JDM Illuminated Side Step!!
06-07-2004, 08:52 AM
#21
New Member
Originally posted by Vlad
Why said rice can'be stock??? Totally useless part like this is rice no matter where it came from. Some cars have gold-pained car logo/model name as an option... Spoilers on most of the non-sport cars... etc
Rice can be stock
Why said rice can'be stock??? Totally useless part like this is rice no matter where it came from. Some cars have gold-pained car logo/model name as an option... Spoilers on most of the non-sport cars... etc
Rice can be stock
06-07-2004, 12:10 PM
#25
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I'm willing to provide the controllers and LEDs for this (production-ready units shoudl be in my hand by end of July...prototypes available now) if someone else is willing to do the grunt work. I would most likely use my Footwell Lights controller, as the code is essentially complete (just added in fading a couple of nights ago).
As with all of my other stuff, you can chose to display any color of the rainbow with a few simple button presses, demo mode that fades from one end of the rainbow to the other, etc. (great for car shows).
Open the door, and the light instantly comes on. Depending upon which option you enable, the lights will shut off as soon as the door closes, or slowly fade out after a few seconds.
I think this project has great potential, and I've often considered doing something similar to my S.
As with all of my other stuff, you can chose to display any color of the rainbow with a few simple button presses, demo mode that fades from one end of the rainbow to the other, etc. (great for car shows).
Open the door, and the light instantly comes on. Depending upon which option you enable, the lights will shut off as soon as the door closes, or slowly fade out after a few seconds.
I think this project has great potential, and I've often considered doing something similar to my S.
06-07-2004, 12:24 PM
#26
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Anyone else sick of the word "Rice"???
The debate over what is rice and what isnt is getting tiresome. Cant people just say "I like it" or "I dont like it"?
Personally, I think they look cool. You wouldnt even see them once the door is shut, so it would just turn on when the door is open.. pretty cool IMO.
The debate over what is rice and what isnt is getting tiresome. Cant people just say "I like it" or "I dont like it"?
Personally, I think they look cool. You wouldnt even see them once the door is shut, so it would just turn on when the door is open.. pretty cool IMO.
06-07-2004, 08:09 PM
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Originally posted by MacGyver
I'm willing to provide the controllers and LEDs for this (production-ready units shoudl be in my hand by end of July...prototypes available now) if someone else is willing to do the grunt work. I would most likely use my Footwell Lights controller, as the code is essentially complete (just added in fading a couple of nights ago).
As with all of my other stuff, you can chose to display any color of the rainbow with a few simple button presses, demo mode that fades from one end of the rainbow to the other, etc. (great for car shows).
Open the door, and the light instantly comes on. Depending upon which option you enable, the lights will shut off as soon as the door closes, or slowly fade out after a few seconds.
I think this project has great potential, and I've often considered doing something similar to my S.
I'm willing to provide the controllers and LEDs for this (production-ready units shoudl be in my hand by end of July...prototypes available now) if someone else is willing to do the grunt work. I would most likely use my Footwell Lights controller, as the code is essentially complete (just added in fading a couple of nights ago).
As with all of my other stuff, you can chose to display any color of the rainbow with a few simple button presses, demo mode that fades from one end of the rainbow to the other, etc. (great for car shows).
Open the door, and the light instantly comes on. Depending upon which option you enable, the lights will shut off as soon as the door closes, or slowly fade out after a few seconds.
I think this project has great potential, and I've often considered doing something similar to my S.
ares I thought about it a few months ago, but I beleive that is outside the door seal. and was afraid of how it would really look if not done "right". choppy or uneven ect. need to have the metal cut perfectly, and sealing the metal to the EL sheet; lexus is smooth across, they fill in the holes with clear something or other. so its not just reccessed exposed EL sheet.
We could probably overcome the recess problem by cutting out small squares of plexi so they fit into the OEM squares.
Since the sidestep is outside the weatherstripping I (we?) often find water on the ledge. THis can setup could be easily waterproofed with some silicone to prevent water damage.
NOW someone just needs to build it
06-07-2004, 08:45 PM
#29
there are aluminum kick plates. never really thought about them not REALLY being aluminum. I ASSumed they were.
