LED Lightbar Modular Block

grabcad

A LED lightbar that I personally developed over 8 years. What was commercially available I found to be both far too expensive, and severely lacking in quality and construction. So I thought I could do better. Over that time I perfected a way to make the machined acrylic optically clear after drilling by building my own vapor polisher (Boiled methylene chloride) and by sealing the led's directly into the blocks, each unit being an isolated item, and therefore various configurations were easy to make.The individual led blocks, used 30mm thick ballistics grade acrylic, with a 3M potting. The blocks could withstand the impact of a 9mm handgun at point blank range. They were theoretically submersible to 1km underwater, and as they were acrylic, could tolerate an indefinite amount of time in the sun without clouding over.Sandwiched between two sheets of 1.6mm thick 316 stainless, with all stainless steel hardware, the bar should theoretically last longer than any vehicle it's attached to. I had designed it for heavy mining / industrial / military use, and once I completed it - I approached an emergency vehicle lighting company, but was rejected because "it's too well built. People don't want quality, they want cheap." Despite the fact that it wasn't really that difficult or expensive to build and assemble, after working out all the kinks in manufacture. Printed circuit boards, cnc'd acrylic, ect.I suspected it wasn't 'viable' enough because I designed quite literally the last light bar a person would ever need to buy.So, sadly This never got past the first prototype stage, and only one was ever constructed. But it was a good learning experience of what it took to go from a very rough idea to a final product.