CASHEYE's MKIV Modifications & Small Projects.

[Al Massey]

Dude, these look the dogs bo**ox!!

 

I'd be tempted to get rid of my UK lights for these

 

Or have them converted

[mull1986]

Absolutely brilliant work mate.

 

Do you have a job?

 

If so quit, and start mass producing these.

 

Couldn't agree more

[The Raven]

This is some amazing work

[Glanza_Mike]

You got some talent mate very nice work! Love the speaker adapters too! If i hadnt fitted my ebay ones a few months back i would have snapped a set up for sure!

[mattdavies]

Love the look of the rear lights, Might be in contact about some acrylic cutting. Have PM'd you regarding who i get to supply the COBs I am using. HOw are you sticking the COB rings to the acrylic ? with what type of glue ?

 

For everyone elses reference you can keep your rear lenses they just need modifying, you dont need the acrylics although they do look good and might be easier.

[binfieldx]

Great work dude, I've been planning to do the exact same thing to my fronts + rears but money does not permit atm, you beat me to it!

[CASHEYE]

Absolutely brilliant work mate.

 

Do you have a job?

 

If so quit, and start mass producing these.

 

Ha. Thanks for the vote of confidence. They've got a long way to go yet and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to do some butchering of the insides to get this next part to fit but I'll come onto that later.

 

Dude, these look the dogs bo**ox!!

 

I'd be tempted to get rid of my UK lights for these

 

Or have them converted

 

Thanks dude, it'll be a while before I'm properly happy with anything I'd consider a finished product. I've got some different plastics coming to use on the laser so hopefully some of those will work better than the stuff I've got just laying around. I need something that's thin (less than 1mm) which cuts well but doesn't melt and warp. We'll see.

 

You got some talent mate very nice work! Love the speaker adapters too! If i hadnt fitted my ebay ones a few months back i would have snapped a set up for sure!

 

Cheers. I've been watching your thread, got a nice thing going there. Those headlights came up great.

 

Love the look of the rear lights, Might be in contact about some acrylic cutting. Have PM'd you regarding who i get to supply the COBs I am using. HOw are you sticking the COB rings to the acrylic ? with what type of glue ?

 

For everyone elses reference you can keep your rear lenses they just need modifying, you dont need the acrylics although they do look good and might be easier.

 

Thanks dude. I've been away for a few days but I'll reply to that PM this evening. The lights have just been tacked on with a bit of Pritt stick. When it comes to actually finishing them I'll probably glue the backs to either a clear or black piece of acrylic and sandwich them between that and the coloured pieces. That way there won't be any glue visible from the outsides.

 

I don't mind cutting some stuff out for you if you want. I've just had a pair of pre-facelift lights arrive in the post so as soon as I break them apart I'll draw up the shapes for those lenses. They look like a slightly different shape than the facelift ones.

 

Great work dude, I've been planning to do the exact same thing to my fronts + rears but money does not permit atm, you beat me to it!

 

Aww sorry dude. Well look at it this way, I'm going to be busy making all the mistakes so when you come to do it, it should be child's play. I really don't mind sharing templates and what not with other people who want to have a crack at this.

 

 

Anyway, onto this little update. So I got back from Cornwall with lungs of sea air and a belly full of pasties. Proper ones mind you, none of that Ginsters ******** and I thought I'd have another crack at these front light halo lenses so I had a dig around for some different acrylic. I knew I had some translucent white which I thought would work well at letting the light though but also covering up that bloody yellow silicon stuff which is turning out to be a right pain in the arse. I only found a small off cut of it but it was enough to cut two rings for the light I'm working on. I then etched some text onto the thin surrounds for those rings and filled the etched areas with acrylic paint. Let it dry, and wiped off the excess.

 

I have to say, I'm quite happy with the way these turned out. I have a pretty hard time appreciating my own work (probably because most of the time it's for financial gain and I don't like letting something go unless its perfect... which to me it rarely is) but this is is more a labour of love and a bit of fun so I'm more relaxed about it.

 

Enough of that... On to the pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the things I wish I could try from looking at these pictures is making the white text around the halo light actually light up too. Seems like a bit too much effort though. We'll see. The plastic sheet I've used for that part doesn't work well with the laser cutter and melts far too easily so hopefully the other stuff I've ordered works a bit better. I should be able to get a more refined edge to the etching.

