65 replies to this topic

[cramman]

In a previous topic I suggested that my brother may be interested in making some light lenses. This is still in the thoughts phase and he has asked for some info. Obviously, to do this it would have to be worth his while, therefore, what would be a reasonable price, let’s say for a pair? I’d be making sure he was being fair, but he’s not the type to just rob people. Also, would there be much interest? His concern when looking at the lights is that the black strip may cause issues sticking. He said he’d probs just spray them, but then you’d be gluing the paint and not the lens, therefore couldn’t guarantee it would last. My suggestion would be to supply unpainted, ie clear, then it’s up to the buyer to ether leave it as is, spray the inside themselves, or possibly the outside. The making of the lenses would not be difficult, basically he would need to make a resin mould then try and use a company to actually make each unit. Therefore, does anyone have any slightly damaged lights kicking about, ie, not smashed to bit, small cracks etc that could be used for moulding, this would obviously be made worth their while, cost price new lenses or similar if it all works out. I’d rather not have mine in bits for ages as it’s not garaged and is my only car. He has also suggested that it should be possible to do different colours, may look good if done right. I know someone else was looking in to this a while ago, if they are still working on this then obviously I will take this no further, but I think someone should at least give it a go.

[Ouchie]

Adding the black (or custom) coloured line to the outside rather than the inside sounds like a good idea. Why doesn't he come up with a price, add 5-10% and p+p then let us know. It might make the difference between buying some for a rainy day or buying them only when required.

Edited by Ouchie, 30 July 2010 - 12:06 PM.

[Mike (Cliffie)]

£100 a pair would be a good price point, is that achievable?

Edited by Cliffie, 30 July 2010 - 12:46 PM.

[aron916]

Well put me down for a pair! As i have mentioned to you, i have the NS one in the shed which he is welcome to take a mould from! even better if i can benefit from the donation!

[aron916]

£100 a pair would be a good price point, is that achievable?

If that!?
Its only a piece of plastic after all!

[CKR]

Just to say I'd be interested in a pair as my lights are in a poor condition with scratched covers. Price wise, I'd agree that £100 and below is acceptable for a pair. Anymore than £100 and I'd probably see how wet sanding goes before buying replacements. Edit: I'd be willing to pay a lot more if he was to set up a service where I send off my lights and nice refurbed lights are returned with the correct black internal colour banding inside etc etc. Maybe he could look into a complete refurb service instead?

Edited by CKR, 30 July 2010 - 01:03 PM.

[Mike (Cliffie)]

Just to say I'd be interested in a pair as my lights are in a poor condition with scratched covers.

Price wise, I'd agree that £100 and below is acceptable for a pair. Anymore than £100 and I'd probably see how wet sanding goes before buying replacements.

Edit: I'd be willing to pay a lot more if he was to set up a service where I send off my lights and nice refurbed lights are returned with the correct black internal colour banding inside etc etc. Maybe he could look into a complete refurb service instead?

Hmmm, nice idea. Food for thought?

[cramman]

Thanks for the replies, I'll put this too him. Personally, I'd say 100 notes would be the absolute maximum. All comes down to manufacturing costs I guess. I'll keep you all informed.

[richyroff]

Ive got a pair of cracked rear lenses in the garage if you need them let me know

[kipper]

Are we looking at front and rear lenses here, or just the rear?

[cramman]

I have emailed some pics to a few local plastics people to get an idea of manufacturing cost, numbers required and what they'd need. I'll see what they say and see if its going to be possible. Thanks for the back lights offer, I may well be in touch and I'd make sure you were suitably compensated. I've asked about front and back so would consider both.

[Whiteboy]

I would love new front lenses. Steve

[CKR]

Sounds like if someones got the time and effort available, theres the potential to make some £££ from this idea then.

