeoTronics ( www.stgeotronics.com ) so they could make panel overlays out of the acrylic from Johnson Plastics Plus ( www.jpplus.com ) I gave them some time ago. Those files are so time-consuming to produce due to
The thumbwheels that I created earlier were missing one of the most important pieces: a scale to indicate the relative level. So I measured the circumference of the wheel and the width of its center, and created a blank template of the correct size. Using the Futura font, I added
When someone thinks about the control panel of the Apollo Command Module, they usually think about the hundreds of switches, or the “8-balls” (FDAIs), or the low-tech computer interface. But often overlooked are the small thumbwheel controls. These thumbwheels were used for setting levels, such as intercom audio, or trimming
