FS: Laser Cut Lenses

Acrylic lenses for sale. These are laser cut from 0.06" transparent acrylic to match the size of the original lens. The colors are green, bronze, dark red, dark gray, and gray (smoke) as shown below.


The price is $6.50/lens or $30 for a set of all 5 colors plus shipping. Preferred payment method is PayPal.

Until I can get something else setup, you can order by PM'ing me on the BBS.

do you/will you have install pics?

I tried some this evening but with limited success. Here's the red lens. Can someone tell me who took or how the lens compare pictures were taken?

I'm pretty sure Tony took them.

These look pretty sweet!

Im glad there is another source for lenses, my smoke lens is getting pretty scratched up. When you get a chance could you post some more pics and info on shipping cost/ other costs ?

No problem, the pics will take a little while but I should have an idea of shipping costs for the US and Europe this week. I would guess it will be a few dollars for either location.

Yeah, Tony took those photos. I remember it being tricky for him to capture everything, but I'm sure he'd fill you in. You will sell a ton of these at that price!

On a side note, has anyone played with the idea of drilling a hole by the LED so that it pulses a differant color than the rest of the player?

Playing is the operative word but the laser cutting does provide some interesting possibilities.

Cool. Now I like that idea... you could blank out the flahing blue light...

Sean in NC

you could blank out the flahing blue light...

You could always just do that with hijack...

Matthew

Those are some sweet looking lenses!!! Any plans for any additional colors?

I'd like to add different colors but its more a limitation of acrylic supply. There doesn't seem to be a large demand for 0.06" acrylic so suppliers don't carry it and getting even a small run made requires pruchasing 20 4x6 sheets. Trust me, no one needs that many lenses.

You should have a PM from me. If you don't, let me know and I'll send another

I've PM'd Mach about comparison photos... Long story short, it was so much work that I'm loath to do it again.

Mach, set up an e-commerce web site with the lenses and I'll link it from the top of the BBS.

Working on it. I'm going to short circuit the lens photos though. Your photo fu is stronger than mine.

I've tried a couple of times to get some decent photos of the lenses. I'm very sure that Tony has a great deal more patience than I do.

Below is the acrylic color key for the plastic that's being used. Smoke is 103-2. Dark smoke is 104-1 and Bronze is 131-2. The smoke color is the same as that shown on Lens Compare. Dark Smoke is slightly darker and Bronze is slightly browner. The degree of similarity/difference is equivalent to the color swatch. The Deep Red and Deep Green colors appear to be the same as the ones on the Lens Compare page.

If you order a lens and feel you didn't get what you expected, contact me and we'll work something out.

To everyone who has PM'd me, thanks. I'm still working out the kinks so it may be a couple of days before I get back to you.

I tried a different approach to generating lens install images.

I've re-touched the smoke lens pictures from the lens compare page to approximate the color of the Dark Smoke and Bronze lenses. This is how they look to me. The other images are the same as the Lens Compare page. I've included the plastic colors to better illustrate the difference.

Very cool!

Greetings!

These look great! I am extremely happy with my order! Thanks again!!!

Paul.

Got my bloody order this morning and I'm very angry... not with him, with every other supplier I use for not being as fast as he is!

This guy's a star.

Superb product, great price, stonkingly fast delivery.

Now if I can just get an amber lens, I'd be an even happier puppy

Both of you - post pics!!!!

Can't beat the price!

Awesom Job! I just received my dark smoke lense today, and although these pics do the lense no justice this is my best attempt. One is with the flash and the other is without.

I got my order last week and I am really happy too. I am now using the red one, which looks nice with the instrumentation.
Great great job!
Bravo!

Thanks guys, and thanks to everyone who has ordered lenses. I'm very pleased by the response as we've clipped through most of the first batch of lenses faster than I expected. I'll post a link to the order pages hopefully next week so ordering will be a little easier.

With the exception of 2 orders, all orders have been shipped. I'm out of complete sets of lenses so I'm going to stop taking orders for now. Another batch of lenses and the website for ordering should be available soon.

Many thanks to everyone who ordered.

Well, thank *you*! Absolutely appreciated!

Well, I found somewhere to park this afternoon a little in the shade and snapped a few shots off with my camera. Here's what my green lens looks like, with and without flash... bloody superb These lenses are an absolute bargain. Kudos Mach.

I got my local halfords to make me up an aerosol of bright orange paint mixed with clear lacquer (ratio 10% to 90%). I have used this mix before to tint rear lights and the results are rather good. I'm going to attempt modifying the bronze lens to be amber - if it works, I'll post the results



Edit: Amber experiment didn't work, need a deeper orange - luckily I tested on a piece of glass first Might get a deeper colour, but at £10 a can, it's a bit of an expensive experiment...

the lenses do look really great. I am wondering if there is any kind of trick or something to make sure that buttons dont stick after installing one of these lenses. I am specfically having trouble with my top pause button and the bottom button. Am I tightening these the bolts too much/ too little?

The trick is to break the bottom corner of the lense next to the down button. Yeah, just snap it off, you can't see it with the face on the empeg anyway. (well actually i did that by accident while trying to trim around the down button... but hey it works!)

I am wondering if there is any kind of trick or something to make sure that buttons dont stick after installing one of these lenses.

Yes. Click here.

Paul had a similar problem that he remedied by widening the screw hole on the knob side. If you can't do the same or don't want to, then let me know via PM. I'll replace the tight lens(es).

