986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners - View Single Post - Porsche Wind Deflector with Edge Lighting [from CAD, prototyping to finish]

Nine8Six · 11-26-2014, 12:36 AM

Right... so these LED are bright - NOT subtle at all when ran over the full car 12v intensity lol You will be arrested, handcuffed and spend 30 days in jail for-sure if you run this thing on your car at full brightness (tried it on a dark night, in the garage, on my boxster). No thanks lol

And I can't really reduce the number of LED otherwise I won't be getting that wide angle light pattern. Required if your visual is wide e.g. you need the light to be the same intensity on both left & right side of the visual to make it look, real? cleaner... sharper etc

Solution: a dimmer :/ We're giving simplicity a whole new meaning already lol

Seen a few already-made LED dimmers here locally but all very strong looking (4" sq boxes and stuff, white color, cheap plastics, etc). Others looked more like household items instead of car parts and the rest had features on them that would just add up to the things that can go wrong. Who wants strobe and flashing features on theirs?!

So there you have it again, we'll just make our own. Been experiencing with PWM (Pulse width modulation) and narrowed down the best two. Saying best because those are the only I found under $1,750 that have an audible On/Off click feature on them lol Other than that they have the highest freq I could find >25kHz so no LED flicking and no interference with mobile phones radio or anything. What that PWM board does is power on/off the LED and dim the intensity (5%~100%). That's all! I know, boring lol

At last, a very important part (to me). Because that's all what it took to get this panel to look absolutely stunning and right-where-I-dreamed-it "Barely visible, but crazy nice when spotted".

Soooo happy I haven't wasted my time, so this is going ahead!

^ Below the glass is the two PWM modules selected for the job. I'm in discussion with the supplier to see if he can drop the price from 1,750 to let's say $5 each. On my side I'll design and CNC a small little box that will look good in our cars, and 'hopefully' small enough to be concealed in the ashtray compartment.

^ Equally happy to have received the led. Shipped out of Taiwan last week (samples, all colors). Man.... those PINK.... speechless

11-26-2014, 12:36 AM	#134
Nine8Six Registered User Join Date: Sep 2013 Location: Montreal, QC. (currently expat to Shanghai) Posts: 3,249	Quick Update: Right... so these LED are bright - NOT subtle at all when ran over the full car 12v intensity lol You will be arrested, handcuffed and spend 30 days in jail for-sure if you run this thing on your car at full brightness (tried it on a dark night, in the garage, on my boxster). No thanks lol And I can't really reduce the number of LED otherwise I won't be getting that wide angle light pattern. Required if your visual is wide e.g. you need the light to be the same intensity on both left & right side of the visual to make it look, real? cleaner... sharper etc Solution: a dimmer :/ We're giving simplicity a whole new meaning already lol Seen a few already-made LED dimmers here locally but all very strong looking (4" sq boxes and stuff, white color, cheap plastics, etc). Others looked more like household items instead of car parts and the rest had features on them that would just add up to the things that can go wrong. Who wants strobe and flashing features on theirs?! So there you have it again, we'll just make our own. Been experiencing with PWM (Pulse width modulation) and narrowed down the best two. Saying best because those are the only I found under $1,750 that have an audible On/Off click feature on them lol Other than that they have the highest freq I could find >25kHz so no LED flicking and no interference with mobile phones radio or anything. What that PWM board does is power on/off the LED and dim the intensity (5%~100%). That's all! I know, boring lol At last, a very important part (to me). Because that's all what it took to get this panel to look absolutely stunning and right-where-I-dreamed-it "Barely visible, but crazy nice when spotted". Soooo happy I haven't wasted my time, so this is going ahead! ^ Below the glass is the two PWM modules selected for the job. I'm in discussion with the supplier to see if he can drop the price from 1,750 to let's say $5 each. On my side I'll design and CNC a small little box that will look good in our cars, and 'hopefully' small enough to be concealed in the ashtray compartment. ^ Equally happy to have received the led. Shipped out of Taiwan last week (samples, all colors). Man.... those PINK.... speechless __________________ ______________________________ '97 Boxster base model 2.5L, Guards Red/Tan leather, with a new but old Alpine am/fm radio. Last edited by Nine8Six; 11-26-2014 at 02:13 AM.