Just ordered fxr 3.0 3" and bmw led fog lights!

[D Farms]

I just ordered a set of fxr-3.0 with 3" lenses from trs and a set of these awesome BMW X5 LED foglights to retrofit onto my 02.

$60! thats almost 1/3 the cost of the oem runner fogs! BMW X5 OEM LED Fog Lights - Closeouts

Ive got my own 3d printer which i designed from scratch and I plan to 3d print the shrouds. also I plan to print the housing for the foglights as well as they probably wont mount directly in. this thing I like about the fogs is they have a really wide throw, they're 60 bucks, and they wire in directly because they are leds, also they look like they are really light weight and compact.

I plan to do a full write up on how I install the fxr lenses, Ive got access to basically a full machine shop with mills lathes and cnc versions of both as well as a nice laser cutter.edit: I just ended up using a sanding wheel on the dremel, It worked quickly and the end result was smooth, I think I saw someone do this with a cutoff disk, and im not sure why, the sanding wheel worked really nicely.

Edit: Just so You know, A month ago I ordered a pnp hid kit, the kind that fits in your reflector. Before I fit it, I noticed that my reflectors had started to oxidize but I didnt pay much attention to it. After a few weeks of having the pnps I decided to go for the fxr-3.0 3" projectors, mainly because the pnp kit had a very crappy light distrobution. I was able to modify the cutoffs of the pnp hids to cut a decent line but nothing like a real projector. So theres a couple things to know about pnp projectors

1. If you have fluted lenses pnp hids are not a good idea, the flutes basically cause glare, also If you plan to retrofit projectors you are going to want a clear unfluted lens.
2. Because most reflectors are made for Halogens they will not work well with hids, the reason is because the coil on a halogen is very predictable and also the filament on a halogen is longer than the arc in the pnp hid kits, what this means is that you get a very narrow output of light, which actually means a loss in visibility.
3. If you want more light out of a halogen reflector get better halogens, or do a projector retrofit.

 

[rayjay]

Seems like a good deal! Interested to see progress and installation!

 

[Twan]

Also interested to see the final product.

 

[Mr. B]

Have fun cutting the housing for Fx-Rs! lol

But without being sarcastic, I wanna see how that 3D printer works on those shrouds! I've been researching those printers lately, amazes me how technology just keeps changing and advancing year after year.

 

[t4r4life]

you should offer member 3d printing service, im sure you'd get some business

 

[BrianSD_42]

Cutting for the FX-Rs is quite fun and time consuming. OP, did you see any of the guides?


Here's my thread on how it went ....

http://www.toyota-4runner.org/3rd-g...it-97-4runner-project-toyota-4runner-org.html


:snacker:

 

[D Farms]

yeah I did actually see your thread, have you seen that they have made a 3" version of the d2s now! anyways ive an end mill that will make cutting those hole a piece of cake. I think the difficult part will be determining where to drill the mounting holes for the projectors.

also since this is how I get to school ill have to do it on the weekend, or makeshift some headlights while im doing the fitting.

 

[thor999]

I need fog lights... just sayin'...

 

[D Farms]

you should offer member 3d printing service, im sure you'd get some business

That's a great idea, my printer is one of a kind its got a huge build chamber and can print with up to four materials at a time including abs hdpe and lexan and nylon. Also im pretty good with auto desk inventor which is a high end cad modeling software. I'd accept trades for prints as well, when I'm ready I'll make a post about it.

Also on a side note I was able to laser cut some clear acrylic into lenses for my day led plate, they came out nicely.

 

[D Farms]

OK I got them all in finally, the fogs are huge, they wont be able to fit in the normal spot so I think ill put them under the fat lip like this

 

[BrianSD_42]

Interesting. yea those fog HIDs are huuuuuuge.