 

Now unfortunately I've hit a bit of a wall with these as there isn't enough clearance for the clear plastic to go back on over the whole light now. Only by about 3mm so either I come up with a different design, scrap them and turn the lights back to their factory condition or break out the multitool and start hacking away at the inside of the light. I'll probably choose the latter as I've gone this far. I'm sure it won't be as drastic as I'm making it sound.

 

I'll see what I come up with before the new batch of plastics arrive.

 

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll get another update done some time this week.

[MRX]

Amazing work mate, really impressed, love them

[Kev.O]

Fantastic work as always, very original!

[CASHEYE]

Well... Ha. So work basically wrecked the momentum I had with these little projects and with the weather being so good the past few weeks/weekends I've been catching up with my garden and allotment. But I've had a few moments to spare so while I waited for the new COB rings to come half way round the world, I thought I'd crack on with the dash panels.

 

Originally I was going to do an LED conversion and upgrade for the existing heater/Aircon controls but I had a change of mind after going to see Fury Road the other week. Now don't worry, I'm not going to go and paint the car in vinegar and turn the thing into a monster V8 Rat with a double stack of superchargers and chrome skulls for good measure... (Although that would be one rather unique supra). I did however buy a bunch of metal switches and dials from fleabay to go along with one of these.

 

 

The idea is that I'd fill in and smooth out the dash panel leaving only the clock and air holes and cut out new holes for the smaller radio and each individual switch. Above each switch will be a 5mm LED so you know which one is active.

 

Anyways, on to the pictures!

 

First I went to town with the mutitool and cut away all the inside lips and sanded down the back so it was all flush.

 

Next I cut out some templates for the existing holes and also a larger piece to glue on the back for support.

 

 

 

 

Everything seemed to fit pretty well so I went ahead a glued it all together. Some wooden blocks, meaty clamps and plenty of gorilla glue and I was making progress

 

 

 

Next came the filler... and sanding and more filling and sanding and priming and sanding and many hours later I had something like this.

 

 

Which soon turned into something much more respectable.

 

 

Bit of black and I'm almost at something that's going to make this worth while. There were a few pits which I'll address later as I'm fully expecting to bugger this right up when I come to drill the holes for the switches.

 

 

 

 

 

And a few in situ...

 

 

 

 

I think it looks the dog's danglies just like that and I did have a think about relocating the switches to the central arm rest but I've decided against it.

 

And that's all for now.

[Scoot]

That's brilliant. I've been wondering how to fill the holes that be been cut for old gauges in mine. Might try this!

[Style]

Well that's certainly different!

 

Interested to see how this turns out, good start!

[Luxluc]

Amazing skills. WOW

[CASHEYE]

Well that debacle with the eBay seller finally got resolved. After about 2 weeks of email Table Tennis, they finally agreed to give me a refund providing I returned the faulty lights. But they wanted me to post them to a P.O. box by standard post. I was too exhausted to bother explaining to them why from my point of view, that was a ridiculous idea as I couldn't prove if they had received them but I thought, whatever, there was only a few days left before eBay were going to do a reverse transfer or whatever they were going to do to refund me so even if the seller turned around and claimed they hadn't been returned, I was fairly certain I was going to get my money back. Fast forward a week and I get an email from Paypal saying I've received some funds... and then a second email saying the same thing. This bloody plonker had only gone and refunded me twice.

 

I left it for a few days in case they were going to cancel it though Paypal. After all I didn't want to return one of the payments only to have the other one taken too... But nothing happened so I just returned one of them minus the transaction fee. Refund send, conscience clear.

 

So of course the first thing I did was order more lights from a different seller. The same one that Mattdavies used. They came a week early which is always a good sign and I have to say, they look like a far superior product.

 

 

They are slightly thinner and the regulator board is in a metal case which has been sealed.

 

 

 

And I also bought some of these little things.

 

 

So following the same method as before... Some laser cut diffusers.

 

 

 

And some black bands...

 

 

 

 

More clamping..

 

 

And after a blast in the oven I finally got one fitted before the sun went down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They went back together perfectly. When I did the test fit on the other page I was pushing the black insert of the light too far into the clear lens part but when the 3 pieces are pushed into one another, there's enough room.

 

Funnily enough, I'm getting that rainbow/neo-chrome effect on the lights without using a polarized filter.

