Built my own 3M Sun Gun for under $40 :)

[Starscream]

10% of the original cost of a 3M sun Gun I have the exact same thing except I had the fun of building it myself lol

OK so for those NOT in the know, What the bloody hell is a 3M Sun Gun?
Well,
I'll show you,

http://3mcollision.com/3m-pps-sun-gu...kit-16400.html

Its a cordless light that is widely known to the detailing community to be the best swirl finder money can buy,
Sadly these little buggers come with quite the price tag,
The retail on them is around $400,
To me that is ludicrous for a light,
So I decided to make my own following various other detailing enthusiasts ideas,

So where to start,
Well Firstly you need a 12v Cordless Drill, and 12v is very important,
18v is too high for the bulb, 14.4 is ok but 12 is ideal,
So First you need the 12v Drill,
Then you need the exact same bulb that's in the 3M gun,
The Solux 4700K Daytime light,
Then you need a holder for this light and then its pretty much plug and play,
I'll walk you through my steps,

First the drill,
a wonderful absolutely nothing wrong with run of the mill 12v Skil Drill,
(even came with its own case)





Next the Solux bulb and connector,


After which you open the drill,



and then take out the motor and chuck,



Test fit the bulb in the chucks grooves,



and wire the 2 very simple wires that come from the trigger to the bulb connector



Of course now would be a good time to test it before you put it back together,



Great!
Now simply put the case back together and your left with something that should look like this



and it fits nice back in its case with room even for a spare bulb!



Ok so now on to some test shots (I know they are not the greatest)

Firstly a badly swirled Ford F Series Pick Up,





Next a Chevy Malibu in a sad state





Finally my other BMW *smug* * smug* with no swirls a deep gloss




Hope you guys like it,
I was even thinking of wrapping the Skil red case in carbon fabric material lol,

Even though the first thing you think is that this bulb will melt the housing your wrong,
It gets slightly warm to the touch, but never hot, You don't really have it on for more than 30 seconds at a time anyway, Its not a flashlight, Its a swirl spotting light, Even though it will light up a room better than any flash light I have ever seen lol,
I was thinking of going the extra mile and adding a small computer fan so blow on the back of the bulb but it really doesn't get that hot,

Not sure how many detailers we have on this site but its pretty cool to me,

[Twisted Six]

Nicely done DIY. Makes me wish I didn't throw away all those 12volt drills when the batteries became weak.

[Starscream]

Something always comes in handy after you have thrown it away!

This little bugger is a new unit that I got for a stupidly low price I didn't feel so bad breaking it up

[007MCoupe]

Awesome! Love the DIYers out there that come up with this kind of stuff!

[WestCDA]

Nice job! Amazing how that bulb fit into the existing chuck holder grooves in the drill housing - you'd think it was made for it!

[Kgolf31]

That's awesome.

I use 2 500w Halogen Stands, but they don't really help much on the roof, hood and trunk. I have to depend on a smaller 250w bulb and fluorescents.

I may have to do this

[Barryb97]

Awesome! I'm going to do it!

[Starscream]

Originally Posted by Kgolf31

That's awesome.

I use 2 500w Halogen Stands, but they don't really help much on the roof, hood and trunk. I have to depend on a smaller 250w bulb and fluorescents.

I may have to do this

Yup I set those up as well for when I'm polishing, But for close ups and to check your work something handheld is always great,
and 3M's gun is known as the best of the best and I've always wanted one,
I just couldn't justify the price, so I made my own lol,
Its the exact same spec bulb as 3M use too,

[Starscream]

Originally Posted by WestCDA

Nice job! Amazing how that bulb fit into the existing chuck holder grooves in the drill housing - you'd think it was made for it!

"most" drills will accommodate a MR16 bulb just fine,
I've seen people put them in a bunch of different drills, mostly over at detailingworld.co.uk,
British site, But then again I am a Brit lol,

Just most of the drills they use are not available in the US so I had to do some searching for one over here that I could use,

and even though its a good thing, for this project its not, but most handheld powertools are 18v now,
Rare to see a 12v anymore,

[WestCDA]

What is the diameter on that MR16 bulb? I could do a quick 'snout' measurement to make sure it would fit, if I happened to run across a cheap 12V donor drill ...

[Starscream]

Its in the drill so I dunno,
Sure google can pop up dimensions of the bulb,

[WestCDA]

I saw you had a spare in your case (perhaps it was just the box from the original), so thought it might be handy to check. I found this info online - it looks like it's a 2 inch bulb:

The number after "MR" indicates the diameter of the bulb in eighths-of-an-inch. If you are using an MR16 light bulb, your bulb is 2" in diameter.

I'll keep my eyes open for a suitable cheap 12V drill kit ...

Cheers

[Starscream]

Originally Posted by WestCDA

I saw you had a spare in your case (perhaps it was just the box from the original), so thought it might be handy to check. I found this info online - it looks like it's a 2 inch bulb:

The number after "MR" indicates the diameter of the bulb in eighths-of-an-inch. If you are using an MR16 light bulb, your bulb is 2" in diameter.

I'll keep my eyes open for a suitable cheap 12V drill kit ...

Cheers

Wow I just face palmed so hard just now,

[drew935]

I'm going to give this project a go as well.

[inTgr8r]

Very creative.. I love it!!!!

[Caddyshk]

Originally Posted by inTgr8r

Very creative.. I love it!!!!

I happen to have an old 12V Dewalt handy!

[BIMMERGUY91]

nice i will make myself one of these very soon

[santov]

This is awesome! I love the resourcefulness of our community!

You should post this over on autogeek.net/forums. They'd go ape over something like this.

Thanks for the DIY!

[Starscream]

I'm always buying stuff from autogeek,
Didn't even know they had a forum lol!

Love this little light

[inTgr8r]

where did you find the pig tail socket for the bulb?

[edit]
NM ...found it
[/edit]

[Shorestyle031]

What's wrong with a flashlight, what makes this so much better? Real question not trying to sound like a di*k

[E86Z]

The light from the sungun can replicate the effect of the sun hitting your cars paint, that's generally where you see the most swirls or spider webbing. Basically its a very strong concentrated light vs the dispersed light of a flashlight (someone chime in if I'm way off lol).

More info here:
http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/foru...d.php?t=202530

There are a bunch of threads about it there.