looks good man you are braver than me. I went the chicken chit way and bought mine, although they werent too exspensive

 

X2 but for an 04

 

if you didnt use 5mm bulbs in an 8mm rod, what did you use? Those things are CRAZY bright!

 

so after having done them yourself, would you say it's cheaper/better as a DIY project rather than spend $200 to get them from ORACLE? i've been looking into oracle, but maybe this is a better route?

 

^^^ I was gonna buy back in December when they were doing the $99 starting bid auctions and it went 3 weeks in a row on 3 diff auction listings and nobody bidded on them.

 

These are 5mm LEDs in 8mm rods. They arent as bright as what the camera makes them out to be but thanks all the same. The problem with the 5mm LED and 8mm rod is that if you arent extremely careful and center your first pilot drill bit then the hole isnt center and by the time you go up in bit sizes each time and get close to the 13/64 (tad larger than 5mm) you will snap the end of the rod. If you drill too fast the acrylic will melt and ruin the end. In order to get the solid ring in the headlight area bright you have to build the ring and then cut it in half and add an LED in each half. So that essentially 4 LEDs in the ring. I honestly think it the ring were smaller in diameter you wouldnt have to do this but from the way the housing is made, it has to me built this way. I attached the ring to the housing bowl by carefully drilling small holes on each side of the ring and then using some stripped solid gauge wire (22/24ga) and making a small loop around the rod, through the holes and tristing it together on the backside. Again, because the way the housing is made, glue cannot be used.

Making these for guys and a price is what some of you want to know. Honestly, Id say $100 because of how long it take to do the shaping of the rods, then the notching and drilling. Then there is the soldering of the LEDs together and the resistors and heat shrinking everything. Im mean honestly, one side takes several hours to do.

If I were to do it again I would use 3mm LEDs so to hopefully not break the ends of the rods when drilling. But if someone were to tell me $100, Im not sure I would but them being I could get something more professionally made for a bit more. Its not the material that costs, its the time involved.

Overall, I have about $30 in material. Thats the rods, the LEDs and resistors. I already had wire and heat strink and irons and a dremel tool to use.

Are they better than Oracle? Well these arent glass you you wont accidently break them. I think they are certainly cheaper but only when you make them yourself. Now Im not trying to talk myself out of making them for anyone but just understand it isnt a 4 or 6 hour job. If someone is seriously interested and just want me to make some rings and ship them and they put them in then maybe we can look at something. But understand you will need a drill and some wire to mount them in the bowls and will have to take apart your own housings. That all isnt hard though really. Just time consuming.

 

Why can't you use glue? Is it the frame material or the LED material? Oracle tells you to glue theirs. Also, I believe they use CCFL??

 

Well keep in mind Oracle manufactures theres whereas these are hand made. These rods are hex shaped rods and I suppose you could glue them if you managed to shape them with a flat side down that would be able to be glued to the bowl.

 

What about epoxy? That stuff is relatively thick and can goop up even if you were to get a pointed edge out of the hex shaped tube?? Just a thought. But i suppose your gonna stick to your wire trick...lol

 

I suppose you could but what happens if you need to ever replace an LED?