I'm excited **Update £25 Angel Eyes DIY Guide :D

[choppa7]

Thanks to a local friendly acrylic company, I'm getting materials for angel eyes and smoked crosshairs dropped off tonight so i can have a play with them when I get home.

I'm moist, just thought I'd share.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Thats all for now!

[tezk]

Make sure you take plenty of pics! Might be interested in the cross hairs.. Seen a few cars with smoked lights and think they'd look right at home on mine..

[choppa7]

I'll sort out plenty of pics, I'm planning on making smoked angel eyes with the standard light units but on a budgt scale.

I've got a rough guide to follow and a good ide of what I'm doing.

Put it this way, smoked angel eyes - Total spend so far £24.75

[Ziggy]

Enjoy... be patient with getting the glasses off!

[choppa7]

Righto, for anyone interested in making Angel Eyes for £25 heres what you need!

Lengths of acrylic rod - I had a contact through work who got me 4 lengths @ 1m which had a diameter of 5mm. I've heard you can use clear tilt wands for this but I didnt

The "Rod"




Tottle outside to your e30 and measure the diameter of the headlight glass. Ok I'll save you the hassle its 135mm external. I left 5mm either side for the internal dimension then another 5mm for clearance and 5mm for the rod size, so were now down to 105mm.

Using maths *shudder* the circumference is worked out with (C="pi"r)

In short cut your rod into lengths of about 360mm/400mm to give enough to fit into the light housing.

This is what I got out of 1m length (2 light lengths and a spare bit)



Next:
Stick the oven onto 300F

Take a baking tray and cover it in foil (this is a precautionary measure incasae something goes wrong and you get wrong of your missus)



Stick a length of rod onto the baking tray and stick it in the pre-heated oven for about 3 minutes, I had to experiment I boiled a couple of rods finding the right time!

Find something like a jar or tin with the same diameter as your light housing (I used a gravy tub and covered it in foil to stop any household fires!

Remove the warm flexible rod from the oven, and with pliers wrap the rod around the gravy tub and hold it there for about a minute until it hardens, then run it under a cold tap to set it properly. (I didnt get any pics as I kind of had my hands full.

Any way, repeat this 4 times and you should have something like this


With a hacksaw, carefully cut off the excess bits of rod which crossover and leave about a 5mm gap between the 2 ends, again, repeat 4 times


Stick them back in the oven for about 30 seconds to soften so you can push them flat, be careful not to over heat as they will deform and its a pain in the arse to get them round again with no endy bits to hold!


Then, take a butter knife and carefully score one side of the round bits about 2mm apart should be fine, all the way round


Then, and this is the good bit, get an LED and glue it in the gap which was left, I used these LEDS
http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/u12vw-white- ... -1230.html

Then, to test, attach some more wire and stick both ends on the battery to see how f00king cool you really are



The next step is to remove the lights and glue in place, splicing into the side light wire and remove the sidelight bulb but I havent got that far as I want to make crosshairs and smoke them too.

More pics to follow when I get that far though

Good Luck!

[cliffybabe]

looking good dude

[aceraf]

great write up....

I'll be interested in the cross hairs.....i attempted it, but found the metal i was using was too flimsy, and looked poo once painted and test fitted!

Please do post up what metal you use in the creation of the cross-hairs.

[Ziggy]

Please do post up what metal you use in the creation of the cross-hairs.

Side of an old washing machine works a treat...

[aceraf]

Please do post up what metal you use in the creation of the cross-hairs.

Side of an old washing machine works a treat...

????

If i'm thinking right, wouldn't that be too flexible?

Also, i didn't have any spare washing machines lying about...i've got a spare dryer...do you think that'd work?

Could you post your template aswell....i used...tried to use the hella one...but found it hard to get the shape cut out right....although it'd have helped if i wasn't using hedge clippeds to cut it out

[Ziggy]

Doesn't matter if it's flexible (but it really isn't, once you've got a small peice of it) - it's not under any force - just make sure it's nice and flat before final assembly.
I used the pdf off r3v - if it doesn't work for you, just make your own with a bit of card.
Must be at least a year ago that I did mine & they still look as good as they did then...

[choppa7]

great write up....

I'll be interested in the cross hairs.....i attempted it, but found the metal i was using was too flimsy, and looked poo once painted and test fitted!

Please do post up what metal you use in the creation of the cross-hairs.

