Taillight Mod Next Steps

[ledzilla]

Ok, so it's been a while due to being excessively busy. In that time I managed to get a 3D printer and I designed a panel for mounting the LED strips. My attempts with sheet metal and flat bars wasn't panning out the way I hoped, so being gifted a 3D printer was amazing. Printed out a test strip last night to see how it will all line up with the lens. Looking forward to seeing how close I got it on the first try.

[friskyfrankie]

Do keep us all informed - this may be of interest to many here and have wide spread ramifications!

[massacre]

Very cool!

[ledzilla]

Looks like I have some adjustments to make. Going to have to wait a little while for more filament to arrive before I can print the next version, though, as I don't have enough left for another print right now.

[ledzilla]

I think that I have it reasonably lined up now. I also have the mounting tab on what looks to be a proper angle now. I don't have a photo of the tab being right because I forgot to bring my phone with me out to the garage on my last test fit.

Next steps are to apply an upper tab, as well, to make sure the panels will sit cleanly inside the lens, and then to print a test piece the width that I intend to make each panel piece. Ultimately I will be building the full panel for each taillight in three pieces (due to print size limitations), and each piece will have connections to the neighboring piece. Figure that I'll try out a snap-together configuration first.

[ledzilla]

Looks like I'm mostly there. I didn't realize the top end of the lens was on a different angle than the bottom, so I have to make an adjustment there. Otherwise I think I have the LED strip positioning right where I want it to be, +/- a small fraction off a millimeter.

[sly]

Looking forward to the finished product. Coming along nicely.

[ledzilla]

So, it looks like the size of the taillight changes slightly from side to side. I made a successful adjustment to the mounting tab angle, and then had to make another adjustment to the panel height. After I adjusted the height, it only fit towards on end of the lens, but the previous slightly shorter piece fit snugly at the other end. So that's something that I wasn't anticipating. It only seems to be about a 1mm difference, but it's enough to cause a fitment issue. Need to do some extra checking on it to see exactly how much it changes.

I also did some measurements at the end with the side marker/reflector. Turns out that I need to redo those measurements. I didn't notice at first but it's a bit of a rhombus shape, and I didn't take that into account when designing my test piece. So yeah, it didn't fit well at all. Going to have do new measurements and try again.