T4 Quad Headlight Project .......... latest update

[TURK]

Thanks mate



TURK

[Ben Marshall]

Sorry to hear you're still having issues with suppliers etc. Like some of the others I'm not seeing the pictures so can't piece the whole story together!
Did you solve the brass insert issue? And reason for barbed and hammer in rather than tapped and threaded?

Anything you fancy sending over on an email for a fresh eye to look over then give me a shout, I'm now in a project management role so even less engineering! Need more of an outlet!
Cheers
Ben


Sent from my iPad using Just T4s

[TURK]

I may constantly complain about online shopping Ben, but at least it's available ! How did people manage back in the 80's before computers and the Internet !? Everything was done via mail-order and ordering via catalogues, but you still had to write or phone these companies to get hold of their catalogues. And most times you had to be a tradesman or they wouldn't deal with you.

The truth is, I can buy from anywhere ....... globally, it's just finding them that' the hard part

What gets me slightly peeved is when I'm working on a 'method' of production, as some of these processes are still very much in the development stage, so the part I'm after may only be to test a theory, so I'm having to spend days searching the Internet for that elusive part and then having to wait 4 to 6 weeks for the delivery. Only to find out that my 'theory' didn't work out as expected !

The 'Barbed Brass Inserts' are a classic example ......... as my project is based on designing many parts ( 2 parts for the 'Classic' range of the headlights - 3 parts for the 'Ultimate' range of the headlights ) times that by two ( NearSide & OffSide ), that's equates to an awful lot of tooling plugs for vacuum forming. So you have to think of a way for mounting all those resin tooling plugs to baseboards, and that' the solution I'm currently trying now.

I've almost completed my workshop 'upgrade', my 'production line' as I'm calling it ............ just the electrics to sort out now. Running extra power to all four corners of the workshop and adding extra lighting, then I can get back to some serious headlight fabrication. I'm pretty sure I have everything I need now.

Oh, almost forgot ....... I've still got to modify my scroll saw !


All systems go on Monday




TURK

[TURK]

Hi folks,




It's been a while since a proper update on the project, but lack of updates doesn't mean I've been doing nothing !
Lots to catch-up on, so lets delve right in .......


Some of you may remember the farce with the 'inserts' and the recommended 6mm drill bit for the holes. Not at all ! ....... the drill bit required happens to be 6.9mm T: had to wait a while for it to arrive as it's not the sort of thing that B & Q would sell ! So, as soon as they arrived I set about working on my theory ....... adding baseboards to my vacuum forming tooling plugs, that should ( I hope ) help release the part after it's been vacuum formed. It will also raise the platen by 9mm ( thickness of baseboard ), so I won't have a centimetre dip all the way round the forming frame, this I'm hoping will aid in the stretching of the ABS plastic sheet, as it won't have to be sucked down then across the part.


Quite a delicate operation, drilling too close to the edges of the resin could cause fractures ....... worked out OK though >>







Once the 'Inserts' had been seated correctly, it was a case of mounting the baseboards ...... but first I installed some 1mm thick washes to raise the tooling plug >>







Baseboard secured firmly to tooling plug >>







When vacuum forming parts, particularly heavy gauge plastics, you kind of have to 'sculpt' the plastic sheet over the form ( tooling plug ). So if too much air is evacuated from underneath too quickly and the bottom ( or footing ) of the part has already been 'drawn-in', chances are you won't get a very good vacuum pull on the top of the part. It's the atmospheric pressure that actually helps form the part by pushing down on it, How much air and how quickly it is evacuated from under the part can be regulated, I hoping that by adding or removing the washes I can almost reduce or increase it's effectiveness >>







Now that the tooling plugs and baseboards are ready, I turned my attention to my scroll saw. This has taken over three months to sort out ........
I was lied to folks ! The manufacturers of the machine sold me an 'adaptor kit' that they insisted would allow me to use 'non-pinned' blades on it. As soon as I received the 'kit' ( at a cost of €40 ) I knew it wouldn't work, so I emailed them to say that they had sent me the wrong part. So they sent me another kit ........ 3 weeks later on receiving that one ...... it was the same as the first kit ! IDIOTS !