Cheers dude

Bit of bad news for you though, the cross hairs will be made using some 1mm acrylic which is black from the same friednly local supplier so I'm not using metal, I went for 1mm as it will be cutable using scissors and like Ziggy said, it only needs to be flat once its glued into place it should work a treat.

Will keep you posted though!

[d6dph]

Will the acrylic withstand the heat of the bulb?

Saying that, it's only on highbeam so not often used for most people.

[choppa7]

Would the normal dipped headlight give off a lot of heat do you think?

Hadnt thought about heat, bugger!

[Ziggy]

Saying that, it's only on highbeam so not often used for most people.

He'll need to do both if he's sticking with the pre-facelift lights...

[d6dph]

Hadn't thought of the preface lift thing Jon, I'd speak to the supplier to find out what sort of temperature range the acrylic will work in. Bulbs tend to get quite warm.

[dodgem]

As long as the angeleyes are a snug fit with the outer edge of the lights then the heat shouldn't be a problem - if it gets hot enough to bend (or unbend, as you mentioned you had to be careful of in the oven to make them go flat), then they will just try and unbend against the light housing and not move much if at all. The only danger is the acrylic getting so hot it catches fire, and i very much doubt the inside of your dipped lights gets anywhere near that! Even 300C in the oven would only make it bubble after a while.... have you ever touched your headlights when they are on? They aren't at 300C The mainbeam should be fine for the angeleyes too as the bulb will be relatively far from the acrylic - again, leave them on for a while and touch the glass.

As for the crosshairs, the mainbeam will be hotter than the dipped beam, but since you haven't formed the acrylic at all it won't unbend. I would be more concerned about it bubbling though. The crosshairs sit right near the bulb, whereas the angeleyes are at the edge of the light...

I don't know how much hassle it is to try it and see - never taken my lights apart, but tbh i think it would be ok.

Not sure how many watts the mainbeam are, but try placing the black acryllic a few millimetres from a 60W bulb in your house (keep a careful eye on it ofc!!). Leave it there for half an hour or so and see whether it feels soft at all - you can make a judgement based on that and the power of your mainbeam bulbs i reckon. Remember that the mainbeam bulbs are enclosed in a small space so the heat won't dissipate as fast as it does from the house experiment, but again, make a judgement based on the power - if mainbeam bulbs are only 30W and the acrylic was fine near a 60W house bulb then you'll be ok.

Watching this thread with interest - i'll be trying this myself soon i think

[choppa7]

As long as the angeleyes are a snug fit with the outer edge of the lights then the heat shouldn't be a problem - if it gets hot enough to bend (or unbend, as you mentioned you had to be careful of in the oven to make them go flat), then they will just try and unbend against the light housing and not move much if at all. The only danger is the acrylic getting so hot it catches fire, and i very much doubt the inside of your dipped lights gets anywhere near that! Even 300C in the oven would only make it bubble after a while.... have you ever touched your headlights when they are on? They aren't at 300C The mainbeam should be fine for the angeleyes too as the bulb will be relatively far from the acrylic - again, leave them on for a while and touch the glass.

As for the crosshairs, the mainbeam will be hotter than the dipped beam, but since you haven't formed the acrylic at all it won't unbend. I would be more concerned about it bubbling though. The crosshairs sit right near the bulb, whereas the angeleyes are at the edge of the light...

I don't know how much hassle it is to try it and see - never taken my lights apart, but tbh i think it would be ok.

Not sure how many watts the mainbeam are, but try placing the black acryllic a few millimetres from a 60W bulb in your house (keep a careful eye on it ofc!!). Leave it there for half an hour or so and see whether it feels soft at all - you can make a judgement based on that and the power of your mainbeam bulbs i reckon. Remember that the mainbeam bulbs are enclosed in a small space so the heat won't dissipate as fast as it does from the house experiment, but again, make a judgement based on the power - if mainbeam bulbs are only 30W and the acrylic was fine near a 60W house bulb then you'll be ok.

Watching this thread with interest - i'll be trying this myself soon i think

I'm going to finish scoring the other 3 halos tonight with the trusty butter knife and I'll sit some of the black acrylic on a lamp next to me so I can keep an eye/nose open.

When I had the tube in the oven @ 300 I left it there for 6 minutes first time, after about 5.5 mins I could hear a crackling, opened the oven and the inside of the tube had boiled!

Might see if I can get the lens's out tonight too if I get time and see how the crosshairs will fit.

One thing I have learned though, I always thought the main beam lights were smaller than the side/dipped light. I dont know why I thought this but I did. I was surprised and had to measure it twice on both sides to check.