I dont think I caught it mentioned, but for those that had put the LEDS in their dash and have it "spotting" up (only lighting up certain places) you should considering just sanding the ends off of the bulbs, like I did.

 

how much are those leds anyways?

 

Only a couple bucks each from superbrightleds.com

 

have you seen the led setup's some of these electronics gurus have put in their instrument clusters? im talkin like....individual led lights.....and they put like 100 of them in there......looks so sweet.........id give it a shot if i didnt feel that id end up throwing my cluster across the street in frustration

 

Yea iv seen those. They take the whole circuit boards and cut them to how they want them. There is no way I could have the time or patience to do that.

 

I got your LEDs right here. Although they're not in the dash.....and this project took more like 1,000.

 

Thats looks awsome!!!

 

.....mother of ***.........


how long did that take you.......and did the power of Christ himself compell you to do this?

1000 per side? did you do reverse lights and all?

that must of been....a HELL of a lot of solder and patiance.....

what all is required to get them to work? dont you need to plan out ohm and resistance formulas and all that good stuff?

how did you get the circuit board to bend like that around a 90 degree angle?

and how did you do the same with the plastic covers...

 

A little over 1,000 total.....500+ per side. I got a wild hair and decided to build them. And I'm the kind of guy that doesn't give up when he realises how much of a PITA it's going to be.

Brakes, tails, turn signals, backup lights, and license plate lights were all done with LEDs. And man the tag looks COOL. I also recently did my side markers with LEDs, and blacked them out too. They look pretty good IMHO.

I didn't use circuit boards at all......I drilled lots and lots of little holes in the stock lense, stuck the LEDs in the holes, twisted the leads together and soldered them, ran resistors and harness connectors, and sealed the whole rig with polyurethane to protect the soldered connections. The biggest catch was that the LED's stuck about 1/4" past the outside of the lense....hence the blackouts. I like blackouts anyway. If you take the blackouts off you have a regular lense with lots of little clear bumps sticking out of it (the tips of the LEDs.)

Yes it was a lot of solder....also quite a few solder burns and those HURT. I spent roughly 4 months off-and-on working on them before they were done. I drove around with them for about a year, and then decided they really weren't as bright as I wanted them to be, so I stuck a set of stockers back on and stripped the LEDs out. I'm rebuilding them with brighter LEDs and a different electrical layout this time.

If I can get the method down and find a REALLY good source of LEDs I might try to market them.....but I dunno if it'll work out because 1000 ultra-bright LEDs cost some money.

 

www.lumileds.com sells luxeon leds that are way way brighter than any led replacement bulbs or other types, they are the type that are used in the newer traffic signals would take some effort though, it just aint solder up and go, appears they need specific voltages etc, but worth it imho

 

ill give it to ya, you have my OCD mentality. once im set on something, help or MOVE. either way its getting done......

when i first got my car i knew nothing...i mean nothing.

now , with the help of this board and books, a lot of faqs and mag articles (no actual real life help though) me and me alone have rebuild my rear end, gear swap, cam install, port and polish, intake swap, converting tbi to carb, and a TON of other mods that range in difficulty.


i wish i knew exactly how much time i spend reading to learn how to do this crap on my own....its beyond me how i did alllll this stuff with no one here helping. its amazing.

i still have a lil ways to go....the only things i havent messed with are the front coil springs and taking apart a tranny. and that is literally it.

but those leds....look so damn good.......it just reminds me of something id do.....get some crazy hair up my *** to do it.

did you have to plot out resistance formulas and all that stuff or is it pretty simple to get the leds to light up?

i havent done any led work so im not too sure how you route a power source, what ohm and resistance level you need for the entire led set up and all.. i wanna do some led stuff though thats why im asking

 

I know how it feels....I started with a bone stock TBI305 RS and have changed just about everything in/on the car. There is literally nothing that I haven't had off or taken apart. I've gleaned a TON of information here and on other websites, but mostly it's been "take it apart and see how it works." It all started with an open-element air cleaner......

ANyway, about the LEDs.....you do need to have the right resistances in the circuit to control the current flow through the LEDs, and the right voltages to turn them on. Otherwise you'll burn them up. I used 2v LEDs in my taillights, so when I layed out the pattern of holes I made sure they were in even multiples of 6. 6 LEDs per circuit means a 12v source will turn them on. Then I took the current rating of the LEDs, inverted it, and multiplied by 12 to see what size resistor to use to keep the current flow from getting too high. Use one resistor for each set of 6 LEDs. You can usually get a away with a somewhat smaller resistor, because the LEDs will drop a small amount of voltage (even though they're designed not to.) I use the formula I=V/R (current=voltage/resistance) to get a starting point, then keep lowering the resistance until I get close to the LED's max current rating. That way I get the most brightness with minimal loss of reliability.


All LEDs need specific voltages and current flow. The Luxeon LEDs are MUCH brighter, but they also don't last nearly as long. I can leave my taillights on 24/7 for 11 years before the LEDs will start burning out. Although that would take one hell of a battery......anyway I don't expect to ever have to change my taillight bulbs again.