hiding the front license plate
 

Well I have been driving around with my license plate in my window for a while now and I know I'm going to get pulled over sooner or later, and with my luck I wont get out of it. As a pre-mechanical engineer and a kid with a love for designing and mechanics, I am thinking about how I could design and make a device for my front license plate to slide up and down on. I have removed my worthless crash bar in the front and I have an excess amount of space right behind the front bumper above the intercooler. I have also had the idea of possibly mass producing this device to sell. Has anybody seen or thought of any possible design that could give me a start to this small project? Any help or advice would be much appreciated. Thanks
-brian

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

this is some james bond type shit going on here lol

what you could do is mount a bracket to a power window regulator (upside down) and hook it to a switch inside the car. press the switch and the plate would go down.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

I just got pulled over a week ago for no front plate and I got a fix it ticket, I dont wanna drill through my bumper EVER for anything, so it would be cool to see something like this on the market!

good luck with it

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

they make something like that for hot rods. I have seen them for sale at back to the 50's every year they get good money for them though

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

if you do go with my idea, im taking 50% of the profits btw :D

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

Haha I've thought about using the power window motor already and I was wondering if there might be anything a little faster or a different kinda of motor I could use.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

Some RC car servo's could work. Its one flowed motion right? Were do you want the plate to move to?

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

Behind the front bumper or more specifically behind the mitsu emblem. Just an up and down motion.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

So mounting to heavy duty servo's that have a arm coming down to one of the mounting holes for the plate. And have them pull upward. If you want take a window track and modify it to fit in that small area. And have the plate slide along the track. The Servo's can be pretty damn fast also easy to control and not spendy...like a window track motor.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

Check out my old post in this link. I actually made it so my front license plate will slide up and down on a track. The track is mounted to the back side of the bumper. I was going to make a motorized version of it over the winter but I'm still working on my motor build and never got to it. It works very slick. I came up with an idea that it will basically stay wherever you slide it to without the need for any pins or locks. Even though it's my own design, it's the best i've seen around. It works excellent for use at the track when you don't want the plate blocking your intercooler.

NOTE: It's not down all the way in the pics.

Post #33 in the below thread

http://www.dsmstyle.com/forums/showt...hlight=license

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

I like how you did that. Is it a law to have the whole plate showing or just the numbers? I like how you did yours. Thats pretty sweet. In a way its like the Euro plates. Oh and btw I also like to see the design of the plate braket.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

Yea the window motors are a little spendy, and if I do decided to try and mass produce these I would want the cost as cheap as possible. I am unfamiliar with the term servo. I have a few ideas of how to make brackets and mounts for the plate to attach to, I just need ideas for motors I could use. The window motor is rather large and provides more power than I really need.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

Thanks... i'm not sure if it's required to have the whole thing showing or what. I did it mainly to please the worst of all state troopers (pull ya over for anything!!) He ended up pulling me over one night saying that I was speeding thru town. I happended to be logging my fuel trims in dsmlink at the time and actually played the dsmlink log back for him to show my speed :D

Anyway, I got out of the car and showed him the plate mechanism I made because he pulled me over for no front plate before. He was totally cool with it, even though I trimmed the Wisconsin off the bottom. His exact words were, "At least it's there" He NEVER bothered me again about it.

If you have a FMIC, there isn't a whole lot of room to be mounting motors and stuff behind the bumper. If you run a window motor, how are you going to come up with the regulator? In otherwards, you're inside and you push a button. There would have to be some sort of a limit switch telling the motor to shut off. Servos are getting complicated because many of them work of PWM (pulse width modulation). You'd then need a circuit for that.

You might be better off with some sort of pneumatic air powered piston. Sometimes all the best ideas lead to an idea that will never get completed because of complication. That's why I just went simple. It looks good to the point where I don't mind have it the way it is.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

For weight and ease of design I would just use a simple catch. You'd have to push it back up it's track or bracket, but would be able to just flip a switch or whatever to let it drop down.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

Roll the plate at the bottom, so when you are stopped, the plate is down, but when you are driving, or on the highway, the plate (mounted on hinges) will swing up.

-A. Swift

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

Somewhere is a how to out there that a guy wrote up for his BMW or something. It was hinged and spring loaded. I didn't go that route because the bumper cover ledge or whatever isn't as deep as the plate is long. So it would hung out some.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

I've seen something similar to a couple suggestions on some cuztom sportbikes. It's just the plate mounted with a hinge, and they use a little servo to pull it up flush with the tail of the bike. I'm sure you could rig up something similar in the bumper opening.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

Just move to wisconsin and you wont have to worry about it... 70 percent of the cars over here dont have numbers on their front plate cause they paint would wash away in a car wash... cops have been really lieniant about it all

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

Like I said, I took out the crash bar and I have a ton of room behind the bumper. I could fit a baby in there if I wanted.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

Alittle Google brought me to this link Whats a Servo

And to the other comment yes a Servo needs a controler but its not that hard to mimic the same input it needs to do something. And they do stop at a point and will move back to the other point. And the cost for one is 15 dollars as the site states.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

How about a kitty? Meow.

