Which projectors?

Topic: Which projectors? (Read 5330 times) previous topic - next topic

Which projectors?

Reply #15 – November 20, 2006, 08:21:29 PM

You know, making a mold WOULD be easier if using a hardened mold (not the rubbery kind). Not sure how strong the plastic casting would be with obtainable materials though. I'm going to see what TAP plastics has to say about it tomorrow. My one wire wheel is about gone now and I need to pick up a bunch more. Was able to cut down past probably 90% of the ribs in two of the large ribbed areas.

Not sure how well fiberglass works but if I can just get a fiberglass mold made of the inside shape, it'd be quite easy to bend some lexan around it. Then my only concern is how the joined edges would look.

Which projectors?

Reply #16 – November 20, 2006, 10:48:28 PM

Do you have a spare lens around to experiment with? Try putting it under water and you'll likely find that the grooves all but disappear. The grooves won't disappear completely under water because the water has different optical properties than the acrylic lens. The key to getting rid of them might lie not in filing/grinding them down, but in filling the "valleys" with a clear resin that has similar optical properties.

Even if you can't find something identical you might still be able to do a compromise - use the file/grinder method to get rid of most of the grooves, and some clear resin to fill in the rest...

Which projectors?

Reply #17 – November 20, 2006, 11:00:06 PM

This is one of my spare lenses I'm working on. I have two right now. I'm sure I can make it smooth with enough time, but melting some lexan on top of a mold would probably be far easier if I can make the seams look alright.

Which projectors?

Reply #18 – November 21, 2006, 04:43:44 PM

TAP Plastics couldn't give me ideas on what to use for a mold, except wood. I don't think that lady knew too much. I need something that can take the shape of the inside of the lens, be sanded smooth when taken out, and can resist 300 degrees in an oven to bend acrylic over. I found that the heat gun itself makes it plenty pliable but its hard to not overheat it in spots, causing bubbles (testing out some s pieces)

Which projectors?

Reply #19 – November 24, 2006, 03:24:43 PM

Well, the ballasts and bulbs arrived today and work as they should. Just finishing getting all the brown off the D2R bulbs to use in the projectors. Lens clearing is coming along pretty nicely actually, with just the second wire brush. Almost every rib is gone and the inside has very few lumps left to grind down. Sandpaper soon to follow

Which projectors?

Reply #20 – November 24, 2006, 09:50:35 PM

Excellent! Post some pictures when you get close.
How will you be preparing the lenses for final polishing? What grits will you be using?

Which projectors?

Reply #21 – February 21, 2011, 03:32:49 PM

What ever happened to this experiment?

Which projectors?

Reply #22 – February 21, 2011, 10:02:34 PM

This guy here does this for a living (usually on rams) great pricing and really good work...

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/profile.php?id=100001757071942

his name is Jeremy...

Which projectors?

Reply #23 – March 31, 2011, 12:51:29 AM

Quote from: jpc647;353542

What ever happened to this experiment?

These were finished long ago but I will get around to making a new quad-projector, hopefully single-piece headlight/marker assembly once I am more settled in to the new place and build a vacuum chamber. The current lenses were vacuum formed over a stock pair of filled lenses as molds. I have a couple slightly worse spare lenses but I hope to make some perfect ones easily once I build a chamber to get myself larger/single piece lenses to replace the 3-light set.

Which projectors?

Reply #24 – March 31, 2011, 08:37:01 AM

Nice job, Seek.

Which projectors?

Reply #25 – March 31, 2011, 12:17:28 PM

Quote from: flylear45;356829

Nice job, Seek.

That was nothing - my next endeavor will be the difficult one. I already have the parts but the lenses and header panel modifications/planning will be the most difficult. It will be two TL projectors and two TSX projectors for 12,000 bulb lumens of pure awesomeness. Plus it'll look better having full clear lenses up front

Still a LOT better than stock. I haven't even used my fo glights in years as they do not help at all, over the light that the Acura TL projectors put out.

Which projectors?

Reply #26 – March 31, 2011, 12:41:08 PM

So if you don't like the ones you have, you interested in selling them? lol

Which projectors?

Reply #27 – March 31, 2011, 03:27:55 PM

Quote from: jpc647;356834

So if you don't like the ones you have, you interested in selling them? lol

I likely will be when the time comes, but I need to make some new lenses with more durable material. One lens has very slight webbing from something hitting it hard - I can only see it with light hitting it at a certain angle but it's there. The current lenses were formed with a simple wet/dry vacuum.

I figure my new vacuum forming machine will be able to do this easily, and churn them out quickly once I have the mold design done that I currently have in my head. Dual tanks pulled to strong vacuum (need to test this to see how much vacuum I actually need) should be enough to quickly form even new single-piece front lenses. Now on the other hand, having the room to store the vacuum chamber...that I'm unsure about.

Currently the lawn and car paint are on my list before vacuum chamber, meaning this project is 6 months out.

Which projectors?

Reply #28 – March 31, 2011, 04:43:34 PM

. Do you have any idea how much revenue you'll generate on these lights. Most of us would probably drop some good money for decent headlights.

Which projectors?

Reply #29 – March 31, 2011, 06:16:56 PM

Quote from: jpc647;356852

. Do you have any idea how much revenue you'll generate on these lights. Most of us would probably drop some good money for decent headlights.

The lenses are the hardest part - if they work out, I'd likely just sell clear lenses to people so they can do their own work with the housings to how they'd like. I can form some housings easily enough, giving a lot of interior space for designs, but that would also require a person to develop their own aiming mechanism. If I need to, I may offer other services but I think that would be better suited for someone with more time and space who can get the lenses from me and do the rest of the fabrication themself to make money, if they so desire. We'll see how everything goes once I get the cabinet built first.

I'm not looking to make money - just get what I want and offer similar to other people who want them/pay for the mold making materials of custom lenses or housings. I have no idea how well my vacuum chamber design will work though, until I put it into practice. Pulling materials down in one direction is one thing but you have to keep in mind that the marker lights wrap around the car and the lens itself wraps around further to its housing.

Instead of doing this:

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

to:

|¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯|

We have to make this:

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

do this:

|¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯\
...........................|
........................__|

Ignore the dots - I had to fill something in there to keep spaces from being removed. An interesting note on this - try using character 0xA0 for spaces and when you preview the post, it gets converted to the word "molested". Yes, very amusing.

Anyway, the above example shows that one side must pull one direction while the other must pull a different direction. This is going to require a raised vacuum port to be fitted within the mold, rather than just pull to the bottom of the vacuum chamber. I think this will actually be fairly easy to do for any direction after I get the first mold working.

And yes, our lights suck. With new headlight lenses/housings, bulbs, 14.5v at the bulb, foglights, it still didn't come close to the TL projectors I have on their now. My used D2S bulbs are showing their age though in both color temperature (higher) and output.