Thursday, October 15, 2009

Mounting the Velcheck PSIs into the 300mm dome

Once again, when stumped on how to do something, I hit the aisles of Lowe's looking for a way to make a piece fit.

Tom Doucet (Waterset Parts) gave me a prototype set of his plastic mounting pieces. They are a convenient way to mount the PSIs onto a flat surface. What I really needed was a plastic tube to mount it in. The PSI flasher kit I bought from ResinParts was a bit too small.

After some exploring, I found a PVC 2" coupler that would fit perfectly...and for less than $2 !



What was really sweet was that the tabs of Tom's piece allows you the THREAD the PSI into position. No crazy glue, velcro or what have you. Good ole friction!


With the 300mm dome, the plastic base takes up some space the R&J dome does not. Also, clamping the piece with a pipe bracket will not work as the holographic project is right beside it.
What I decided to do was light up the PSIs and make sure that they lined up alright. My rear PSI lense was too thin, I could see the LEDs, so I added another layer. The front was fine. I drilled a hole thru the plastic dome ring and then held the PSI mount in place and drill thru into that.
Now I couldn't find an easy way to screw and nut them together. I did decide to pass the bolt, a flat head 1.5 inch, from the PSI into the dome ring to see how that would work. It looked good when I powered on the lights again. I decided to coat the bolt in silicon adhesive, slide it into the hole in the dome ring and clap in place.



Once I was happy with that, I did the same to the front PSI. Below is a close up of how I passed the bolt through the mount, put a small nut on top to hold it in place, then into the dome ring.