 

Well that's all for now. Once the other side is done, I can start getting some of the other stuff on my list checked off... Hopefully I'll get out in it at least once before Christmas

Edited June 23, 2015 by CASHEYE (see edit history)

[Willson]

Looking great, keep up the good work!

I love seeing all these super high quality custom pieces.

[Admiral Donuts]

Great attention to detail buddy I love threads like this.

[SupraP-Z]

Loving the idea of the bmw style diffusers, they are brilliant bud

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Whats with the yellow coating on the led rings?

[mattdavies]

Glad your happy with the LED rings, gives me confidence that they will last a while in my rear lights.

 

I may be in contact in regards to some acrylic for some rear lights.

[Paul372]

Headlights and rear lights look awesome can't wait to see them fitted, great work

[CASHEYE]

Looking great, keep up the good work!

I love seeing all these super high quality custom pieces.

 

Great attention to detail buddy I love threads like this.

 

Headlights and rear lights look awesome can't wait to see them fitted, great work

 

Loving the idea of the bmw style diffusers, they are brilliant bud

 

Whats with the yellow coating on the led rings?

 

Thanks guys. I originally thought that the yellow layer was some kind of conductive rubber/silicone that made a connection between the LEDs because where I had picked it off, the lights wouldn't work. But I think that was just the COB rings being crap. It is in fact (according to what I've read) that its a phosphor coating which give the white colour to the lights. The coloured rings you can buy don't have the yellow coating.

 

I just looked this up again and watched a few videos of people trying to remove it from various COB lights but killing the LEDs every time.

 

 

Glad your happy with the LED rings, gives me confidence that they will last a while in my rear lights.

 

I may be in contact in regards to some acrylic for some rear lights.

 

Sure thing dude. I've got a set of pre facelift rears here with me so when I get round to taking them apart, I'll draw up the shapes of the lenses.

 

 

Right. So I drilled the holes in the dash panel using a little jig.

 

 

And totally ballsed up the finish on the face side of the panel. I put a wood block underneath to drill into but it wasn't sitting flush so as the drill bit came out, it broke away the paint and filler.

 

So back to the sanding and filling. And this is where it stands now. I've pushed the LED surrounds and the switches though and it all lines up perfectly. Just the stereo and a lick of black and it should be ready to go back in. Oh. and actually connecting the switches up to the original circuit board. Probably shouldn't forget that

 

[a98pmalcolm]

awesome work

[Fitz]

Amazing attention to detail here - looking forward to the finished product(s)

[nolizma]

Some amazing creativity and craftsmanship there!! Subscribed and will be following with interest! Keep up the good work!

[krisgowing]

Please just take my lights and do whateve you want

 

But man loving your work love to see something different, Can't wait to see what this finishes up like

[CASHEYE]

So just a quick update, no pictures this time around. I've had a few PMs about people wanting me to make some similar halo lights for them so I just thought I'd say it on here as people are reading this and then messaging me... Yes. Absolutely I'd love to make these for other people. Anything which lets me flex some creativity. I would totally love to make some custom lights and work with people on designs/colours whatever they want. BUT, right now I don't have the time to finish my own lights and other projects. The halos and rear lights I've been working on in this thread aren't the finished articles and although all the comments have been really encouraging there's still a lot of other stuff I'd like to try before I start offering anything to anyone else (mainly because I want to make sure stuff works before anyone else puts them in their own cars). Criticism is always welcome too. Or suggestions/ideas.

 

Although I lurked on this forums for over a year, I've only been a paid member for about 6 weeks so there's still plenty of time for me to work on these things before I can apply to be a hobbyist, which I'm guessing I'll need to do before making things for other people right?

 

Saying all this, I have just bought 2 sets of facelift headlights from members here which I plan on doing something with at some point. Not any time soon though, but they're there for when I do. I've been in France for the last week and the day before I left, the lasercutter stopped working. The laser wouldn't fire and there was nothing the guys at HPC could do over the phone so I've got to arrange for an engineer to come out and have a look this week if possible. But until that's fixed all these projects are on hold. Plenty of other things to keep me busy though.

 

Anyway, like I said, any ideas of things you would like to see please let me know. I'm always up for a challenge (like trying to make completely new, custom rear lights from scratch... like the whole unit... maybe...).