For creating your own boards look into ExpressPCB http://www.expresspcb.com/
i have used them before for computer projects high quality

 

With every update it looks better and better! Keep it up!

 

OK,
Got the wrap around section done.

This was a little tougher because of the triangle shape to it, wish I had more room to get some LEDs in the top row, but it looks pretty good without any too.

 

Very NICE!!!!

 

So far from what I've seen that looks really great, but painstakingly tedious to do...

Any chance of a pic of the whole tailight lit? To get a better idea of how it all comes together?

Also, I don't know if you have tried the blinker with a flasher out of one of our cars, but does the flasher see enough of a load to flash it at a normal rate, or does it flash it really fast. Just curious.

Thanks in advance,

George

 

Don't have any pics of the whole thing yet, I'll try and get some in the next few days.

Ya it does take some time to do, but that's what I like about it. I know there won't be any others around here with this type of mod

With the flasher, I bought one of these to solve the fast flash.
http://usaled.com/store/item/go72/EL...-_14_5VDC.html

 

Yeah ok that makes sense. I was wondering if all those led's presented enough of a load to the flasher to get around the problem. But that will solve it for sure.

What value resistor did you use for the turn signal anyway? Are you using one resistor from the signal wire in the car, or does each row of LED's have it's own with just one row in series?

Take care,

George

 

Are you talking about the rear turn?
Each set of 5 LEDs has to have it's own current limiting resistor, I believe I used a 56 ohm for each.

For the front turn, I have an additional resistor for the parking light function. I can't remember what I used for that. I'll try and remember to check later.

 

Yeah that sounds about right.

Say a nominal operating voltage of 13.8v...

13.8v / 56 ohms = 246mA, across 5 led's in series = about 49mA each.

I counted 9 rows of 10 LED's, so 90 LED's x 50 mA = 4.4 amps of current between the resistors and all those led's.

A 2057 Tail Lamp Bulb (which our 3rd gens use) draws 2.1 Amps of current.

Notice what I'm getting at here.... you're basically drawing double the amount of current as a stock bulb. I'm almost 100% certain that the stock flasher will work fine they should be good for 20A (depending on what you put in the front turn signal), although you may need to upgrade to a heavy duty one.

The reason the replacement bulbs cause problems is cause they only use 10 or 12 LED's therefore there just isn't enough current draw there for the flasher to trigger properly..

Do you have a good source for LED's for a project like this? You have inspired me, and I think I might want to play...

Take care,

George

 

I got my Amber LEDs from quickar, they have them closeout for .10 each.
They are rated at 70ma just like the superflux ones, but I did notice when I accidently soldered in an amber one with my red ones, that they are not as bright.

but for .10 each it's not a big deal.

The red/orange ones I used for the tail lights (true superflux bin E), I got from a member on HIDPlanet. Look around the classifieds and I'm sure he'll sell more again. If I rememer right I got them for around .10 too.

 

Are these it?

http://www.quickar.com/discrete.php?session=bmnjuuxw

The second ones down?

Here's a link to the datasheet if that link doesn't work..

http://www.quickar.com/tfe30uyc.pdf

They are indeed still a dime a pop, but it seems like you have to order at least 150 to make the minimum order. $15+ the $5 shipping charge.

Thanks in advance,

George

 

Dude thats soo bad@#$. Cant wait to see the final product. I would like to have something like this, but i can no way do it myself

 

Yep those are them, I bought like 480 of them so I didn't notice the min. order requirement (lol)

 

Those are amber, not the red/orange

 

We were discussing the amber ones. As far as the red ones, there is no real source right now. The guy cdoyle was reffering to on the hidplanet forums seems to have had some sort of conflict or issue with someone and stopped selling them since (unless he just had a ton and ran out).

Hopefully we can come up with something. I personally think these might be a bit too modern for my 3rd Gen, but I'm looking for a spare set of tail lights for my daily driver Jaguar, which I think would look great with a setup like this.