I assumed you would sandwich the EL sheet between the "metal" plate and the plastic underneith.
the metal being extremely thin would be a problem to fill with lexan, but just thick enough to possibly look wierd just cut away.
I have clear polyurethane that would fill it in; but alas its getting rather complicated again; and we return to our original problem.
If I had to come up with the "perfect" resolution; Id cut the plastic away under the metal plate. and cast a part that would fill in the cut away plastic, and raise up into the squares to keep the 3d look and feel that was there. then I suppose place the EL sheet under the clear peice and let it illuminate up.
this would be very nice looking, but way too expensive, easily 150$ or more.
not likely to be enough room for LEDs. even the smallest ones you can find.
edit, maybe it could be done if you went at it from the other way... Ill look into it. mac if you have any experience with EL sheets, let me know; Ive never used them myself.
I assumed you would sandwich the EL sheet between the "metal" plate and the plastic underneith.
the metal being extremely thin would be a problem to fill with lexan, but just thick enough to possibly look wierd just cut away.
I have clear polyurethane that would fill it in; but alas its getting rather complicated again; and we return to our original problem.
If I had to come up with the "perfect" resolution; Id cut the plastic away under the metal plate. and cast a part that would fill in the cut away plastic, and raise up into the squares to keep the 3d look and feel that was there. then I suppose place the EL sheet under the clear peice and let it illuminate up.
this would be very nice looking, but way too expensive, easily 150$ or more.
not likely to be enough room for LEDs. even the smallest ones you can find.
edit, maybe it could be done if you went at it from the other way... Ill look into it. mac if you have any experience with EL sheets, let me know; Ive never used them myself.
Last edited by ares; 06-07-2004 at 08:49 PM.
06-07-2004, 09:54 PM
#30
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EL sheets are nice, but as with anything, they have their disadvantages to go with their advantages.
The sheets can be made reasonably bright, but at the price of longevity. It's real strength lies in the fact that the entire sheet glows, not just a small spot, so the overall effect is a seemingly large amount of light. You'll need a high-frequency ballast/transformer someplace to run it off of...the larger the sheet, the more powerful the transformer needs to be (EL sheets are essentially phosphour-coated capacitors). You can find a fairly large selection of colors (15-20), including white, but you're stuck with that one particular color. There's no easy way to stack different color sheets for color options since they're completely opaque. Any sort of advanced functionality, like fading, will require some sort of microcontroller or advanced analog circuit design. Color/brightness uniformity would be quite good, but brightness will tend to decrease over time (particularly with heat and/or UV).
If you went the LED route, I wouldn't put the LEDs directly under the spots that glow. I suggest making a thin, clear plastic sheet that runs the length of the piece underneath. Light the sheet from the edges, and frost/sandblast the sections that need to glow, just like a logo etched into a windscreen. In this case, you'll need a controller instead of a transformer. Color uniformity will be good, but uniformity of brightness will be more difficult as piece length increases. High levels of functionality are possible, such as color selection and brightness fading. I don't think you'd have any problems fitting my LEDs in there (I use surface mount stuff that works quite nicely in most cases).
With both, a bit of silicone would easily seal things up and prevent weather damage. Wiring of a final out-of-the-box product would be a cinch for the end-user.
The sheets can be made reasonably bright, but at the price of longevity. It's real strength lies in the fact that the entire sheet glows, not just a small spot, so the overall effect is a seemingly large amount of light. You'll need a high-frequency ballast/transformer someplace to run it off of...the larger the sheet, the more powerful the transformer needs to be (EL sheets are essentially phosphour-coated capacitors). You can find a fairly large selection of colors (15-20), including white, but you're stuck with that one particular color. There's no easy way to stack different color sheets for color options since they're completely opaque. Any sort of advanced functionality, like fading, will require some sort of microcontroller or advanced analog circuit design. Color/brightness uniformity would be quite good, but brightness will tend to decrease over time (particularly with heat and/or UV).