Many, many emails and three months later, I managed to get my money back, after returning the second 'kit' they had sent me, and they just told me to keep the first one. So now I had to make an 'adaptor' for my 'adaptor' !


Apologies in advance here folks, but I have to be very descriptive here as I'll be using these pictures and part of this article on another site.


Here' the issue - The scroll saw comes with 'pinned' blades, you can see a 'pinned' blade mounted into the original clasp on the machine at the moment. Next to that I have a sample 'pinned' blade, and the 'pinless' blades that I need to use. All manufactured scroll saw blades are 130mm in length ...... no other sizes exist >>







It stands to reason that if you then install their so-called 'adaptor' onto the ends of the 'pinless' blades, you will shorten the length of the blade. In the picture ( top right ) is the other part of the 'adaptor kit' >>







It's exactly the same as the one I already have on my machine ! >>







So when you install the kit ...... this is what happens. It's too frig'in short by almost 2cms !!! >>







Luckily for me I had some strips of aluminium in my stack of spares So I set about making my own 'mounting clasps'. Top one done, now for the difficult one ! I say that because, you have to think about the amount of tension you need on the cutting blade, you'll know when you've got the tension correct when you pluck the blade like a guitar string, it should sound like an 'E' ..................pppppppiiiiiinnnnnggggggggg type of thing ! as opposed to 'TWANG' >>







Scratching my head wondering how on earth I was going to make that bend on the part, and then finish off with a tight curve ! .....
then it suddenly dawned on me, the answer was right in front of me ! ....... my centre-punch >>







A hefty engineers vice comes in very handy at this point >>







And I was also very lucky that the actuall desing of my vice, allowed me to pull-in the final bit of the tight curve ! >>







Once my two 'adaptors' were ready, I just used a wire brush attachment on one of my Dremels to give them the 'brushed' aluminium affect. Once installed on the scroll they don't look too bad, but more importantly they are rock solid >>







Not too shabby if I can so myself ! T: and I can put an awful lot of tension on them as well ........ Job done >>







This is what a real adaptor kit should look like ! By making those two hooked parts I've managed to reduce the amount of space between the cutting arms, allowing me to use any 'pinless' blade on the market.>>







As I still had to make a pair of headlight retainer cutting jigs, this was an ideal situation for testing my new scroll saw. It worked brilliantly One thing I did notice was the amount of dust this machine creates, the cuts are very very fine, no ripping at all ...... but I was getting pretty tired of having to blow away the dust. Not to worry ........ I've got a small aquarium motor somewhere around, the type of motor that blows bubbles into a fish tank, I think that should work as a blower for the dust ....... now, where did I put that pump !? >>







The next BIG task at hand after building work benches for my workshop upgrade was, to move my vacuum forming machine. No small task this one ! At just over 100 Kg I certainly wouldn't move it on my own In fact, it took three guys to deliver it ! You could compare it to grabbing hold of a washing machine and lifting it onto a table top ...... not going to happen !


But as I'm an engineer that's not really a problem. I remember dismantling a washer/Dryer many years ago when I moved house,
I basically reassembled it in my new upstairs apartment.


So I set about disassembling my six grand vacuum forming machine Next to it is the stand that the machine was on, and now on the new stand I built for it. The other stand was so high I had to stand on wooden boxes for working. Not very convenient ! >>







The reassembly stage, great caution here as there's an awful lot of wiring to get right. The thing is built like a tank ...... no wonder they're expensive.
Amazing machine >>







As soon as my vacuum forming machine was reassembled ( and after a quick cuppa ), I needed to try out my new mounted tooling plugs ...... >>







Superb fit ! notice how flush it is around the edges >>







But I couldn't run a real test .......... I can't find the power lead for the machine ! It's somewhere in that lot ....... or in my 'new' workshop', yeah, it was bound to happen, my kitchen has also been turned into a workshop ! >>











I've just got to finish off the headlight retainer trimming jigs, and the real work can begin.