As an aside cdoyle, can u post a pic of one of your PCB's? I'm assuming you're just using standard perfboard here? I'm trying to get an idea of your led spacing on the board. I can kind of see it on the one pic, if i'm correct you're skipping one row and one column of holes between leds. Does that sound right?

Take care,

George

 

Ahh sorry, I have been following this thread since a buddy of mine turned me onto it. He would like to do this on his car and I would be the one doing the actual work, I though you found a good deal for the red ones, oh well.

The only reason I am guessing that one isnt using regular 2 leg LED's is that it would be hard to make them all face EXACTLY the same direction whne you solder them onto the board? You can get some really bright 2 leggers in a variety of brightnesses and viewing angles.

 

From pretty much everything I have seen the 2 leg led's just don't compare to these. These are either 4 or 5 cap leds - basically they have 4 or 5 separate diodes in them, and the whole package is rated at 70ma. Forget the nightmare of trying to get them to mount all perfectly flat, although on the flipside that actually may be to your advantage in certain situations, i.e. centering led's on a curve etc...

The two leggers I have seen are good till about 30ma. Sometimes it's not all about MCD. Also these disperse light better from what it seems because they are essentially flat tops. I have to get you a macro picture from another forum to fully explain this.

Take care,

George

 

I was thinking it was about the MCD, the superflux are rated in a different unit than the ones I have seen so it was hard to determine this. Thanks for the info.

 

Sure I'll take some pics tomorrow night after work of the PCB's.

As to the LEDs, the superflux ones are much better then the normal 2 leg ones you see on ebay. The 4 legs make them more secure on your PCB, plus also give you a little more heat dispersion too.

MCD on LEDs is like MAX WATTS on Car amps, it's almost a made up number. Sometimes it has a really high MCD, but the viewing angle is like 10%.

You want to look at the total Lumens.

 

Okay,

I did a bit of research, and managed to come up with a source for the LED's that we need for these type of projects.

These are the Lumileds Lighting Superfluxes, Made by phillips, and used by virutally every automaker in their oem LED taillight setups. It doesn't get any better than that.

The only US distributor is Future Electronics.

Here is a direct link to the red / orange ones:

http://www.componentsuperstore.com/s...IGHTING4749313

Here is a direct link to the amber ones (real superfluxes here)

http://www.componentsuperstore.com/s...IGHTING9189952

Now, from what cdoyle has shown here, the "replica" superflux amber led's are available from quickar.com as discussed previously.

The good part is that they have over 10,000 in stock, so sourcing them is not a problem.

Here's the bad part of all this - cost. Well, at least compared to what cdoyle mentioned.

Red/Orange ones cost .35 cents each. They are only available in tubes of 60. Each one costs $21.00. I have no idea how many LED's Cdoyle has in his 3rg gen tails.. I guess I could sit there and count, but I'll let him address that.

Amber ones cost .32 cents Each, also only available in tubes of 60, for a cost of 19.20 per tube.

Orders under $25 are also subject to a handling charge, so you have to buy at least 2 tubes at a time to avoid that.

Oh and the for the guy who was discussing the typical 5mm round LED's. Here's a direct link to the datasheet for the Superflux ones. I can find you a datasheet for the typical 5mm round led if you would like to compare.

http://www.lumileds.com/pdfs/DS05.PDF

Take care,

George

 

It's too bad that the person on HIDPlanet is not selling the red/orange ones at that great price anymore I should have bought more!!!

The retail price of the LEDS really makes the cost of a project like this skyrocket.

In my tails I'm using 90 LEDs per section, so at .35 each it would add up quick.

 

My buddy wants to do this, maybe we can get a BULK discount on them...... if 3 or 4 of us combine an order

 

Didn't do as much as I wanted to do, but I started on the little section between the wrap and the tail.



It looks really cool with them all lit up!