-A. Swift

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

Sorry I couldn't search that earlier. I was workin. I can't stop thinking about this idea. It seems so easy yet so hard. Plus I know there would be a definate demand for something like this and if it turned out well enough I could sure use an extra buck or two :)

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

"A normal servo is mechanically not capable of turning any farther due to a mechanical stop built on to the main output gear."

^Right from that site. Sounds like it stops on its own. This could be good boys!

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

This kit here from AutoLoc is a flip style and really expensive but you can see the mechanism they use for some other ideas. I like the slide up and down concept though.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

I had a setup that did this on my first motorcycle. The guy had flipped it and broke the mounting bracket off he back, so he put bailing wire through the top two bolt holes. Once you got going it flipped up and no one could see it :D

I have the same issue on my Talon, I am going to think about it more and see if I can come up with something, I don't have room for it to flip back very far either.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

I dont think the concept is very difficult at all and you have endless resources for mechanisms to use. Only thing with mass producing them is that there is hardly two cars that have the same options and place/space for mounting.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

That is why I said a R/C Servo. Its small can fit behind the crash bar if its there. And I was thinking more about this. But also if need be you can bend the plate so it fits. Either way with a track system that lets the plate slide up and down. You can mount two Servos up in the bumper and have them pull the plate up and down. Either way I think it will work. You are thinking to far into this man. Only problem I can think of is to get the servos to move.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

well most servos for RC cars aren't run on 12 volts... (correct me if i'm wrong)
Out of boredom (haven't worked since july) I might run to the somerset junk yard and see what I can find for small window motors and what not today

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

Good find! I couldn't find anything at all. That looks like its made to flip down at the bottom of the bumper and considering how many cars are lowerd these days that wouldn't be very convenient. I WILL make this work!

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

I understand this and it's the main reason I don't want to use something as big as a window motor. I'm trying to keep the design as small as possible. You can always custom make brackets and whatnot for any car. I've got a few buddies that would be interested and I could try making different mounting devices for different cars. I see your point though.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

R/C servos are running on about 6 volts (4 1.5 AA batteries). I don't think you're going to get enough 'throw' out of a r/c servo. Most of them only turn about 180*. You might get 2" of license plate movement which isn't enough.

If you can find an electronic solenoid with enough throw, that would work also. The weight of the plate would keep it down when needed. When you want it up, flip a switch to send 12V to the solenoid and it would suck it up with the power of the electromagnet.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

I thought about using 2 servos because I notice they are small and lack much power, but it all depends on the speed consistancy. If you mount a servo on each side of the plate, it is possible for the plate to come down at an angle because of two various speeds. I don't really think this would be much of a problem though, it was just a though.

I found a place that sells different size servos and I was planning on heading over there tomorrow and really getting this thing started. My next step is figuring out how to connect the brackets from the plate to the servo. I haven't decided how I want the gears to move the plate.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

I've thought about this, which is why I wanted to go look at some different size servos and see if they make some that can rotate more than 180 degrees.

That sounds like it may work, but I would rather have it work backwards considering I'll mostly have the plate up unless I need it down for something. Sounds a little more advanced for me as well.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

Are you familiar with CNC machines like lathes and mills. Why not use a lead screw type mechanism like a mill. Forget the servo and use a 12v stepper motor. Basically you would have a stepper motor attached to a threaded rod maybe 3/8" or so. Then you would have a 3/8" nut fastened to the bottom of the plate on the backside of it. The turning of the lead screw(threaded rod) will push the nut up/down depending on the rotation. A power window circuiit would be perfect to give the 12volt + / 12- to change direction.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

I really like that idea. It seems like it might be a little slow though with all the threads on a screw. The idea does seem really simple thought considering the threaded rods could act as possible braces for the plate as well. The downside is that power window motors are kinda pricey and larger than I would like to use. I was told there are different powered servos so I'll see if that would be a possibility. Thanks for the advice.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

http://www.fbimini.com/product.asp?a...icks&idno=8436

Got a couple ideas from that design. I have a pretty good idea in my head of what I want to do, I just dont know how I could attach a threaded rod to a motor of some sort that would cause it to rotate like a drill would. Hmm I could always just mount a drill in my bumper and haha....nooooooooo

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

http://www.stylinconcepts.com/Articl...e/Article.aspx

There's another idea. But for $300 no thank you. They used a power seat motor which sounds interesting. Probably the reason its $300 though haha. I like this one a lot though because its so small. That's what I'm trying to get at.

Re: hiding the front license plate
 

Well i haven't forgot about this thread at all. I've been doing some searching for cheap linear actuators and I can't seem to find any that travel 6-10 inches for under $100ish. Like I said, I want to keep this as cheap as possible so I make this a realistic alternative to throwing the license plate in the window. If anybody knows where I can get some cheap linear actuators lmk. I've done a yahoo search and called a few places and check ebay. Nothin but expensive 300lbs capible actuators or 3 inch door locks.