Hey all, has anyone done this or thought of this, I was thinking about building a custom LED brake light for my 91 high mount 3rd brake light housing. I've had the common problem of the current bulb getting hot and melting the red lens and then it looks like crap. The only problem I would see with the LED's would be the angle of the light assembly.

any thoughts?

im already doing it.


the "high intensity" LEDs i got for it wernt bright enough though.


project is on the backburner until i move back to texas... i left the lense and some tools back there...



ps, tell the junk yard then lense is off of a pickup truck and the price goes from $30 to $12

what size leds were you going to use? 5mm?
I was thinking about making several rows of 5mm super bright leds (like 3500MCD) red with clear housing, then removing the red lens and just tinting the glass to match the tint on the rest of the back window. I didn't start anything yet, let me know how you make out.

Thanks!

well, first i tried "super bright" large LEDs that were the same size as the stock lights... didnt work well, except at night.

then for each of the 5 "pockets" i put 2 in each light hole and 2 in the sides of each hole.... looked great at night, still couldnt see it the day... they just wernt bright enough after going thru the red lense..

my thoughts on that were that since the red was a diff "shade" then the lights, im probly not letting nearly enough light thru... just the wrong wavelengths.. i was considering trying ultra bright white ones, but with me moving between SC and dallas, and everything else going on, i havent gotten around to trying a white one to see if it comes thru better.



now if you want to make a clear cover for the housing, that could work great, but you will have to have a set of reflectors in there that looked perfect sliver....

on my red car though, i think i want to keep the lense red...


if you want to do somthing custom with a diff lense, look at the light bar at the top of the 94 blazer... i think that strip, modded a lil bit could look good... just a idea, i never measured it or anything.

btw, i really want to find a hyper bright led "cluster" panel.... like they have in street lights for example..

instead of soldering 500+ LEDs, you could make that panel fit, and it would work for the brake and turn lights....

guess I'll think about it for awhile, hate to spend the money for 50-100 leds and it not be what I was hoping for. I don't need to see the red lens as long as it lights up red, I like the (blacked-out) look

i would buy one LED of each style you are considering, and put each of them behind the lense you plan to use and see how bright it is... in daylight.

btw, oddesy's sig said he had LED brake lights and LED3rd brake light..

ive never seen pics, but you can ask him.

Greeting cool90bird,

Check out the bulbs at this site.

www.jamstrait.com

I have also seen their bulbs at AutoZone.

The Trickster!!!!!!!!!!

yeah, there are alot of aftermarket bulbs out there but I wanted to fill the whole visable area with leds. as a last resort I may just get a led bulb replacement just because they don't get as hot as a regular bulb and it won't melt the red plastic lens.

Thanks for the reply!!!

I've been busy working on this, what ya guys think?

cool...... but can you see it from 20ft away in daylight?

http://www.luxeon.com sells really bright led clusters, the typical ultra bright red led is around 5000-15000 mcd, these can get in the cd range, which is way brighter the only problem is that u would have to build a power supply for them to work right

Oh yes!!!! you can see these, they are very bright, they are 12,000mcd, I may have to tint the glass a little to tone it down.

cool... whered you get them from?