DIY (more like DIM) Dashboard Reflections' Eliminator

Just to keep everyone updated.

The people behind vantablack just announced they now made it even more black, and they can spray a version of it on stuff, but that do not mean you will be able to go and get a can of it sadly.

http://hexus.net/ce/news/general/104536-improved-vantablacks-blackness-dark-measured/

https://www.surreynanosystems.com/vantablack-s-vis

If they can ever make it cheap enough and durable enough then we may have something. Otherwise, it is a very expensive, esoteric novelty material that only has entertainment value for most of us. :(
 
yes touch it and it is ruined.

I am hoping for a durable solution that can be powder coated, then i will get my old employer Steel Coating to get a sample home i can spray on something.

Dont have to be super black, just blacker than current black ( RAL 9005 ) or Jet Black as some call it, but i am used to work with the RAL standard and numbers.
 
Dash mats always seem to shrink with time. I cut mine in half, fit hard left and right, align the cutouts over vents and cover over the centre gap with a 30mm strip of black fabric sprayed with satin black paint. Satin looks blacker than matte.
 
Since I bought the G1W-H I've been a little "paranoid" about the dashboard reflections on the windscreen because I thought this camera picked them up more than the previous one, the G1W, until I realized (upon reviewing some "old" footage) that the reflections were already there, I just didn't notice them.

Then I saw somewhere here on the forum what could be a solution (sorry about my poor photographic skills):
View attachment 26658 View attachment 26659

It's a ring cut from an old photographic roll box, which fits perfectly on the outside of the camera lens. I cut it as long as I could without interfering with the FoV and tested it on a sunny day (we've been having plenty of them lately). The results were disappointing, to say the least. The reflection's glare was a little attenuated but it did nothing to the reflections themselves. I even sandpapered the ring's interior to remove the gloss but to no avail.
But that wasn't the worst part: the worst part was that with the ring the "WDR" stopped working completely! There was little or no reaction to light changes from the camera.

So there was only one way to go: remove the source of the reflections. No, I didn't remove the dashboard or the windscreen, :D I just came up with something to eliminate the reflections.
I have some spare matte black cloth that we in the band sometimes use to cover things on stage, so I cut a strip long enough and wide enough to cover the whole dashboard, put it there, tucked it underneath the ventilation grid, and went for a test drive, with and without it.
Mind you that today the sky was mostly cloudy but I managed to get some sunlight exposure. These were the perfect conditions because I could see that even with low sunlight, the reflection was still there.
This was just a test, so nevermind the messy look:
View attachment 26660

The next step will be to cut it to fit and make it look as neat as possible.
I won't fix it permanently: I was thinking about putting some velcro only on the dashboard, because the cloth sticks nicely to the velcro, or just tuck it wherever I can. I don't mind if it doesn't follow the curves, since I don't use the dashboard tray anyway.
Now the snapshots:

BEFORE
Even in low sunlight conditions, the reflections can still be seen:
View attachment 26662

Brighter sunlight. This one is pretty obvious:
View attachment 26663

AFTER
I left a bit of the dashboard exposed on purpose to see if it still reflected on the windscreen. As you can see, it does but it's the only part reflecting:
View attachment 26664
View attachment 26665View attachment 26666


So, it works and didn't cost me anything. What more can you ask of a Did It Myself? ;)

Next I will try to get rid or at least attenuate all the windscreen chips.


Hi Module 79L, liked your pictures. What camera are you using in the last few shots?
 
All the shots that have the time stamp are VLC screen grabs of footage recorded with the G1W-H.
 
For better results I think you'll need this: :D

"If thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee." Nietzsche aside... that looks really nice. I would stare into that for hours. :D I saw many interesting ideas with carbon nanotubes but never such a cool toy. It is really amazing material.
 
Here's an actually affordable (< 20 USD) and available alternative to the VantaBlack paint:

Stuart Semple Black 2.0

Plus, this one handles like regular paint while still (presumably ;)) providing a lot of the same benefits as the Unobtainium VantaBlack.
 
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for people who have not looked back through this thread I have found the fibres of commercial black dash mats shiny. I have sprayed with matte and satin black aerosol graffiti cans and unlike what you might expect, the satin works better. Painting also prevents the fibres going reddish/brownish with time.
 
My DIY is proof that you don't need some special (and usually expensive) material or to add something, like paint, to get rid of the reflections. It's not shinny and it's been in the dash for 3 years now without any discoloration whatsoever. I only wish I knew what type of fabric this is to recommend it to all of you. :)
 
I've had my Chinese £25 dash mat for over a year now. Still haven't got round to sticking it in place - there's really no need.
It has done a near perfect job with a variety of cameras in various positions, only one of which had a polarising filter which wasn't always used. Don't get hung up on perfection. Sometimes good is good enough.

A handy bonus of this item is a rectangle of material that lays in the document storage section in the middle of my dash, where reflections would be a big problem. What I do is put any letters that need posting etc *underneath* this mat. Bingo! No reflections. Could also be used for hiding stuff to avoid tempting thieves.

Sent from my SM-G903F using Tapatalk
 
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