Do you have a picture of what broke? Were you also getting a bind on the up/down buttons? I've already had the cad updated based on Paul's comments. I can also increase the space around the buttons in the next batch.

Yes I was having a binding problem with the up and down buttons. No, I don't have a picture on me but can get one later on. It's just the bottom left corner between the down button and left button. No big deal as you can't see it and the buttons now work fine. I did try drilling the whole above the knob and that helped some and then I trimmed aound the down button with some small wire cutters very successfully on the first lens (dark smoke). I didn't feel like looking for the small wire cutters I used on that lens so used some large ones on the light smoke lens and accidentally broke the corner and it worked so well I just broke the corner off of the green one without thinking twice about it. Pretty simple fix for the impatient.

Indeed, someone (robricc?) had a similar complaint about a lens he got in Cincinnati.

I popped a bronze in my player while I was there and there's no binding, but it may be luck of the draw.

I had a little binding problem initially with the green lens. I just losened the bolts a bit shuffled the lens and it works ok now. It did take a couple of attempts and a broken fingernail

thanks for the trick, it worked just fine. At first i thought you meant to break a small piece of the corner off, then I realized you mean the entire corner. It is a little sloppy but a quick fix.

...then I realized you mean the entire corner.

INDEED!

. It is a little sloppy but a quick fix.

Don't worry about the "sloppy" part, I won't tell anyone. That particular corner is totally unnessary anyway...

Here's a pic of my quick fix... No tools required!

Aww man, don't do that.

Send that back to me and I'll get you another one. I'll PM you the address. Let me know if the others bind also.

It looks good enough to me...

I also ordered a set of lenses and had trouble with the buttons binding on both of our empegs, I used a dremel to elongate the screw holes on the knob side (the screw holes were too close together left to right). The stock lens works fine in my CRX, but in my wife's Element, the empeg is up near the top of the dash and is very exposed. Any bright day totally washes out the stock lens. She now has the bronze lens and that works great! I wanted to use the red lens in my CRX, but the red one is just too dim (I could only see it well in my garage or at night), I am suprised anyone is able to use it in a car environment. I now use the smoke one. It is very bright and I can use it in my wife's car (when I can get it away from her). Thanks again for a great job!

Mach, something that you should consider;

In every lense that I've seen (stock, Darkstorm, and yours from the photos), the hole for the knob is a strange size. While it is much bigger than truly necessary for the knob shaft to pass through, it is too small to be optimal for LED backlighting. Although in practice the lens doesn't appear to tint the backlighting effect (with smoke anyway...), it must be reducing the light output.
I wonder if it's worth enlarging this hole so that it doesn't block as much. Note that this hole doesn't usually sit perfectly concentrically around the knob shaft, so you wouldn't want to overdo it.

Good point, a couple of questions though (My player is off to get the glow now so I can't measure it myself.)

How much should it change? If anyone can post pictures with a lens installed without the fascia with a ruler next to it we can try to adjust the sizing and the position to make it glow friendly. (Don't over tighten the screws)

My other concern/question is with 303's new fascia. The knob and corresponding fascia around the knob appears to be smaller than the original knob and fascia. Is anyone running an illumination setup with a new fascia?

Yep,

and I'm pretty sure that I'm not alone. IIRC there were a couple of other guys at the european meet with 303 fascias and illumination.

I'll grab some snaps tomorroww. Here are some measuremnts;

diameter/width of the part encircling the knob - 21 mm
diameter knob - 16 mm
width of left part (edge of display area to handle cut out) - 34 mm
width of rightmost part - 2 mm
width of cut out on the right at the height of knob axis - ~16 mm
height of display opening - ~40.5 mm

/Michael

Standard Mk2a knob is 19mm in diameter. I assume that the Mk2 is the same. Surrounding plastic is 24mm.
Standard and Darkstorm cutouts are 11.5mm in diameter.



If I understood Michael's measurements and how they relate to the photo above, then increasing the cutout diameter to 18mm would leave 1.5mm hidden material all around when used with a 303 face or 3mm all around with the original face. That should be enough for concentric tolerance. I suppose you could go to 17mm instead which gives 2mm and 3.5mm respectively.

Improvement in unobstructed knob area would be 168% for the standard knob/face (18mm) or 139% (17mm). 303 face gains a 112% improvement regardless of new cutout diameter as it is limited to a 16mm aperture anyway.

Actually, looking at that photograph again, someone needs to check that the 303 face doesn't allow the lens to flex backwards too much. I know that the standard face doesn't. (If it does then the edge of the cutout could become exposed if the tolerance of the cutout to the surround is too close),

Would one of those be me? j/k
If they haven't gone out yet could you make the screw holes slightly larger on mine?

Thanks,
Robert

No problem. I'll let you know when they go out.

Thanks Michael and genixia that's what I needed. Since we're tweaking the CAD anyway, I'll ask if this could be done also.

Hey all. I currently have all the lenses I need, bought from DarkStorm. I wouldn't mind a green that matches my dash better (between Darkstorm Dark Green and Neon Green, but not Smoke).

So, are these new lenses any different?
How do they compare to the Darkstorm ones with the raised mid section?
Is the binding problem fixed for the new shipments?

Thanks.

New shipments haven't gone out yet. Beta lenses were cut yesterday and sent to a couple of folks for testing. Once they've ok'd them, the new web page will be posted and orders/shipments can begin again.

Any news on the lenses?

I got the last response on the new lenses back today. The fit looks good. If you're waiting on a lens order, they should go out shortly. For those of you who are waiting to order, I'll put a new post in the For Sale forum to explain how you can order.