Apparently it happens enough that someone wanted to make up a few of them for folks here. Wrecent_Wryder was decent enough to purchase the acrylic AND post it to me. 
Soon as I can tool up a turret lathe I'll turn a few and see how well it cuts. Of course you'll want to install colored LEDs as the acrylic is CLEAR, but I doubt anyone will have a problem with an upgrade to LEDs. 

So give wrecent_wryder a big  for the idea. We'll figure out if there will even be a charge (maybe donations, i dunno) at all for the lenses. I haven't asked wrecent_wryder which so far, so I'm including a poll. Hope I am not overstepping things.

Ride on.

We might want to see if any of this works first.... 

I don't need any money for my part in this, so long as it's a limited number we're dealing with.... of course, I don't speak for anyone else.

If they're "free", though, everyone will want some "just in case", whether they need it or not, which may deprive some who do need it. I was thinking in terms of tying them to small contributions to GSTwins to help keep running things right here... but I don't know how much might be involved to verify contributions or whatever.

Blue-colored acrylic is a possibility, if this works at all, and if "ohgood" is willing, and there's a demand. I can see people wanting a single blue, if it's not cosmetically too different than the rest.

Not to rain on your parade, but what's the point in changing to an led in there? I almost never use my highbeam, much less look at the indicator.

Quote from: ohgood on June 13, 2007, 02:29:29 PM
Apparently it happens enough that someone wanted to make up a few of them for folks here. Wrecent_Wryder was decent enough to purchase the acrylic AND post it to me. 
Soon as I can tool up a turret lathe I'll turn a few and see how well it cuts. Of course you'll want to install colored LEDs as the acrylic is CLEAR, but I doubt anyone will have a problem with an upgrade to LEDs. 

So give wrecent_wryder a big  for the idea. We'll figure out if there will even be a charge (maybe donations, i dunno) at all for the lenses. I haven't asked wrecent_wryder which so far, so I'm including a poll. Hope I am not overstepping things.

Ride on.

Cool!  Enjoy the smell!   

My guess is you'll have to do a 2nd facing op before polishing the face.  Acrylic tends to melt and burr on the face of deep parting cuts.  Razor sharp HSS tooling and fine cuts.  The damn stuff doesn't give any warning as you reach the limit of DOC.  It just snaps off flush with the collet.   

Oh yeah...  Kool Mist it!   

A lot of people have lost the lenses off of the high beam indicators. The blue (and somewhat more opaque) plastic of that one lens, for some reason, seems prone to coming loose and disappearing.

Suzuki doesn't offer the lens as a part- they only offer the entire bezel thing, at some absurdly high price... I think it was $80 or so, and I understand it's not available for all years (colors).

A number of people are switching to LED indicators anyway. If you are switching to LEDs, clear is preferable, and should transfer far more light than colored filters.

Just a thought-experiment to illustrate why: say you had an impossibly perfect green lens (filter) that only transmitted light at a wavelength of 500 nm. Your eye would perceive white light filtered through that as "green". If you had a laser that emitted pure monochromatic light at 550 nm, your eye would also perceive that as "green"... but none of the "green" light would make it through the perfect "green" filter at all. In real life, of course, the effect is not so drastic, but every colored filter will have a bias toward a somewhat different frequency than the LED, even if the colors look similar.

Besides, the colored "lenses" look old-fashioned. Nobody does that with LEDs, for exactly that reason, so the "jelly bean" console look is really dated now... like something from the original Star Trek.

So, we figured by creating some clear lenses, that would give one option for the folks who have lost a high-beam indicator lens and don't mind switching to an LED, at least for that one lens.. and it would give an option for those who want to switch all of their lenses to clear when they do go to LEDs in order to update to a cleaner look.. and those updating to clear lenses will suddenly have colored lenses left over, which might make it even easier for those who have just lost one and want to replace it.

We'll see. I there's no interest, it's no big deal. I'd like to have some myself- and I still have all my "jellybean" lenses.

The low melting temperature of extruded acrylic is a real concern, this may not be feasible at all.

You beat me to it.  My summer starts in 3 days, and I was planning to try and turn a lens for myself, with potentially more for others.  Keep me posted on how it goes, and I'll do the same.  I also might try casting, as I have access to the right materials.

