The Birth of the Bronco LED Grill Lights

We were asked by the local sheriff's department to modify a couple of Broncos they bought for SRO's (School Resource Officers) by replacing the BRONCO front grill letters with two sheriff badges and the letters CCSO in the center. Since we love a challenge, we enthusiastically said "YES!"

Instead of just replacing the letters, we thought - what if we could backlight them? So we got some low profile red & blue LED's and sat down at the drawing board. After a few trial & error attempts, we had some really cool looking letters that flashed red & blue! (Don't try this at home because installing them on your personal Bronco would likely be seen as impersonating an officer).

Then it was time to address the badges. Originally they hoped we could just make star-shaped bases for them to stick their decal on. Nah, that's too easy! So, using the lightbox tool in MakerWorld we created an exact duplicate of the sheriff' badge and printed it in PETG. It came out awesome!

As Billy Mays might say, "But wait! There's more!"

So we added amber LED lights behind the badges to give them a subtle glow. BAM!

Needless to say, the sheriff's department was blown away and now they have a couple of way cool Broncos with custom grills to drive in parades, show off around the community and keep the little kiddies safe.