Functional Proline light bar

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So I recently put together a Proline Ambush CGR body with all the accessories. I wanted to add lights to the light bar and bumper and thought I would share. I picked up the 10 led slash light set from RC4WD since it was reasonably priced, had 10 lights and each pair was detatchable via plugs. I only had planned to use 7 and possibly 9 later on.

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I drilled a 1/8 inch hole in the lights because I planned on inserting them in from the back. I didn't feel like soldering them all back together.



I seperated one led from a pair so I had 5 LEDs for the bar. I gave them a quick spray with some black paint so they would blend in. I also masked off the bulbs so that I could spray the backs of the bulbs so I didn't have light out the back of the led.



After a lot of consideration I decided how I wanted to route my wires. I cut down a empty bic pen and sprayed it black as well. This would hide the wires and later on I plan to further disguise it with a snorkel. I pulled the wires through the body and through the pen tube.



I routed the wires under the roof rack for concealment. I had to use my reamer to open up a few of the holes in the roof rack to pass the LEDs through.



After pulling them through I mounted them in the light bar. I used a small dab of CA to hold them in.





With the cage and pen tube mounted I ended up with a pretty clean result. I plan to paint a couple zip ties silver and put those on to look like hose clamps and again later on try to further hide it by incorperating it into a snorkel.



Here is how it looks lit up.



I also wanted to put two LEDs into the front bumper. The bulbs weren't quite the right size but I came up with a solution.



I cut a small section of some fuel tubing I had to use as a gasket if you will. Turned out perfect. I'll get a darker color later.









The led is just held in by the fuel tubing so I can remove the bumper when I need too. After a quick wire clean up with some servo tape I was done.





I still have two left over light housings that I would like to use but haven't really figured out where I want them yet. I would like to do some headlight buckets of some sort. I'll post up a pic of all the lights on tomorrow, wife took the camera. Anyway let me know what y'all think.

[joshlindt]

looks nice like the way you did it nice and neat

[dont slow down]

Thanks. Tried to keep it as clean as possible. Got a pic with them all lit up, I definatly want to do headlights as well. I need to figure out how to do it on a lexan body though. I'm not sure how I would actually mount them cleanly to the body.

[LTL4life]

Nice write up, great idea for the bumper lites.

[lil wasted]

for mounting the headlights to the lexan body drill a hole were you want the lights and put like a funnel type of thing with a hole at the back and put the led at the back of the funnel if i had a pic i could show you but i dont

[Positronic]

I had done this also


Couple tips from me, I scored the back of the lights with the soldering iron so it was easier to start drilling, also you can pry the lenses off to protect them while drilling

edit: for headlights you can make a little box from styrene paint it silver on the inside insert your led, and hot glue it in.

[team3six]

Looks good. I did the same thing on my CGR badlands Blazer build. well sorta. But the big issue that came about which i hate about the Proine light bars is how weak the platic is. as soon as ya roll it and you will roll it. they will brake off. I think someone here made a lightbar protector for the prolines. but i cant remember who. If your handy with brazing, you can make your own.

[OfnaJoe]

Hope they don't break too easy, I rolled mine 6-8 times Sunday and they didn't break (yet) I mounted them with a little give at the mount so it might help. Over look the crooked body mount, it's velcro and i got in a hurry to take the pic

[MadForce]

Originally Posted by team3six

Looks good. I did the same thing on my CGR badlands Blazer build. well sorta. But the big issue that came about which i hate about the Proine light bars is how weak the platic is. as soon as ya roll it and you will roll it. they will brake off. I think someone here made a lightbar protector for the prolines. but i cant remember who. If your handy with brazing, you can make your own.

Hey Norm, Jerry (DMG) was making a guard for proline light bars
P/L-Light Guards

[dont slow down]

Nice work on the other trucks guys. I was surprised at how much this added to the truck as a whole. I'm not worried about rolling this truck over too much since this will mostly be a tow rig for my boat, it's not even a crawler. That is a cool light guard though, would look great on a desert truck. Still thinking about headlight buckets. Hadn't planned on headlights when I painted it so I will have to cut out holes for some buckets. I was thinking of turning the two spare Proline buckets I have into headlights but I'm wondering how I would mount them to the body. I might try the old cheap flashlight trick but again, how to mount them to the body cleanly, guess that's the problem with lexan bodies. I'll figure out something.

[OfnaJoe]

check out these headlight buckets
http://www.scaleoffroad.de/pageID_6458632.html

[shannwah]

On a previous model, (not a crawler as obviously seen in the pic!) I used reflectors from AA size Maglites. Fixing them to lexan works pretty well with something like Shoo Goo or hot glue. On the second mini, I simply jammed a whole heap of "Blu tak" or "UHU tak" in there cause the shape of the body just held it all in nicely.

[860Crawler]

Originally Posted by team3six

Looks good. I did the same thing on my CGR badlands Blazer build. well sorta. But the big issue that came about which i hate about the Proine light bars is how weak the platic is. as soon as ya roll it and you will roll it. they will brake off. I think someone here made a lightbar protector for the prolines. but i cant remember who. If your handy with brazing, you can make your own.

I had this issue the first time I rolled on the rocks. I kept gluing the light back in place but it would break off on random rollovers, sometimes it wouldn't. I ended up using an RPM lightbar for the Slash ziptied to the front of the Proline roof rack. I doubt this lightbar would ever break, its made form some beefy plastic and hex screws.

lower profile than being up on top of the rack


Wires semi-hidden under the ledge of the roof rack. The lightbar has to be ziptied since the Slash mounts are too wide to mount to the Tamiya FJ40 body.


lit up


I had to paint the housings silver inside since it just came in all black.

Edit: I see RPM now makes a narrow version with just 4 lights so it can be properly mounted to narrower bodies.

[ynmech]

Nice body, I have the same body.

I ended up using goo to hold the RPM light cans to the body front and rear.

[dont slow down]

I like the fender flares, where did you get them?

[79cutlas]

Edit: I see RPM now makes a narrow version with just 4 lights so it can be properly mounted to narrower bodies.

thats mighty nice of them since I just cut the center out of that lightbar to make it a 4 light one lol.