hey all how have you all been?

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hey all how have you all been? sorry ive been gone but I have an idea that might be interesting its been in my head for a few days kinda developing. Also im kinda hyped up on caffeine and my ADD meds so im sorry that im rambling

anyway what about a plexi (the most sun resistant type) racing stripe frosted and lit up. my original idea was hockey stripes from a 69 Camaro. if you dont know what those are im sorry but ill post a pic.

my idea then formed into actually cutting panals of my 240 and puting the plexi behind the metal to make designs such as flames on the door or hood. that would be really intrusive of course and there would be no going back.

so im thinking of somehow making plexi peices that are frosted and ground down to a nice flat edge and putting 2812 strips on the edges that arnt ground down allowing for nice light through it how far the light will travel of course depends on a few variables, how i frost it brightness and if i have a mirror aluminum back to bounce some light the right way.

so does anyone have an ideas experience or concern with what im planing? maybe something that can be improved or something i havnt thought of? again sorry for rambling.

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Step 1: Is it legal?

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It’s a track only car I can do pretty much anything aesthetic

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In that case, I’d say go for it. One thing to keep in mind is the thickness of the plexi versus how wide an LED strip is and how you plan on marrying the two.

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Marrying them is my biggest concern but I was wondering even making a vacuum mold setup to make a dash with lights haha that and a complete hood the hood would be thick and hopefully a little resistant to the heat lol

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A side note on “legality”: as you might imagine, it has occurred to me more than once that I could ‘light’ my car with LEDs! So I tried to look I to the applicable regulations. I live in Massachusetts, in the US, and it turns out that an awful lot of automotive regulations are federal: national standards established by the Department of Transportation. DOT regs seemed to fall into two groups:

  1. Safety of materials. Eg you have to use certain kinds of glass in windshields,
  2. Efficacy of safety-related lighting. Eg headlights have to be X brightness from Y feet away; tail lights have to be at least J inches from the ground, but not more than K inches; turn signals have to be in this color range, etc.

The DOT regs don’t say much (or anything really) about decorative lights.

However, state law has plenty to say. In Massachusetts, they really want all your “vehicle lights” to be DOT-approved. So no replacing your existing turn signals with home brew Arduino gadgets and WS2812s. And no non-DOT “undercarriage” neon tubes, no matter how awesome 0x8000FF they look.

Massachusetts also has specific regs that say basically that you can’t imitate an emergency vehicle, either accidentally or on purpose. They specifically prohibit: flashing blue lights, flashing red lights, and any light that looks like it’s rotating.

SO while I suspect that LED strips mounted INSIDE the existing DOT-approved glass, that were NOT red or blue, but were purple and green, and were NOT flashing or rotating, but were running a smoothly-fading-and-flowing simplex noise pattern MIGHT be legal, you also MIGHT have to try to make that case to a judge, with a $200/hr attorney at your side, while taking the bus to work because your car was impounded. You might “win” the case, but sometimes “the only winning move is not to play.”

Dangit.

Of course, off the public roadway, eg in a driveway, or on a track, or at a show, you can do anything you like, more or less.

How about other folks? Anyone have any other experience or knowledge about other car+light regulations?