End of Life Windscreen Corner Kit from Lotus

[Brit-Car-Nut]

Just got 4 of the Lotus replacement windscreen corner cut-up block.

Each one is 2 corners but you have to cut them out of the vacuum formed "box" they supply.

Corners.jpg

Kind of funky, but this was the final option from Lotus before they went obsolete.

The dealer I got them from said he had 8 but he sent me the 4 blocks and said "that's 8 corners"

His price was high for each block but worse for 1/2 of a block.

If anyone is interested, they are $18.00 per block + postage from the US. Postage to the US using Flat Rate USPS is $10.00

Shipping to the UK is unreasonable at $20.00 for First Class Mail (SLOW) or $42.00 for Priority Mail. UK buyers could save if several orders went together as one and were distributed from there.

Here is a link to an old discussion about them.

http://forum.lotuselancentral.com/viewt ... 91#p239337

[Saltire]

John, I'd be quite interested in this as mine are in a poor state. However, as you say, UK postage is an issue. I might be able to get my brother to bring them across when he next visits from Vancouver, but not sure of his schedule at present.

As a matter of interest, do you know how they compare with the Shapeways 3D printed items that Toby organised?

[Brit-Car-Nut]

Probably more info than you were expecting, but everything I do ends up with a story:

I have not seen Toby's 3D version in real life but when I did MY 3D project a few years ago, Shapeways said they couldn't reproduce the texture since the only material to use for outdoor life was their STRONG, Nylon.

JC-Corner.jpg

Toby mentions that his are also "grainy" but a lot better than no corners at all. I considered that logic but also considered doing them in ABS and vapor smoothing them but I was always worried the ABS wouldn't survive for long.

For my pattern, I used an original replacement corner that came with my M100 as the basis and had a professional drafting company do the drawings (it wasn't cheap). The originals (and mine) have a much "deeper" side than Toby's (looking at his pictures and subsequently his .STL. I still have a few sets of my Shapeways version but the outer finish was unacceptable for me so I stopped working on them.

A few US owners ordered pairs and since they were warned about the matte finish, never complained. To keep them in place, Lotus punched a hole in one of the sides so the urethane had a good bite on the not-so-easy-to glue material during installation and it would prevent them from "swimming" up and out of the urethane on a hot day.. Toby's have much less side length and there was no mention of adding the hole for retention. Toby's also don't have the lip on the included corner which helps "finish" the appearance.

Toby-Corner.jpg

The Lotus Vacuum Formed versions also have some texture but nowhere as much as the 3D versions and ironically they are coated with something to make then "semi gloss". I have included my comparison of the original, my version and the Lotus Block.

Comparison of 3.jpg

I am NOT kicking Toby's version, just pointing out why I stopped working on making replacements.

A friend was going to help me make a proper vacuum form mold from my original, but the amount of re-work required after making a "sheet" of corners discouraged me and getting the molding company to cut them up added a huge increase in price.

I still feel the 3D version is not acceptable due to the texture. I also feel it should be made as the original one was made, longer sides and the holes to keep it seated.

I now own my own 3D printer and have yet to find a solution for the outer texture of the corners, although I plan to print a few in ABS, smooth them in acetone and leave them out in the sun for an extended period to see how they fare after a month or two in the North Carolina climate.

Meanwhile, I have been looking for more of the Lotus ORIGINAL replacements and was told by the dealer the ones he was offering were the correct, original corners. I wasn't very pleased to finally receive the Lotus Bodge, but rather than worry about it, I decided to put them up here since they were sold via a group buy many years ago and buyers were happy. I would have been more pleased if I had gotten 8 of the pieces as quoted instead of 4. There IS a difference in the part numbers between the two versions.

These DID NOT come from Dave Bean. He sold his last batch to LEC a long time ago.

[Giniw]

For my pattern, I used an original replacement corner that came with my M100 as the basis and had a professional drafting company do the drawings (it wasn't cheap).

(Do you mean the corner in the first picture has been drawn by a professional company and the company charged you a lot for that?)

[Brit-Car-Nut]

I was working on a lot of projects 5 years ago and a lot of items were drawn for me and I was extremely insistent that the drawing be exactly like the original, so there were a lot of editing requests.

I also paid early shapeways prices for 4 or 5 of each item every time I changed something and those $30.00 and $40.00 payments add up really quickly.

I was also working on the Federal horn push breakage problem and trying to 3D print a part that really needed to be injection molded was a real struggle. Getting "mold based" parts made in the US is incredibly expensive and has to be perfect, so I invested a bit in decent drawings.

Shapeways didn't help much as they seemed to be struggling to find a way to make money by changing their processes numerous times while I was doing my projects. I would have a decent print that needed tweaking only to have the tweaked version come out completely different from the previous printing. Different plastics, multiple plastics used so they didn't need to use the expensive plastic throughout the print kind of issues arose so I gave up. It is hard to heat stake the contactor in place when the heated plastic is really PLA center with a thin nylon outer jacket.

I have looked at several other interesting items that have the .STL files available and the actual parts are rarely copied exactly. An edge, lip or contour is "close enough" so the "that's it, job done" acceptance doesn't work for me.

[Giniw]

All right, thanks for the explanation