DIY Editing Remote control for Panasonic DVD Video Recorders

(A guerrilla remote control to make editing on DMR-E80/E85/E100 just a bit more enjoyable.)
The idea works for any other DVD recorders.

Pages: Intro 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

The finishing touch.
All what this new remote needs is some finishing touch. For start we can describe which button does what.
So what we need is a face-plate. We don't need anything too fancy.
A simple design, printed on a photo paper. Then I used a self-laminating sheet and simply put the printout the face to the adhesive side of the sheet.

Then I cut out the holes with a scalpel on a cutting mat and glued the mask to the top of the box.
After all this I sprayed the top of box with acrylic sealer to smooth out the cuted edges, but it is of course optional.
I realized that the buttons are all in different height and tilted because the original controller was curved. I used this to my advantage, make sure the tilt is placed correctly (lower edge towards me) and choose less important buttons with lower height. This is apparent for example on the Navigation and Submenu buttons.

Since some of the buttons had a writing on them, I sprayed them with Enamel (the one used for plastic models) making white, black and grey buttons. (for gray I used the balck and white).

My 4 years old daughter couldn't resist and draw a picture of me working on this project. I am sitting on a chair holding the soldering iron. She is running around with a bunch of wires in her hand that she steal from my table.