Until then folks .......... Salut !












TURK

[arfur fox-acre]

Entertaining as ever. Love the kitchen mate. That's how mine would look if i had my way, or bigger balls.

[TURK]

Glad you liked the update Arfur and found it entertaining ......... nothing like a spot of DIY mate

Ref; kitchen ( and entire house ) I do what I like when I like mate


Just been using my new trimming machine and jig, works quite well actually ( I should of said ...... 'As Planned' ! )
Could do with a little perfecting though, I may try and get another 10mm cut depth, but that would mean dismantling the entire machine again, but for the next stage it seems to be OK.

I may post a few more pictures later if I can be arsed !

Thanks all.



TURK

[arfur fox-acre]

Lucky bastard.

Yes please, more pics.

[TURK]

Lucky bastard

Yes please, more pics.

OK, will do ....... will have a nose-bag first.
................ got tuna pasta waiting for me !




TURK

[arfur fox-acre]

How very cosmopolitan

[TURK]

As promised Arfur a few more pics for you ........... being as you're the only one interested !





Thought I'd upload a couple of pics of my headlight trimming jig, and mention how well it worked. Was there ever any doubt !


Anyway, it could be better ! ......... I've still got a few things to modify. Namely, the type of blade, as far as I know there only three sizes ( thickness ) of blade available, so I'm going to see if I get better results with the thickest blade they do. One of the biggest issues with cutting plastics is, if the speed of the cutter is too fast, the plastic 'fuses' itself back together behind the blade, even at slow speeds like 450rpm >>







As I have a couple hundred of these to do, I thought I'd better get some practice in Once the trimming is done it's onto the clean-up stage ....... best tool for this I found is to use a potters knife. It's basically like a 'pairing' knife that chefs use only not as sharp >>









As these types of 'pinless' cutting blades cut in all directions, there is no need to rotate your part around the table, so feeding your work piece from the side is kind of strange and takes some getting use to. Usually any cutting blade is fed from the front, on any machine. So sometimes you tend to forget that you can also go from side-to-side and back-to-front !








TURK

[regcheeseman]

Not sure what it is you are cleaning up but rather than the potters knife - have you tried a de-burring tool?

They are brilliant for cleaning up edges on plastic and ally.

[TURK]

After trimming away the unwanted headlight parts from inside the headlight retainer, the saw blade leaves slight jaggered edges, I then use a rotary sander to sand those edges down. It's the 'lip' that created from sanding the edges that I clean-up with the knife. I found that running a slightly blunt knife along the edge gets rid of the 'lip', whereas a sharp knife digs into the plastic.

I almost bought one of those a few months ago ( the one in your post ) ........ but I bought the one below, for de-burring holes.
Never used the ones like in the photo above, guess I'll get one then ! >>




Thanks for the tip Reg



TURK

[TURK]

Hi folks,


Welcome to 'T4 Concepts' R&D department !

It's been a while that we haven't seen real progress on the actual headlight prototypes, most of what I've been doing these last few weeks has been about organising my workshop, setting up various machines and planing my workflow. I know this is taking longer than first expected, but that's the price for 'learning as you go' ! So, here's what happened today .....................

If you can cast your minds back to a few months ago, when I added the 2mm footing around my resin tooling plug, you will know ( and probably understand ) that as a cautionary measure, I had to make a couple of back-ups of my tooling plugs.

By far the best method for this is to use sheets of 0.75mm PETG. As it's very thin ( but relatively strong ) it should be OK for keeping the 'shape' or 'form' of the plugs and not damage the added resin footing. This proved to be very easy indeed >>






If I should be unfortunate to damage that added resin footing, at the very least I could pour some resin into these back-ups to create some more resin tooling plugs. Also, here you can see that the added 'groove' for the mounting bolt has worked out quite well >>







A while back a forum member happen to mention that he would like to see some vacuum forming in action ............. so here you go Jerry
The cloths I'm using there aren't really necessary, but I find I can get a little more definition if I pat it down a bit, particularly in the crevices.


