Lighted Pony Project (back it!)

[RickMachE]

I believe Ford put a stop to them. I don't think you'll find a retailer selling them. Maybe someone on here has one they haven't installed yet and would sell it to you....but most of those don't seem to last very long. Mine died within six months.

Yup. Very naive people marketed this.

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[Sundevil]

I haven't installed mine, would be willing to sell it but yeah as mentioned here they don't seem be very reliable

 

[Reign of Ravens]

I believe Ford put a stop to them. I don't think you'll find a retailer selling them. Maybe someone on here has one they haven't installed yet and would sell it to you....but most of those don't seem to last very long. Mine died within six months.

https://ev-vida.store/products/mustang-mach-e-lighted-pony

It shows as "in stock soon," not "discontinued" - they say to email them if the stock is zero, so if I wanted to go for it, I'd email them to find out when the next restock will occur (assuming it will).

 

[ValentinoRossi]

Got an email from kickstarter today saying Ford did a trademark dispute. Sure took them long enough!

Mine died when the summer heat came even with the diode like everyone else unfortunately.

Really liked it when it worked though (other than first batch issues like the tail not lighting up), hopefully someone from China will produce one since Ford is going to go after any domestic producers i guess.

Does this mean ev-vida is out? I believee they were selling the kickstarter one.

 

[Texas-E]

Got an email from kickstarter today saying Ford did a trademark dispute. Sure took them long enough!

I got the same email and thought the same thing. Hopefully, it is just a stop producing them and no legal costs.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

Trademark, sevicemark, and copyright holders are under a bit of pressure to enforce their rights to their ip. If they don’t, they can lose those rights. The fact that this was a small product and market is, unfortunately, pretty much irrelevant.

 

[DJJeffT]

So I have 2 of these lighted pony's that I never installed. Been a crazy year and I am just not up to it. Was in the first and second legs of the Kickstarter project.

DM if interested.

 

[New2EV]

I really liked the light up pony on my 2021 premium. I mean…really, really liked it. So when I discovered it was no longer working, I was really, really disappointed. I ignored it for awhile, I checked the wiring to make sure it wasn’t an easy fix. But I knew….

Finally I decided I could do something about it. I’m an engineer (AE)….and I know enough about electronics to make myself dangerous. So maybe, just maybe if I was able to dissect the light up pony, I could fix it….. or even make it better.

My goals were 1) restore the light up feature 2) make it brighter 3) make it long lasting 4) make it repairable.

So I pulled my frunk out and removed the dead pony. I extracted the black inlay from the clear shell. It was surprisingly easy to do. Whatever adhesive was used was very brittle and yellow (probably epoxy). I was impressed with the plastics of the inlay and shell. Both withstood some manipulation without breaking or scratching.

Once the inlay was out, I pulled the circuit board and could see right away there were fried components. I believe they are diode arrays, but I’m not an EE and these parts were crispy. I also noticed what looked to be faint signs of moisture intrusion which didn’t surprise me as the adhesive wasn’t bonded all the way around the inlay. Also the board had no conformal coatings for environmental protection. I didn’t try to repair the board because it never was bright enough to begin with.

I used a free electronic APP called PROTO to lay out LEDs and determine what voltage they would require. I know MachE voltages can vary from 11.5 to 14.5. I wanted to keep the circuits lower than that so a buck converter could give me a nice steady output. I laid out LEDs in multiple configurations until I settled on 6 parallel strings of 3 LEDs each running on 8.8 volts.

I coated the inside of the black inlay with silver tape to increase the amount of light bouncing around inside the pony and began laying out LEDs in various configurations. Once I had what I thought was a good, uniformly lit pony, I marked the location and direction of each. I ordered supplies to turn my prototype into reality.

18x 2mm diffused round top LEDs, Clear heat shrink, 30 awg wire, clear UV resin, and clear silicone adhesive. Maybe $40 in supplies with plenty of spares left over.

Assembly took a long time, but I was careful at every step to make sure I was getting good solder joints and the light was reacting the way I wanted. I glued the inlay back into the clear shell with the silicone adhesive.

Once assembly was finished, I installed it in my car with the buck converter near the inside fuse box inside a 3d printed housing.

I think it looks great. Much brighter than before and much more uniformly lit. One of the posts on here noted they couldn’t see the reflection of their pony in the back of any car they were following. I can see this one. It’s not as bright as the running lights, but there is definitely a pony reflection in the middle when I pull up behind someone.

If a LED goes out, it should only dim one section of the pony and I think I can repair it on the car. If the buck converter goes out, it will be easy to replace. I’ve been running it for a little over 5 weeks and every time I see it I still think it looks awesome. I’ve been at highway speed and in blinding rain without any issues. Hopefully it’ll last a long time. If anyone else wants to attempt this project, I can provide information. Just be warned that it takes a lot of time to get it right.

 

[Gullwingdmc]

If anyone wants to buy the one I have, DM me. It’s been sitting in a box since I got it from the kickstarter. I ended up upgrading to a GT so it came with its own illuminated pony and I forgot about this one.

 

[itzbilly]

Have one for sale in Brooklyn NY area for anyone interested.

 

[GVicky]

I would definitely love this and I can’t imagine any MME owner not. Where can I see the initial design video?

 

[nIceWhite]

I also have one for sale in New England. I have an Ice White so I never ended up replacing my white pony with a lit black one. Send me a message if interested.

 

[Cokeologist]

Does this mean ev-vida is out? I believee they were selling the kickstarter one.

Product no longer appears on their web site...

 

[generaltso]

Product no longer appears on their web site...

Yeah, the maker got a cease and desist from Ford.

 

[Cokeologist]

Isn’t there now a Ford OEM light up pony for the Mach E GT? If that is correct, does anyone have the Ford part number?

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