Can someone make a drawing or take a picture of the indicator cover?  Are there tabs that stick out, or is it just a circle with some kind of lip?

Quote from: sanjay on June 14, 2007, 04:22:30 AM
You beat me to it.  My summer starts in 3 days, and I was planning to try and turn a lens for myself, with potentially more for others.  Keep me posted on how it goes, and I'll do the same.  I also might try casting, as I have access to the right materials.

Can someone make a drawing or take a picture of the indicator cover?  Are there tabs that stick out, or is it just a circle with some kind of lip?

I haven't taken mine out, I've been afraid that they'd have to be glued back in to be secure if I did. Looks like a pencil with an eraser end would be the ideal tool to push it out from behind, though.

I had thought about trying myself, just chucking the rod into a drill press (I have one that goes down to 200 rpm) and going at it with hand tools. I probably would have botched it.. I did something sort of similar with brass once, that's my closest experience. However, the rods are 3 feet long, so with a couple, I MIGHT have gotten 4 usable lenses, eventually... 

Casting... know nothing about it, but it must be tricky to get the shrinkage just right for a press-fit part like this, no?

You just know that there has to be something that would work ready-made, somewhere in this world, in some commercial parts catalog, or as a replacement part for some other machine. Maybe someday the search tools will be up to challenges like that.

Like maybe:

http://www.sibalco.com/de/pdfs/khatod/Khatod_selection_guide_2007.pdf

... but who knows...

They do not need to be glued in. I removed mine to Paint and then just pushed them back in. 2000miles latter they haven't fallin out.be carefull they like to fall out of envolopes in transit. 

I'll take one ... I'll be your guinea pig ...
Putting blue paper inside will lower the heat and turn it blue and get it less bright.
Cool.
Srinath.

Quote from: Wrecent_Wryder on June 14, 2007, 05:45:12 AM

Casting... know nothing about it, but it must be tricky to get the shrinkage just right for a press-fit part like this, no?

Well the stuff we use is pretty good, doesn't shrink really.  One thing I didn't know, though, is that it's a press-fit... there's no tab or anything that snaps in place? 

According to Srinath, you can't replace the high beam cover with a turn/neutral/oil one.  Is this true?  Are they different shapes?

Can anyone take a picture and/or measurements?

Quote from: sanjay on June 16, 2007, 04:09:24 AM
According to Srinath, you can't replace the high beam cover with a turn/neutral/oil one.  Is this true?  Are they different shapes?

Can anyone take a picture and/or measurements?

I just got my bike running right again, I finished the LED dash mod while I was at it, it's all back together, I've been hoping my high beam indicator lens would NOT come out, and now you want me to take it apart?

I don't know. I've seen some here ask for replacement high-beam lenses and say they didn't care which one it was, but I don't know if that worked out.  I guess I'll pull mine if that's the only option, but somebody must have them out already...

Srinath said something about them not being interchangeable.  No need to pull yours apart - I'm hoping someone already has theirs apart. 

Hmm, WildBlue is parked about 50 yards away - maybe I'll just go "borrow" his.

They aren't interchangeable, they have little tabs coming off at different angles.  For example the oil light will have a tab at 6 and 9 o'clock and the high beam will be at 6 and 10. 

I have a set apart right now, I'll run out and grab some pics, be patient.





Rylon

Awesome!  Thank you!

Alright, time to begin experimenting with casting.  Keep me posted about how turning goes.

I think I have two sets in the garage, I would be willing to lend my extra set for the experiment!  Pending of course that I would be put on the list to get a finished clear set!!  Let me know 

Rylon

considering I am already using colored LED in those spots, clear lenses would be very nice indeed, I would be willinig to pay for a set for sure. ! starting to sound liek you need to set up a "paypal account"

I can't believe they have different tabs!!!

I guess that was so the process worker couldn't put in the wrong coloured lens.

the GS cockpit would definitely benefit from a set of clear lenses with colored LEDs behind - count me in - I've got $4US for ya!

Quote from: galahs on June 20, 2007, 06:39:39 AM
I can't believe they have different tabs!!!

I guess that was so the process worker couldn't put in the wrong coloured lens.