Renault ZOE rear interior courtesy light fixture

thingiverse

One of the things that annoys me the most on the Renault ZOE is the fact that there is no interior courtesy light on the rear. With a baby coming I was scratching my head "how am I going to mount the carrier on the back seat at night?". The front seats cover 90% of the light that comes from the front courtesy lights, so it's completely dark back there. I did not want to make any irreversible changes (e.g. cut a hole in the roof lining) in case I need to sell the car further down the road and also to avoid any problems with warranty claims, so I tried to design this in a way that it just uses the existing features in the car, so the idea is to unmount the rear grab handle and use the existing hole to pass the wire. The piece then has a slot that is completely flush with the grab handle's mounting bracket and the base plate is thin enough to not interfere with the way the handle latches on to the car's body. A special cut was made to run the wire from inside the roof liner and into the fixture's interior without being visible. I will not get into much detail about the electronics. Just say that I chose to wire the light directly to the front courtesy lights so that it turns on when you open a door - passing all the wiring over the roof liner, completely hidden from eyesight. And also that the orifice was dimensioned for a standard 1W LED. If you are going to make something like this then you should know what you are doing anyway - electronics in the car really need to be done right. About the part itself, I printed with ABS as I do for all the car-related stuff, 0.1mm layer height, 30% infill. I wasn't able to design the part in a way that it would allow it to be printed without supports - without compromising structural strength. This model is for the right side, but it can easily be mirrored on your slicer to go into the opposite side.