Hydrodip

So the plan was to dip this when everything was near enough finished, and that’s where we are!

I noticed the carbon weave on the Mercedes wheel is a lot tighter than the previous film I had already, which was more of a ‘classic carbon fibre weave’. I ended up learning from previous experience, and just purchasing the film and activator spray, I already had a metallic paint that I could have behind it – much cheaper this way!

So the metallic paint that I used for all of the body, is the same one that you can see in the previous post on the flappy paddles. It’s cheap paint from Halfrauds, it’s a metallic paint for a Vauxhall – I can’t remember the name. After the dip, and a couple layers of clear coat, the finish is quite nice (where I didn’t mess up the dip anyway).

The front looks great, I noticed I didn’t black some parts out, but that’s minor, the finish itself has come out amazingly well. Annoyingly – I got a few bubbles when doing the back piece, for the most part the defects aren’t that visible, but I’ve decided it doesn’t matter as it won’t be seen from the back.

As you can see, the rear finish isn’t as great, and I didn’t even think about the visible areas from the quick release! So you can see unfinished PETG, with a bit of primer + dip, there is some visible primer inside the clutch handles, and the clutch surround is completely unfinished.

I’ve glued the 10k pots inside, there no coming out, and the wires are all soldered to the Arduino Promicro inside, so it won’t be changing! The feel/build quality is very solid though, and that’s the most important bit.

As I’d glued in the Promicro, I decided to glue in the LEDs/display to fix them in properly (rather than holding them in by electrical tape as I was before!)

I haven’t screwed/glued the LED/display enclosure into the front yet, as I need to get the buttons + rotaries inside first. I then need to wait for my nano USB hub so that I can have the LEDs/Display/Clutch/Button box all linked together, so I only have 1 cable coming out.

Ideally, I wanted to have the Clutch + LEDs together, but think I’m asking for too much, especially with my lack of experience with Arduinos/sketches… This has been the most annoying part of the plan.