[mandarinvx]

Looks like the standard lenses are injection moulded, which would cost a small fortune to set up the moulds (prob £20k ish for all four) - what manufacturing process were you looking at Would they be polycarbonate, as sometimes this needs a scratch resistant coating applied (the like of Hella do this)

[cramman]

A few replies so far, just thought I'd let people know. Not looking too promising, but we’ll see what happens.
Out of interest, does anyone know anything about the original manufacturer?

Re below enquiry - for us to manufacture a replica of the lighting cluster etc, it would require injection moulding tooling which would cost several thousand pounds.

For volumes you are probably looking at I would suggest you contact a rapid prototype company who can make low cost silicon tooling and production parts in small numbers (which are relatively inexpensive).

He gave me contacts of local companies to try, so I have.

Thank you for your enquiry. As you are probably aware the VX220 was built at Lotus in Hethel on a line next to the Elise. We tooled the entire interior for the Elise (Federal release) about 5 years ago, we produced all the internal parts and some of the externals too, including the head-lamp bezel and the rear lamp bezel so I can give you indicative costs for the tools. There were 2 tools for both front and back, LH and RH. The tools need to be made from P20 steel due to the surface finish requirements. The tooling for the clear front covers were £52,500 each, the rears were £46,500 each. Tooling for all four would come in at around £200k. The parts for the front were £5.50 each and around £5 for the rear.
Please let me know if you would like an official quotation

Clearly, if we can find the original maker, this woudl be a lot easier. ie, possibly around a tenna a lens.

Edited by cramman, 02 August 2010 - 10:09 AM.

[aron916]

Sounds like a very good price to me! How would one go about finding the original maker though? For that price i think its definitely worth investigating!

[cramman]

Sounds like a very good price to me!
How would one go about finding the original maker though?
For that price i think its definitely worth investigating!

I think that would defo be the best route. I will see what comes back from the low volume makers.

I've no idea how you could find out tho, possibly a call to Lotus directly would be the only way. Unless anyone has a contact 'on the inside'?

If I get a second this afternoon I'll give them a call.

[cramman]

Right then, another reply from the same fella as above. Will see if I can find out more on our cars but fairly interesting all the same;

Lotus engaged a design company called OX3D Design, they didn’t have a clue! I re-designed all the parts for the fixings and line of draw issues, one part they had designed had 7 lines of draw in! I spent 1 day a week with them then 1 day at Lotus engineering with the engineering designers on the under bonnet parts helping them design the parts for tooling, that went on for around 6 months. It was a fantastic project, my wife thought I was having an affair with someone named Elise! In total the tooling for the parts came to 1.3million, the tooling was low volume and was for 20-30 car sets a week, the car turned out to be so popular in the states that we ended up making 130 car sets a week, but Lotus had done a deal with the US re-sellers in dollars, so when the exchange rate dropped Lotus were losing around £2K per car! That’s when they came back to the company and told us they wanted a 37% cost down, we said no, so they pulled the work and that was the end of “Fitstogether” as the company was called at the time. We bought the fixed assets off Omega out of receivership and have been flying ever since. We do a number of car parts in low volume, we do parts for McLaren and Rolls Royce

Just spoke to a fell about making low volume stuff. The gist of it would be for him to make a mould, in and out of each light. This would cost 700-800 a units, then make the lights from this at a cost of 80-90 pound each.

Clearly this is too expensive.

[cramman]

I think this will be the best price, going down the route of making a new mould ourselves. Approx £500 for the mould, per light, then about 30 for each unit. Working on getting 20 from each mould, they must have a limited life, would work out at £55 a lens. Therefore I guess it is possible to do for around 100 a pair, but that would be making no money. Also, they have said that the mould would pick up any inperfactions from the unit used, ie stone chips etc. I'm starting to think this may just be a nice idea, but, I'll try lotus and see what they say.

[turbobob]

I may have missed this, but where are the original tools? I would imagine they are sat at some injection molding company gathering dust. I would imagine if you could track down the tool then you would be able to talk the injection molding company into setting up and running some. But there would have to be sufficient qty / price for them to set up.