My bulb holders arrived. I love how they get a sealed box printed around them.
...and there isn't room for the parts to move around, so they're still in the positions that I arranged them in in AutoCAD.
They've come out ok. They have the texture of an extra strong mint - slightly powdery look - which will probably help to diffuse the light if anything. The 10mm LEDs fit nice and tight.
A couple of issues:
- The arms came out a fraction fatter than they did on my printer, so they're a bit tight in the binnacle - will adjust them if I do another order
- The binnacle in my van has a slight difference in this area compared to my spare binnacle - there are some wedge-shaped end stops, so the ends of the arms need to be shaped to fit over them - easily done with some sandpaper. If I do another order I'll slice a bit off the arms to match the end stops.
CJH wrote:
One tiny little thing to note. At idle I'm now getting the very faintest glimmer from the battery light, which I don't ever remember seeing before....
I've bought some different LEDs for the warning lights - they're more diffuse, so they look better, but their brightness ratings are different, so I've had to experiment with different resistor values. The first red LEDs that I had were a touch too bright with 470 ohm resistors, and the new ones are even brighter so I went to 3k9 resistors and they're closer to the brightness of the original dash, and more to the point, I no longer get the battery light glimmering at idle. Since the different colours all have different brightness levels, I've had to test different resistors with each colour. I think I now have a setup that works well. The photo doesn't capture the colours very well, but it does show that the blue LED is dimmed down quite a bit, deliberately, since it's mostly used at night.
So now I think I have a finished kit ready to go. Just need to tot up the cost of the parts so that I can set a price, and finish the documentation.
Standard kit:
The bulb holders came out a bit more expensive than I'd hoped, after adding VAT and shipping, so I'll make them an optional extra. With optional bulb holders and 10mm LEDs:
Here's the standard set of LEDs - three options for the high beam:
and here's the selection of resistors that I think will work well:
![Image](http://www.cjh.me.uk/MyPhotobucket/cache/T25/Dash%20PCB/Kit%20photos/Resistor%20identification_1024.jpg)