Clear corners are getting a bit too common and ricy. I wanted to do something different with my front lights, so I decided to take clear corners to the next level :D
I didn't take step-by-step pics as once I start working on something I don't dare stop to take pics or the project never gets finished (remember my LED tail light project?).
First thing I did, though, was split open a perfectly good pair of corner lights. The amber reflectors were tossed, and since the chrome reflectors were starting to tarnish, and since I'll no longer be needing reflectors, and since the car is white, I decided to paint the reflectors white. I then made a couple of small circuit boards up, put some LED's on them, and hot glued them into the side opening. After hot gluing them I made a "wall" out of tape and poured some clear resin tinted white into the cavity to make the side lights:
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/88birdbodywork/cornerlightapart.jpg)
I then made up a larger circuit board with about 100 amber LED's and a dozen super bright whites. I made the circuits so that the ambers light up at about 75% brightness when only the park lights are lit, and 100% when the turn signals are lit. The whites only light up when the turn signals are lit:
OFF:
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/88birdbodywork/cornerlightoff.jpg)
Park lights on:
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/88birdbodywork/cornerlightpark.jpg)
Turn lights on (note: The LED's look dimmer in this pic, but that's my digital camera and my lack of knowledge on how to use it - it saw the bright light so dimmed the whole pic, hence the darker background - it is for this reason that I didn't take any "head on" shots, the LED's blind the camera):
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/88birdbodywork/cornerlightturn.jpg)
A closeup (I know the lens needs polishing, I didn't want to waste time polishing it before taking it apart, else I break it and waste my time):
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/88birdbodywork/cornerlightcloseup.jpg)
This light is still not finished, as I have to "pot" the main light with the white resin to waterproof everything. I just had to take pics and show you guys :D
That looks awesome! I'm going for the ricey clear corners though. :D
Nice work!
that had to take awhile
Awesome!
Looks good, mighty good!
Any plans to maybe sell finished lenses?
Looks awesome Carm!
But technically this should be in the 'Body/Appearance' section... ;)
If this thread should be a sticky, give me an "OH HELL YEAH!" :D
yeah, you should think about selling em!
i would love a pair.
LOOKS AWESOME BTW
I've considered making them to sell, but given the time and effort required (you would not believe how much time went into getting the clear lens off the housing alone) they would not be cheap, so people probably wouldn't want to buy 'em anyway (we're talking at least $300-400 a pair here, depending on how cheap I could get "cores").
I am also doing the inner lights (the ones closest to the grille, if my TC clip had a grille that is) the same way. They will be MUCH easier, as there are no side-firing lights to go in, so they'll only need one circuit board. They're a lot easier to get the lens off, too (hell, leave 'em long enough and they'll fall off on their own).
Now, y'all think these are cool wait 'till you see the tail lights, which after three years in the works, are finally almost kind of becoming "front-burner" again. Almost three hundred super bright red LED's. PER SIDE :D
I've just got too much to do right now (rear end freshening and swap, install subframe connectors, finish bodywork/paint, finish the interior swap, finish customized stock TC cluster, and now the LED lights) to get any one thing done now. My friends think I'm crazy for starting so many projects on one car. I know better. I'm not crazy, I'm stupid :hick:
*Edit* And Eric, you're probably right - it should have been posted in Body/Appearance. Movin' on over...
Very cool, I wish I new how to work with LEDS, I have some ideas of my own I would like to toy around with.
Once I'm finished I might do a tech article on how to do it, since like I said I don't have much interest in producing them. LED's are actually quite easy to work with...
Cool :D
That would be AWESOME! I would be greatly intrested in that.:bowdown:
man. Sounds like you have a lot on your plate. Bettter start chewing :D. Haha. Those are really cool though. I like the idea of a different color for turning.
Nice!
On-car pictures would be nice once you're done. IMO, DIY LEDs normally come out trashy...but these look pretty good since the diffuser thing on the lens takes care of the ugliness of the LED array.
:)
Remember, LED's are one of the things I do (my Thundercat Electronixx LED's outsell my sequencers by a wide margin). I always make my arrays as geometrical as possible, and I always "pot" them in resin so you can't see the circuit board, resistors, and wiring. I usually use black tinted resin, but decided to go with white in these front lights (the rear lights will use black). When this light is potted you won't see the circuit board that's visible in those pics - it'll look like the LED's were actually moulded into the housings :D I haven't potted that light yet because I've still got to make the other light, and I want to be able to copy (in mirror) the circuit board layout.
On-car pics are forthcoming, but I've had to put the project on hold for a week or so - I just sold a bunch of amber LED emergency lights to a local fencing company, so I have to get more LED's in (business before pleasure, after all).
very nice clean work.
Ok, got a bit more done - basically now it's just a matter of gluing the lenses on, buffing them up, and installing the lights on the car.
Here you can see the "potting" that hides the circuit board and gives the light a factory look:
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/88birdbodywork/cornerlightpotted.jpg)
These two show the LED array (only the amber are lit - again, the lights are really much brighter, but the camera's iris is closing up, dimming the shots):
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/88birdbodywork/cornerlightparkangled.jpg)(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/88birdbodywork/cornerlightparkstraighton.jpg)
And with the white (turn) LED's on:
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/88birdbodywork/cornerlightturnangled.jpg)(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/88birdbodywork/cornerlightturnstraighton.jpg)
...And one with the lens sitting in place (not glued on yet). I played with the camera settings a bit (likely it'll never be the same) to try to get the lights to show up brighter. They did, but still not as bright as "real life":
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/88birdbodywork/cornerlightturnfinished.jpg)
For those of you interested in trying this at home, the circuit board (front and rear shots). The LED's with the yellowish white colour are the white ones:
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/88birdbodywork/cornerlightcircuitboardfront.jpg)(http://www.foxthundercats.com/images/88birdbodywork/cornerlightcircuitboardback.jpg)
Out of curiosity...how'd you get the lens off there? I thought about taking the lenses off my parking & turn signal lights to clean them up, but it looked like they were glued on there very well and I didn't want to risk cracking the lenses.
Very carefully. It was a pain in the butt, actually, and that process took longer than any of the other work. I essentially used a very small screwdriver and a hammer and tapped my way around the whole thing. Probably took the better part of three hours to get those two lights apart. The inner marker lights were much easier - they cracked open like eggs
, how did you get teh orange reflectors out w/o breaking it?