Alright, quite an update here. I can never figure out when I’ve reached a milestone worth sharing, but I figured the brake light install was good enough.
To start off I printed off some reference line art for the top facing light strip areas as well as the recess for the motor wires.
I quickly traced those out and cut some of them open.
Then quickly made sure the wiring would fit with this mock up.
I also mocked up the RGBW LEDs that will live under the diffusion elements (I’ll be casting these later but wanted to see how it would look with some test chips I poured earlier).
After removing all that material it quickly became apparent that I had lost a ton of stiffness in the board at the truck mount. I haven’t quite figured out if I want to lay a glass layer on the top to strengthen some of the openings. I want the LED light on the top to be as clean and diffused as it could be, so decided to add material on the underside of the board.
I made a series of several hundred holes in the deck in the area shown below here with a known depth. That way I could grind all the wood away and stop at the depth of the holes knowing the hole surface had been offset to the specified depth.
From here I layered up a bunch of 12oz carbon and ground it away flat. I lost the pictures from that bit but you’ll see more of the underside carbon later.
I then got to setting up the DieBieMS I’ll be using, but unfortunately fried a resistor so I’ll have to get some of those in.
cats. meow.
Next I started working on finishing the shaping, and setting of the tail light heatsink. Part of which was making some space for the power cables. I also routed out a pathway to get the wires inlaid into the board.
This little recess allows me to pull the brake wires out (and push them back in) in the event that I need to change the LEDs out. It also helped a ton putting the first set in. That black wafer will be sealed up and ground flat before the graphic lam goes on so you won’t see any of it.
Here you can see that carbon reinforcement bit at the rear truck mount on the underside of the board. It’s about 2.5-3.0mm and added a ton of stiffness back.
meow.
I debated for days on end whether to permanently cast the LEDs in resin, but ultimately through some R&D figured out I could make a negative or hollow space behind the cast resin, so when for that route instead so I can replace the LEDs if any burn out.
That involved some silicone, a light adhesive, wax, some clear hose, hot glue, and a whole lot of anxiety that ultimately paid off.
Once the silicone was removed, I was able to shimmy my LED strip into the space, solder it, and test it out. I’ll close up the hole with some easily removable silicone. I figure the LED should at least last a year or more with the heavy heat sink there helping it out.
I was super happy with the results. All the photos below were shot with 6v on the LEDs. They’re almost blinding when 12v is on but it’ll be a great way to be seen on the road.
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