I think someone asked to see a pic of the PCB, here is the tail/brake section


Here is the PCB of the wrap section

 

Yikes, this thread dropped to the second page!

Good thing I had an update!!

Here all the tail lights completed now, I still need to adjust the brightness that I want them in tail light mode.



And here it is again in brake mode


Up next is moving on to the reverse lights, and then I have 1 side done

 

Hmmm....Looks like the outer red section, could use a couple more rows on top.

 

Ya I wanted to add more, but there isn't enough room for them.

 

aw thats to bad... but it still looks great!!! cant wait to see the last section done!

 

looks good

 

OK,
I just wasn't happy with how it looked with the upper section not complete, so I messed with it some and was able to get some more LEDs in there.

 

wow! that last row really adds to it... looks great!

 

that looks great

 

 

Wow,

Those few extra led's really do make a world of difference! Sometimes you might have to think outside the box a little bit. Don't forget you can solder pigtails to an led if needed, and run the wires back to the board.

That really is starting to come together though!

Take care,

George

 

I liek seeign teh PCBs...but I am really curious as to how you mounted them

 

Wish I had more updates, but I do have a neat little video of the turns flashing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-CjBO9GVUA

 

when do you want to ship me out a set of the grid taillights with leds? They'd look nice on my blue camaro.

 

At the rate I'm going I'm expecting to have these done around 2012 (lol)

 

I know this is a little off the subject, but I'm trying to find a cheaper replacement LED for my third brake light. My 89 came with the factory LED and cheapest I can find is $8.00 a piece. Anybody found a better source?

 

any updates...?

 

I ordered these yesterday
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=320157411150

From what I've been reading on HIDPlanet, everyone seems to really like these. Sucks that these cost more then almost the entire project!!

oh well, looking forward to getting 1 whole tail light done, so I can do a side by side comparison to stock.

 

I dunno, I have heard that LEDs can be pretty bright, but I think I would have just kept a reg bulb for the backup lights. I have even seen Halogen replacement bulbs (similar to fog light bulbs) that are a direct replacement for the reverse lights, one model even had a built in beeping function.

Anyways, excellent job, they look freakn awesome.

 

I figured since I've gone this far into the retro, I might as well do it all!
Plus if the car ever gets 'show' ready, having everything LED will be a nice touch.

 

Ya, I agree with you, I was just stating what I would do if I were to do this. I think your lights look awesome, and having white LEDs as the reverse lights will look amazing.

 

really if you do one might as well do them all (not to mention it just plain looks cool)

 

Ya I can't wait for these white ones to get here!!

So now, I've been thinking about the next LED project and I have a cool idea for the instrument cluster

 

iv been folowing this and i was wondering if i could see more pic and if eneyone has it done completly on a car yet?

btw it looks amazing so far

 

I think I'm the first to do it this way, at least on a Camaro.

I'll take more pics once I get the reverse lights done.

 

Well the white LEDs I bought for the reverse lights shipped yesterday, so might get here be the end of next week. So maybe in a couple weeks I'll be able to get this tail light all done!!

Today, I started on the drivers front turn signal, got it opened up and the PCB cut and all the LEDs soldered into place. I just need to finish sanding/polishing the lens to make it look nice.

I did take a new vid of the passenger side, with the parking light on and the turn signal flashing.

My camera is acting up today, so it's losing focus when I take a movie. But you can at least see that the turn/park function works

Here is a link to the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h5gSS90dM8

Also, if you haven't done so yet, could you rank me up on my Car Domain page?

Since I started these LED projects, my car went from like page 80 for 82-92 Camaro's to about page 3!!!

So slowing working my way up to page 1!!

Thanks!

 

Pretty cool front turn signal.

Can I add my 2 cents? On the farthest left and right. Add anothe column, but minus 1 light on the end, on the top and bottom rows. Make sense?

That way the amber "dots" would fill out the body opening better, instead just a square light.

 

that is what I was thinking also.