Just thought id share something with you all that my fiance and I designed and she fabricated. This was her senior project for Engineering Technology - Mechanical at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.
This is an all steel construction light system that folds completely flat and extends up and down with the use of a linear actuator. The lights also move left and right. Heim joints and bearings are used at all the pivot points. We also developed the wiring system and controller.
Here are some pictures and videos. The wiring still needs to be tucked away neatly and the airdam also needs to be installed.
Thanks, ill let her know. There are a few bugs still left to work out but overall it works very well. We tested it on the 4x4 trail after the fire road section at cleghorn and it really came in handy to see up the trail so I knew what I was prerunning into before I got there. Absolutely no vibration or shaking.
Well that would defenitely be cool but I have a day job and my fiance should have one soon after she graduates. Would be pretty fun to mass produce these. Isn't the lucrum system down to about $600 now? The cool thing about our system is that it requires no permanent mods to your fj except a hole for the wiring which were planning on drilling under the driver side roof rack foot.
no sisters or girl friends for that matter...as you probably know the engineering field is mainly composed of guys so pretty much all her firends are guys. that would be pretty cool though to have an all female fab shop. seems like a new show for the discovery channel or something, lol.
Glad you posted this up. I was looking into making this for my FJ and possibly selling some setups as well. This product could be made relatively cheaply if you ditched the electric actuator and used a different motor and support meachnism to raise the lights. I already have a motor spec'd out for this which is less than $10. I hadn't planned on making the lights rotate but now it is something I might have to look into....time to break out the old controls book which I haven't looked at for a year or two
glad this project could help get you motivated again to build something and be creative. I love sharing on this forum because it sparks interest in so many other people to be creative. several designs were reviewed but the actuators were chosen for simplicity in this case. a screw jack system was also in review with an electric motor.
Looks like you guys had some fun. Just for what it is worth. You can use 18 GA wire with those actuators and save yourself some headache. Also it may serve you better to run the actuators off of a secondary source as we did to eliminate your power run to the cab. Can also use this to control the range of motion of the actuators since they have non-movable limit switches. Ours is set up very simple so it is pretty much a universal application so you don't have to do anything to the vehicle and the limited power run makes it so you don't have to make any holes either. You should take some orders. We have stopped selling ours for now to catch up on orders. Keep making cool stuff and you got a side job, ha ha!!!
ya, when we picked out the wire I thought we were getting something smaller but somehow we ended up getting a thicker gauge. by second source do you mean relays or what do you have in mind? relays were an idea but honestly the wiring was a one night project and time was ticking so we had to ditch the relays for the time being. something like that is in the near future though.
your light system was the inspiration for this one. we were offroading one night at cleghorn and discussing possible senior project ideas for my fiance. she needed something that covered a lot of technical areas and then we both thought that making something similar to your product would be very cool. so hats off to you for the inspiration. we both really thought your design is very nice as weve seen it on Todd's truck a few times.
Glad you posted this up. I was looking into making this for my FJ and possibly selling some setups as well. This product could be made relatively cheaply if you ditched the electric actuator and used a different motor and support meachnism to raise the lights. I already have a motor spec'd out for this which is less than $10. I hadn't planned on making the lights rotate but now it is something I might have to look into....time to break out the old controls book which I haven't looked at for a year or two
so ~$500... not too bad then. I think I might give it a try. Any news on waterproof-ability?
My other idea is using SS linear air actuators. I have them spec'd from work, and all I need is to hook them up to my trusty co2 tank. Course I wont have fine rotation control like the electric.
the actuators themselves are all weather sealed from the factory. the lights are sealed fairly well from KC and all raw metal has been powder coated. the bearings are also sealed with very nice phil web bicycle grease (its like blue taffy). the only thing im concerned with wearing due to weather is the heim joints and eventually over time the bearings. they arent too expensive to replace though.
my experience with air powered type actuators is that they move way to fast for something like this. the linear actuators here are just the perfect speed. an electric motor hooked up to a screw actuator would work well but screw actuators arent good with dirt.
If thats the case, Im definately going to have to give them a look again. Weatherproofing for the electrical stuff is my main concern cause I can always machine aluminum or ss joints. Looks very nice and I really like that you dont have many greased parts to leak on the roof.
we could probably come up with a drawing or a solid model of some sort for whoever wants it. to be honest though, if you know how to weld you could easily make this setup by looking at the photos. parts list is pretty small too. we got most the parts from McMaster and our local fab shop.
in the future wed replace the 8" travel actuator with a 4". wed also mount the up down actuator tab on the bottom of the light bar instead of the top.
think we might still have the hand drawings lying somewhere around here...could scan those for now.
thankyou...i keep on letting her know people like the project, btw.
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