If you went the LED route, I wouldn't put the LEDs directly under the spots that glow. I suggest making a thin, clear plastic sheet that runs the length of the piece underneath. Light the sheet from the edges, and frost/sandblast the sections that need to glow, just like a logo etched into a windscreen. In this case, you'll need a controller instead of a transformer. Color uniformity will be good, but uniformity of brightness will be more difficult as piece length increases. High levels of functionality are possible, such as color selection and brightness fading. I don't think you'd have any problems fitting my LEDs in there (I use surface mount stuff that works quite nicely in most cases).
With both, a bit of silicone would easily seal things up and prevent weather damage. Wiring of a final out-of-the-box product would be a cinch for the end-user.
06-08-2004, 10:52 AM
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Considering the amount of EL sheet we will need, I dont think we will need a big transformer. Ive seen very small 12V DC converters which could be easily concealed above where the passenger rests their feet. Again the only problem is cost. EL is too expensive to work with. PLus you would have to deal with the life of the EL. The EL sheets last fairly long. However they will fade with time. Hopefully we can figure something out with LEDs. I like the clear sheet idea!
06-08-2004, 04:16 PM
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my 2 cents
It isn't rice. Some people may not like it, but it is far from rice IMHO. To me, things get ricey when the mod is not custom or car specific. Or if it is a badly concieved and executed custom mod which does not integrate itself gracefully. When APC comes out with theirs, and it says 'TYPE R' in glowing letters, then we will know 'RICE'.
But to me, this is a classy tasteful enhancement. Melike.
But to me, this is a classy tasteful enhancement. Melike.
06-08-2004, 08:09 PM
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Since price is always an issue, let me lend you my limited expertise as a small business owner, having been through (or currently going through) a lot of the price-point issues.
I also used to complain that some items were too expensive, why did they have to cost so much, it was nothing but molded plastic, etc. etc. That all changed once I started pricing items out for my own products. So, let's go through a typical price-out for this particular item and see what the cost might be at each step, as well as the trade-offs of each decision.
1) Materials
Choosing the right material is crucial to the final product's quality. Some are quite inexpensive, such as basic plastic, fiberglass chop, glass, etc. We go up the price scale a bit as we move on to high-impact plastics, fiberglass cloths, tempered glass, etc. At the high end (from a standard materials viewpoint) we have specialty plastics, carbon fiber weaves, low-iron "starlight" glass, etc.
We can choose to make this out of cheap plastic for $2 in material, but it may crack easily when stepped on, so we move up to a higher density material. Cost increases to $3-$4. Maybe we want the carbon fiber look, so now materials (including resins, gelcoats, etc.) jump up to $10-$15.
2) Molds
These things don't just form themselves, so we need a mold. We could go with inexpensive handmade wooden/fiberglass molds ($20-$50), but quality may suffer, there may be large variances between each piece, and a lot of work is required after each piece is made to clean it up...and the mold may not last for more than a few pieces before requiring a new mold be made.
So, we go with the middle of the road aluminum mold...lasts MUCH longer, little to no variance betwen pieces, final cleanup is significantly reduced...but our mold alone costs $5,000, and it can't necessarily deal with large objects without the cost skyrocketing.
We know we'll make thousands of these, so we go with steel molds. All of the same benefits of the aluminum mold without wearing out nearly as quickly...but our cost just shot up to $10-$20,000.
3) Components
Quality LEDs aren't cheap, and high levels of functionality take time and energy to design/build, so the controller is not going to be cheap. I sell my setups for $140 shipped, and many STILL consider that a sweet deal when they notice how much functionality I cram into them.
4) Labor
Easy to forget this one. We look at a part and say "It's 30 cents worth of plastic, why should it cost $200?!" Of course, we forget all of the time, energy, and money it took to design the part from the beginning, to test it out, to make the molds, do the after-mold cleanup on each piece, to carefully pack/ship it, etc.
When all is said and done, you have a quality piece that costs $50 in materials, 5 hours to build, and people want to buy it for only $75. Of course, this doesn't include the 50 hours it took you to make a mold sveeral times and refine it for perfect fitment , the hundreds of dollars in materials just making prototypes, and so on that you'll never truly recover. In the end, you only make 10 of these, because the 70 of the original 80 who said they were interested (and therefore made the project worth it) decided to back out on you at the last second and leave you hanging in the wind. If you're lucky, you break even monetarily, but you'll never get that time back.