 

[D Farms]

they are actually leds, and I hooked them up they are really bright, and really freaking wide. on 8.2 watts of draw each. I took apart one headlight and cut the big hole already, I need to drill the 4 mounting holes and im not sure whats the best way to proceed since it still needs to be aimed! I cut the hole by using the 1/2" sanding wheel that comes with most dremels, Initially I was using the milling bit the make the cut around the ring but it was taking forever. One thing I noticed about the reflectors is they are made from so sort of high temperature plastic that just powders when you grind it, so the bigger and faster you cutting wheel is the quicker you can cut through it, also a larger wheel will gouge less and give you an overall smoother finish.

 

[TakeitApart]

In the coming months I'm going to do the same HID retrofit, so I'll probably check in a few times to see your progress.

That said; couldn't you 3D print new headlamp buckets that incorporate projector mounts? True, it'll be a lot of work, but I could almost guarantee that you'd have quite a few sales if it was a split, bolt on, replace affair! Besides that, you could have any shape to the housing back that you wanted to, as long as the outer edge was the same.

 

[D Farms]

In the coming months I'm going to do the same HID retrofit, so I'll probably check in a few times to see your progress.

That said; couldn't you 3D print new headlamp buckets that incorporate projector mounts? True, it'll be a lot of work, but I could almost guarantee that you'd have quite a few sales if it was a split, bolt on, replace affair! Besides that, you could have any shape to the housing back that you wanted to, as long as the outer edge was the same.

yeah it would be a lot of work to print it, designing it would be easy, and it could have a compartment for the ballast, and other cool stuff like leds and turn signals. it might almost be better to have it use a thick sheet of flat glass with a gasket that way it can be bolted on and easily be modified. but the problem with printing it is the headlight gets really hot and most of the thermoplastics you can print with have a low melting point, however Ive got Polycarbonate which is actually what they make the plastic lenses on vehicle from when they dont use glass, its got a very high temperature stability and would be usable, however its expensive, about 80 bucks for 2.2 lbs.

anyways i got the other hole cut, ive sort of set my self up for success here because I wont be able to leave the shop and go home until I have a functioning set of headlights haha, talk about motivation.

for right now I think ill stick with making my shroud. Its going to be something like this when its done. I call it the ripple effect.

 

[D Farms]

Got them installed, they look really cool and the cut off is amazing. Im sort of having trouble aiming them, I aligned the porjectors to the center of the hole and to shoot straight, but When I installed them its like the beams are not coming out parallel.

I plan on taking them apart again to seal the light from coming out and also I need to jb weld the projectors in to place. and also I need to make those badass shrouds.

Im adding more pictures to a gallery so as to not clutter the thread. http://www.toyota-4runner.org/members/d+farms-albums-3rd+gen+fxr-3.0+retrofit.html

 

[D Farms]

Ok so I tried mocking up the fogs today, they are not going to just bolt in even if you cut a hole, they need a tube housing that can attach to the bumper and the housing can bolt to the fog light.

Ive also attached a dxf file that is the outline of the reflector. you can open it with a free program called inkscape or import it into any decent cad program.

 

[D Farms]

ok I got my printer running again after having some electronics fail on it, and I made all of the measurements for how the shroud will fit. Ive sort of mocked up My design for the shroud although I might change the middle part out, I even incorporated the TRD logo into it. Im going to probably lasercut the parts that look like orange neon in clear acrylic and sand them to give them a frosted finish, then Ill use some spare rgb leds to backlight the whole thing.

 

[iNAN3 SOLDi3R]

I second the motion on 3D printing a whole new headlamp bucket.

 

[D Farms]

I second the motion on 3D printing a whole new headlamp bucket.

It would be really cool, but the print would probably be about 50 hours each, If I run my machine fast, also the plastic used for 3d printing is not temperature resistant enough, there is some stuff called poly carbonate but it would cost about 100 dollars in material per headlight, and thats assuming the print doesnt mess up at all.

 

[D Farms]

I hate how dim the amber halo rings are during the day, I actually made my own using 102 3528 leds on each one. but with all of those leds they only put out around 200 lumens and 4.5 watts. I want something bright enough to be used as a turn signal. I was considering just using white leds which are about 10 times brighter than the colored ones and using a filter on top of them to give me the color i want.