I'm making this look easy aren't I !? >>

Then I got a little adventurous ! ............... The next step is to find out if that extra footing works OK. The general idea of that extra 'footing' was to increase the size of the base by 2mm all the way round as it wasn't quite locking into the OE headlight retainer, I really need a much tighter fit. As I have some 3mm ABS Carbon Fibre in stock ( very poor looking faux carbon fibre I may add ! ), and as I'm still at the testing stage I didn't want to use-up all my good stock of 3mm ABS. You can see in the photo that the 'carbon weave' is nothing like the real stuff ............. the lines aren't even straight ! >>







The part isn't too bad actually. Unlike the vacuum formed part in the video clip above, I have a different program setting for heavier gauge plastic sheets.
To form a part like this you are looking closer to 150 seconds as opposed to 42 seconds for the 0.75mm PETG, and all the heating zones are set to 100% on this one. In fact, that's probably a little too much, as on closer inspection you can just see a little 'blistering' on the surface of the plastic !


One of the reason it 'blistered' I believe, is the carbon fibre effect is actually printed on ....... and it's that that 'blistered'. The part vacuum formed very well actually, quite happy with that >>







And a closer look at that 'indentation' for the bolt head, that too looks OK. There's no 'blistering' on the part at all, it all seems to be around the outside edge and frame. Looks like I'll have to drop the heat in those areas. Also, notice the 'step-up' around that footing, it's kind of created a ledge of sorts >>







Releasing the part was another matter however ! ........... Unlike in the video clip where 0.75mm PETG is a doddle to remove, 3mm ABS is surprisingly solid. It may be only plastic I hear you say, but thermoforming plastics tend to re-arrange the molecules in the plastic and makes them even more rigid than a sheet of plastic. Even the 'blow-back' function of the machine ( pressurised air pumped under the vacuum formed part ) had no effect ! Took me almost 20 minutes to remove the part from the machine ! And you'll notice that my 'inserts' began to pull out ! Looks like I'll have to find different types of 'inserts' as these are garbage ! the barbs are way too small to get a decent fixing point >>







But then I was stuck with a part I couldn't release from my tooling plug ! ....................


Well, it took me almost 2 hours to get my part free ! I didn't want ( or need ) to break my tooling plug, nor did I want to cut the ABS part, I need that intact for the next stage. All in all, one excellent vacuum formed part and my tooling plug is fine. Am I going to make another one like this ! ......... absolutely not ! >>







So a little 'Quality Control' ! .................... As a perfectionist I'm rarely satisfied I: The part is pretty good all things considered, but it could be better. Vacuum formed part was a mare to release ! so I really need to take a look at that area as that isn't working out too well. Bad plug design ? maybe ! But I think it really boils down to how the base is constructed. I'm thinking of incorporating a wedge shaped base, maybe to spread the footing out a bit, and maybe add some vent holes around it so the 'blow-back' feature has more of an effect on the part >>







Viewed from a different angle. Here you can definitely see the step-down ( or offset ) of the headlight units mounting points. Basically, the low beam headlight unit ( part on left ) sits slightly farther up than the high beam unit ( flat surface on right ) in the picture, as this headlight mounting bracket is for the OffSide of the van >>







And viewed from the interior. I got very nice definition, nice crisp corners and very flat surfaces on which to mount the headlight units. And the entire thing is as solid as a rock. Hardly believable that it's made of plastic ! >>











Hope you all found this interesting folks ..................... loads more to come yet ! T:








TURK

[Grubb05]

Great stuff Turk, very cool as the kids would say 👍

Sent from my LG-H870 using Just T4s

[TURK]

Cheers Grubb


TURK