JDM Subaru Forester Light Up Badge

Hey Makers! It’s Kyle back with another Takeover project. This project is perfect for all JDM Subaru fans. In a previous Takeover, I replaced the stock wheel caps with 3D Printed JDM ones, and I wanted to continue the look across the entire vehicle. So when I saw this JDM Subaru Forestor “F” badge on Thingiverse I had to give it a try.

Being a big fan of Subaru, I got bored of the original Subaru logo on my car and decided to change it up a little and give it the proper JDM look. For anyone less familiar with cars JDM is Japanese Domestic Market, cars that conform to Japanese regulations. I struggled with getting the logo to print properly as the transparent filament had to be dialled in properly. Once I had it dialled in I could finish off the rest of the project. A slight change I did make was changing the colour of the LEDs from red to white as I found the red did not suit the rest of the car’s theme of black and white.

The 1st badge (Top Left) printed with 3 top solid layers and no infill and didn’t print properly, it also had gaps in the top layers. 2nd badge (Top Right) printed with 8 top solid layers and no infill and came out nicely but the LEDs could not shine through properly due to diffuser installed underneath. 3rd badge (Bottom Left) was printed with 5 top solid layers and in white ABS, light would not penetrate through the badge. 4th badge was printed with 4 top solid layers and came out perfectly but broke when taken off the printer. The final badge printed the same as the 4th badge but was removed slowly from the bed to avoid damage.

The first badge mount I tried was too tall so I resized it and the second one was a perfect fit.

Requirements:

Here is a list of of products and tools I used to complete this project.
Note: 123D Design is a retired piece of software although it can still be downloaded from various sites, if you are looking for an alternative to use try Tinkercad, Fusion 360 (Hobbyist License), or similar software.

First you will need to download the model from Thingiverse.
Subaru Forester JDM “F” logo and XT badge by Camburu

• eSun Black ABS
• eSun Transparent ABS
• Soldering Iron
• Wire Cutters
• Double Sided Tape

Instructions:

The hardest part about the entire project was redesigning a model to make it incorporate LED lights into the badge. I copied the badge file over to 123D Design and edited it to make space for the 4 LED strip lights as well as the wiring. Once that was completed I was able to place the LED strip lights in to the project with ease. The next part which proved challenging was to get the transparent ABS to print properly on top of the badge to finish the project off nicely. I did have to design my own badge mount as I could not use the previous one due to the fact that it was silver and I wanted to stick with the pure black look.

Overall I was happy with the project and the way it turned out. I had lots of fun making this project myself and saved myself some money.

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