okay wtf I swear I resized these pictures.

 

Very nice. Looks like they will be pretty cool when they are done. Are you putting another piece of plex or anything on the "backside" to protect the LEDs?

 

Well I'm going to answer your question with another question.

1. The clear tips of the LEDs, are they allowed to be exposed to weather?
2. I will be doing SOMETHING for sure to weatherproof the leads, wires, resistors, etc

The clear "globe" (what is the technical name?) sticks out a little bit past the plex. I could put two pieces of plex together if necessary.

 

1. The tips of the LEDs can be exposed to weather, but what I would protect them from is being impacted by anything hard. Whether it's a rock, something hanging from your belt, anything (I know it's not likely any of that would happen as it's on the back of the bike, but with my luck...). Another thing that could possibly crack the LED bulbs is large temperature changes. It's not guaranteed that this will happen, but it is possible.

2. Good idea.

Not really a technical name, just the tip of the LED bulb. What I would have done is choose a piece of plex for the LED mount to be a thickness equal to the length of the LEDs. This way, the tips of the LEDs would come just to the other side of the plex (but still drill your hole all the way through it). Then you could just screw another piece of plex with no holes in it to the "top side" (or backside) of the LED array and that would protect the LEDs perfectly. The problem you have right now is if you want to add just another piece of plex to protect the LEDs, the second piece won't lay flat to the first; there will be a gap due to the LEDs sticking out. The only way to fix that would be to drill shallow holes (not all the way through) in the "protection layer" so that the LED tips sit inside them. HUGE problem with this. When plex is cut, it becomes dull and far less transparent (as I'm sure you know), so your degree of visibility for the LEDs will decrease dramatically.

You could make some "standoffs" of some sort where the mounting screws go through the two pieces of plex (protection layer and mounting layer) so that the gap is held open by the standoffs and not the LED tips (keeps stress off the LEDs).

 

That's a possibility, I'll see if the bolts they gave me are long enough to do that. I got the holes drilled today (I'm happy with the spacing I think...might make a couple more just to see if I can perfect them more/ have extra in case I make a mistake when I cut the
circles out of the sheet). I bought myself a dremel today so I'll cut them out tomorrow and FINALLY be done with the housing part. Then its on to wiring....

 

Do you have access to any kind of CAD program? You could draw up AND dimension everything perfectly in CAD, print the "circles with hole locations" full scale and VOILA! you have a perfect template. That's usually what I do for all my custom projects. Also, cutting out your circles with a dremel CAN be done, but if you have access to a milling machine and a rotary table, it would be WAY more accurate and WAY faster. Just food for thought to try to simplify your labor.

 

That's a possibility, I'll see if the bolts they gave me are long enough to do that. I got the holes drilled today (I'm happy with the spacing I think...might make a couple more just to see if I can perfect them more/ have extra in case I make a mistake when I cut the
circles out of the sheet). I bought myself a dremel today so I'll cut them out tomorrow and FINALLY be done with the housing part. Then its on to wiring....

 

Sorry for that double post, its on my phone :/

But right now I don't have access to a cnc...my friend says they have a laser engraver at work but that's a base for the air force sooo I doubt that'll happen. I can go back to my high school to use their machines but schools out for summer. I put so much time into just drilling the holes and I know it would be better on a cnc but nobody will be able to tell that I made mine the way it is now. I don't mind a little manual labor, it makes the reward that much sweeter haha

 

But as far as cad...I took a class where we used AutoCAD and inventor, so this template would be super easy to make. I tried finding something online but no luck, I haven't looked for a demo auto cad though?

 

Agreed, the template would be super simple. I'm not sure if AUTOCAD has a trial... I could draw it up and make a PDF of the full-scale drawing if you gave me some numbers ... But if you like the way you're doing it now, that's fine too . I wasn't even meaning using a CNC mill. If you put a rotary table on a regular milling machine, you could drill the holes perfectly and cut out the circle perfectly as well. But ig you don't have access to a mill, there's not much you can do aside from a dremel