How to build your own panels
Until this very moment I have never found any better tutorial to build your own panels as the one from Rob Van der Wiele.
http://members.chello.nl/~r.vanderwiele/HowToPanel2.html
Another pretty easy and simple way is to use whatever material is available for the backing - plywood, plastic, metal.. and use hot-laminated laser-printed paper panels for the markings. The Malmi Aviation Club Simulator uses this method on the radio stack, the url contains pictures. For backlightable panels plywood is naturally not suitable 
Other option is to make your own manual engraver. Based on a panthograph. Search the internet for the princips of a panthograph. Using this with a dremel might give some nice results.
A new-found highly rated solution can be found via here: http://www.schaeffer-ag.de/ for europe, http://www.frontpanelexpress.com/ for America.
This company gives you a free downloadable 2D CAD program in which you can create your own panels. Right from the program itself you can see how much each panel will cost you and you can order the goods from the same application.
There are a few tips to take note off. First of all using 3mm thick panel seems to be the best price/value. 4mm will cost you more than 2mm or 2.5mm saves you. Then for the text engraving .. try adding as much text as possible in 1 textbox. Having 1 reference point for their machine to calibrate from seems to save you a bit. Which in the end (if you do all your panels) should save you quite a bit.
It should take not much more than 5 days for the goods to arrive at your place. Obviously these allu panels can not be backlit but if you don't care about backlight, this is a very interesting option.
I (Philippe Vanagt / Fokker 50 project) am designing all the F50 panels and I am at the moment at 680 euro. I've done all the pedestal panels, overhead and the glare panels. Still have to do some panels from the MIP. I will use PVC foam boards to do the backplates and use these panels as frontplates to fit on them. I will order them not painted at all. This will save me and I will be able to chose color myself. First I will primer them, then paint (spray) and finally fill in the engravings with white paint or ink. I will keep you posted when I got something to show. I will order 1 panel first as a test.
Here's a very good tutorial I found. English and German available.
http://www.xflight.de/f16/pe_sim_pnl.htm
Another tutorial for a simple, inexpensive panel. It has toggles and momentary switches, and requires no electronics knowledge (only some soldering).