How do I know all of this? Because that's EXACTLY what happened to me on my first custom product. I now either take deposits on any custom item that I have no intention of selling to the public at large, or I just don't make it at all.
So you'll have to forgive me if I squirm a little when people say "I like it, but won't pay more than $100 for it." I can appreciate the sentiment form a buyer's perspective, but my "contribution" to the project (my control box and LEDs) is going to be $100+ alone. This doesn't include the price of the piece, the engineering effort involved, the labor required to put it all together, etc.
If no one wants to "pay more than $100 for it", I don't see this project going anywhere but the round file. You may get lucky and find someone willing to do it all at cost, but they're either a trust fund baby who doesn't care about the money, or they won't be in business much longer.
I also used to complain that some items were too expensive, why did they have to cost so much, it was nothing but molded plastic, etc. etc. That all changed once I started pricing items out for my own products. So, let's go through a typical price-out for this particular item and see what the cost might be at each step, as well as the trade-offs of each decision.
1) Materials
Choosing the right material is crucial to the final product's quality. Some are quite inexpensive, such as basic plastic, fiberglass chop, glass, etc. We go up the price scale a bit as we move on to high-impact plastics, fiberglass cloths, tempered glass, etc. At the high end (from a standard materials viewpoint) we have specialty plastics, carbon fiber weaves, low-iron "starlight" glass, etc.
We can choose to make this out of cheap plastic for $2 in material, but it may crack easily when stepped on, so we move up to a higher density material. Cost increases to $3-$4. Maybe we want the carbon fiber look, so now materials (including resins, gelcoats, etc.) jump up to $10-$15.
2) Molds
These things don't just form themselves, so we need a mold. We could go with inexpensive handmade wooden/fiberglass molds ($20-$50), but quality may suffer, there may be large variances between each piece, and a lot of work is required after each piece is made to clean it up...and the mold may not last for more than a few pieces before requiring a new mold be made.
So, we go with the middle of the road aluminum mold...lasts MUCH longer, little to no variance betwen pieces, final cleanup is significantly reduced...but our mold alone costs $5,000, and it can't necessarily deal with large objects without the cost skyrocketing.
We know we'll make thousands of these, so we go with steel molds. All of the same benefits of the aluminum mold without wearing out nearly as quickly...but our cost just shot up to $10-$20,000.
3) Components
Quality LEDs aren't cheap, and high levels of functionality take time and energy to design/build, so the controller is not going to be cheap. I sell my setups for $140 shipped, and many STILL consider that a sweet deal when they notice how much functionality I cram into them.
4) Labor
Easy to forget this one. We look at a part and say "It's 30 cents worth of plastic, why should it cost $200?!" Of course, we forget all of the time, energy, and money it took to design the part from the beginning, to test it out, to make the molds, do the after-mold cleanup on each piece, to carefully pack/ship it, etc.
When all is said and done, you have a quality piece that costs $50 in materials, 5 hours to build, and people want to buy it for only $75. Of course, this doesn't include the 50 hours it took you to make a mold sveeral times and refine it for perfect fitment , the hundreds of dollars in materials just making prototypes, and so on that you'll never truly recover. In the end, you only make 10 of these, because the 70 of the original 80 who said they were interested (and therefore made the project worth it) decided to back out on you at the last second and leave you hanging in the wind. If you're lucky, you break even monetarily, but you'll never get that time back.
How do I know all of this? Because that's EXACTLY what happened to me on my first custom product. I now either take deposits on any custom item that I have no intention of selling to the public at large, or I just don't make it at all.
So you'll have to forgive me if I squirm a little when people say "I like it, but won't pay more than $100 for it." I can appreciate the sentiment form a buyer's perspective, but my "contribution" to the project (my control box and LEDs) is going to be $100+ alone. This doesn't include the price of the piece, the engineering effort involved, the labor required to put it all together, etc.
If no one wants to "pay more than $100 for it", I don't see this project going anywhere but the round file. You may get lucky and find someone willing to do it all at cost, but they're either a trust fund baby who doesn't care about the money, or they won't be in business much longer.