2012-05-21

e-bike: handlebar controls

First mod on my e-bike has been to change the colour of the control switches on the handlebars.  Look at those original colours...


Eugh!  Like the controls off of some kiddie's toy electric truck or something.  Far too jolly and candy-like for my tastes.  If it had just been red or just blue I could've lived with it, but not both.

After disassembly (quite the mess of bits inside these things!) and a light sanding I tried soaking the buttons in liquid Rit dye.  Other people have reported good success in dying plastics this way, but it didn't do more than lightly stain the white button in the center of the turn signal switch.

So I bought some Rust-oleum Universal Advance Formula spray paint.  A coat, some light sanding, and another coat did the trick.

It was a pain in the butt putting everything back together again.  Made me wish I'd paid closer attention when taking it apart.  Here they are now...


Ahhh.. much better.  Much more sombre. ^_^

"But Andrew, how will you see the controls?"  If I needed to look down in order to use one of the controls, it just means that I should spend more time memorizing their layout.  Fortunately the layout of the controls roughly matches what I have on my CBR 125.

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