cottony
Well-Known Member
- Thread starter
- #1
Hi everyone,
I wanted to make a post sharing a fix I'm trying out for, what is in my opinion, one of the Macan EV's biggest comfort annoyances that doesn't really get talked about in this forum. Except for one post discussing this topic, I haven't really seen any other discussion about this: the sun visor is absolutely useless when it's rotated to the side window. It barely covers half of the window. I would be shocked if Porsche engineers actually used the visor at all during their testing.
I have a north/south commute to work and the sun absolutely blasts me in the face for the entire drive. I would look longingly at all the other cars around me... literally every car brand has a full-size visor, and I was so envious
.
I tried the static film suggestions in the linked thread, but I found it clumsy to pack and unpack and it would leave a residue on my window. I know pilots use this in aviation, and I thought I would feel like a 747 pilot sitting in my Macan cockpit if I used the film, but honestly, it just felt like a ghetto and hacky solution.
Since I couldn't find an existing market solution that I was happy with, I set out to try to model a fix for the sun visor. My goals were as follows:
1) something that doesn't have to be attached and removed on every use
2) not visible when not in use to preserve the existing cockpit aesthetics
3) easy to operate as I will most likely be driving while operating the sun visor (this kind of implies the first bullet point, as attachment/detachment would probably not be easy to operate)
4) does not get in the way when using the visor mirror
I found that I was able to leverage the mirror clip to hold my visor extension frame up. I then attached hinges for the actual visor extension. To ensure that the visor extension doesn't flap open when I flip the visor down, I attached circular recesses for magnets to hold the extender closed.
Interestingly, I found it does not take a really thick piece of plastic to block out the sun; just 1mm of filament was enough to fully block out the sun (I didn't experiment, but I wouldn't be surprised if it takes less filament than that -- my guess is maybe even 0.5mm would work). I also designed the print so that the frame could be printed separately from the visor extension. The benefit of these two things is that each iteration/prototype cost extremely little in terms of material costs and was also extremely fast as I could just print the part I was iterating on.
Here are some photos of the actual print and installation in my car:
Here it is, with the OEM visor flipped down -- the magnets keep the print closed and prevents it from flapping open.
Here are some pictures with the printed extension fully opened. In order to prevent the extension from flapping during driving, I tightened the tolerances on the hinges thereby making them "stiffer" are harder to move.
In the pictures above, I also used a zip tie around the frame to create a second anchor point for the frame onto the visor; this was to help reduce flappage as well, but it's not actually necessary; the visor clip is strong enough to hold up the entire attachment by itself.
One downside of employing a zip tie is that it breaks my 2nd goal, which was to not be visible when not in use. In the picture below, even when the visor is flipped up, the zip tie is still visible. I think that is a tradeoff I'm willing to live with, but I'll need to do a longer trial run to get a better understanding of how much seeing that zip tie will bug me.
My main concern right now is whether the coverage of the visor extension will be sufficient. If this version doesn't provide adequate coverage, I think it would be possible to make the extension larger both horizontally and vertically by adding additional hinges+extenders to the other edges.
For next steps, I plan to test this design out (I'll have plenty of opportunities to do so on my work commute
) and I will share an update on the findings afterwards. As always, please don't hesitate to share any feedback or suggestions -- appreciate it as always. Thanks everyone!
I wanted to make a post sharing a fix I'm trying out for, what is in my opinion, one of the Macan EV's biggest comfort annoyances that doesn't really get talked about in this forum. Except for one post discussing this topic, I haven't really seen any other discussion about this: the sun visor is absolutely useless when it's rotated to the side window. It barely covers half of the window. I would be shocked if Porsche engineers actually used the visor at all during their testing.
I have a north/south commute to work and the sun absolutely blasts me in the face for the entire drive. I would look longingly at all the other cars around me... literally every car brand has a full-size visor, and I was so envious
.I tried the static film suggestions in the linked thread, but I found it clumsy to pack and unpack and it would leave a residue on my window. I know pilots use this in aviation, and I thought I would feel like a 747 pilot sitting in my Macan cockpit if I used the film, but honestly, it just felt like a ghetto and hacky solution.
Since I couldn't find an existing market solution that I was happy with, I set out to try to model a fix for the sun visor. My goals were as follows:
1) something that doesn't have to be attached and removed on every use
2) not visible when not in use to preserve the existing cockpit aesthetics
3) easy to operate as I will most likely be driving while operating the sun visor (this kind of implies the first bullet point, as attachment/detachment would probably not be easy to operate)
4) does not get in the way when using the visor mirror
I found that I was able to leverage the mirror clip to hold my visor extension frame up. I then attached hinges for the actual visor extension. To ensure that the visor extension doesn't flap open when I flip the visor down, I attached circular recesses for magnets to hold the extender closed.
Interestingly, I found it does not take a really thick piece of plastic to block out the sun; just 1mm of filament was enough to fully block out the sun (I didn't experiment, but I wouldn't be surprised if it takes less filament than that -- my guess is maybe even 0.5mm would work). I also designed the print so that the frame could be printed separately from the visor extension. The benefit of these two things is that each iteration/prototype cost extremely little in terms of material costs and was also extremely fast as I could just print the part I was iterating on.
Here are some photos of the actual print and installation in my car:
Here it is, with the OEM visor flipped down -- the magnets keep the print closed and prevents it from flapping open.
Here are some pictures with the printed extension fully opened. In order to prevent the extension from flapping during driving, I tightened the tolerances on the hinges thereby making them "stiffer" are harder to move.
In the pictures above, I also used a zip tie around the frame to create a second anchor point for the frame onto the visor; this was to help reduce flappage as well, but it's not actually necessary; the visor clip is strong enough to hold up the entire attachment by itself.
One downside of employing a zip tie is that it breaks my 2nd goal, which was to not be visible when not in use. In the picture below, even when the visor is flipped up, the zip tie is still visible. I think that is a tradeoff I'm willing to live with, but I'll need to do a longer trial run to get a better understanding of how much seeing that zip tie will bug me.
My main concern right now is whether the coverage of the visor extension will be sufficient. If this version doesn't provide adequate coverage, I think it would be possible to make the extension larger both horizontally and vertically by adding additional hinges+extenders to the other edges.
For next steps, I plan to test this design out (I'll have plenty of opportunities to do so on my work commute
) and I will share an update on the findings afterwards. As always, please don't hesitate to share any feedback or suggestions -- appreciate it as always. Thanks everyone!
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