I'm wanting to make some LED taillights (behind factory lenses), and I had a couple of questions, would I but red LEDs or Clear (do they make clear?). any tips on wiring it up? also, would I need some sort of a "dual filament" LED for stop and tail lights or would I wire them so half are on for tails, all on for stop? I know a company makes panels for our taillights, but they won't work for my application.

Any help is appreciated-

Eric

 

There's no such thing as "dual filament" LEDs.Most tail/brake LEDs are wired for dual voltage, like 3 & 6 volts.Depends on the LEDs rating & what resistors you use.You'll need lots of LEDs to make them bright enough(about 30-40 maybe), resistor for each LED, C.B.Plus other items i cant think of right now.Wont be cheap.

If it were me i would buy LED tailight assemblies that best fit your application, remove the circuit board from the housing.Then try/make them fit your tailights.Cant help much on wiring all that up though.

Dont use white LEDs behind colored lenses.The white light will make the red lense look less red.Because of the different color spectrums.Use clear LEDs that burn red.They are much brighter than red/red LEDs.

 

I did it the cheap way by buying a set of 36led bulbs. They are not as bright as the standard bulbs though, but bright enough at night. On ebay they were about $4 each withy free shipping from Hong Kong.

The best thing to do is spec the ones that OEM car makers use for their lights since those LEDs are bright using less than a dozen in each housing.

 

I didn't think there was such a thing as a dual filament LED, but it got the message across. I plan to buy a bulk pack of LED's, I like the Idea of modifying a LED array for another Vehicle, I just need to find the right size panel.

 

there are some LED's that have dual elements inside for 3 different colors. It will have 3 terminals : 1 common cathode and 2 anodes.

Then there are others with 2 colors but only 1 lit at a time wired in inverse parallel.

http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/components/led.htm

 

check out oznium.com for components if you want to do this, they have a great selection and absolutely top notch customer service.

 

Thanks, I think I've found a product that will fit my needs, and be very much within my budget on their site.

 

Care to share info with the rest of the class?

 

sure, we know what stock camaro tailights look like right? the rear of my car is going to look something like this, except where it says camaro will be recessed black letters, not big ugly white ones. please keep in mind I made this photochop with MSPaint, so it's not perfect. I need tailights still though, and it would be a royal pain to fab up a new reflector and use regular bulbs, so I figured I step up to some LEDs more for simplicity than anything else.

Edit:

if this was your camaro in the pic, I thank you for letting me hack it up!

 

I meant.....What did you find to use for LED bulbs?

 

I'm thinking these:

http://www.oznium.com/smd-bar

I just need to find out how bright they are first, they can be cut at every third LED, so the length won't be a problem, it'll actually work out fairly well with the size of the modified lenses, as long as they're BRIGHT!

 

Yeah....I've wasted $ on other LED options that turned out to suck in the day light, so I've been looking for something new, but also not expensive.

I'd need 2 or 3 strips of those to fit my GTA tail lights. At $20/each? Not exactly inexpensive.

 

I figure I'll need four strips per side 8 total, for me, I would be willing to pay it if they're BRIGHT, because it would save me enormous amounts of work haveing to solder a bunch of LEDs together. also, those are waterproof, not exactly necessary, but definitely a plus.

 

The taillight housings are already waterproof, protecting the bulbs inside, so I have no concern for waterproof.

Saw these 4.7" strips, which is about the length I'd need.....
http://www.oznium.com/led-flex-strips

To keep my STS light function, I need them as 3 or 4 separate lights.

 

hopefully mine will be when I'm done with them. those 4.7's are just a little bit too long, I need between 4" and 4.5" max. and they say it's a pain to reuse the cut section, or I'd just buy a 6 footer and cut it to my dimensions. I do think those bars are what I may go with, but I'm not set on any particular product yet.

 

No big deal to cut off 1/4" - 1/2" & discard that.

But if a 4.7 foot would be too long for you, how would a 6 foot be better?

On mine, 3 bulb sections are 5" & 1 is 4" (on each side. So the 4.7INCH are perfect for my lights.

 

I meant 4.7", not 4.7', what I was think was buy a 6 footer and cut several out of one, but because they said they are difficult to splice back in I'd rather go with the bars which can be spliced in fairly easily. also, if I were to use those strips, it would end up costing me more, over $27 for 20" of those when the bars are $19.99 per 20" strip

 

Huh, you can't just use the premade LED replacments that match the existing bulbs in the taillights?

 

ALL of my exterior/interior lights (minus reverse) are led, and they function exactly like stock. except for being brighter, lighting up crisp and fast, and lasting alot longer. and these are not cheapo autozone leds either.

and they are amazing in daytime too...and look awesome with my sequentials. i am converting the reverses as soon as my next pair of taillight bulbs arrives and i do the red color mod on my set of tails i just scored.

 

none of my leds required me to wire in resistors

 

They would be too tall, I'm completely removing the top row.



what LEDs did you use? did you make your own light panels, or are these LEDs that plug into the stock sockets? I want people in looking at my taillights in the direct sun to say wow, those are BRIGHT!

 

plug into stock sockets.

friend of mine is a vendor for them

 

ya, see that won't help me because I don't want to make new reflectors to go behind them, I want the whole taillight to be LED's shining through.

 

Picture is worth 1,000,000,000,000 words.

 

SMTs are very bright, but at .41 wide.Thats less than 1/2 inch.I think you'll need more than eight.What you want is to completely fill the lense, top/bottom, left/right with those strips.They'll still be enough of a gap between LEDs without some light, but it'll be bright as can be.I think though, that is more work than you need to do.

Did you make your own circuit board with LEDs?Thats what i was refering to.Not the P&P type.

The ones i used, after i removed them from the housing (2 per).Fit in the pocket just right & actually push against the sides of the lense.They measure 3x4 with just the circuit board.I think the housing was 4x6.Was alot easier than cutting strips & they are expoxy sealed so no water/dust can get in.

 

I didn't really word that right, what I was meaning is that all of might light has to come from the LEDs, none is going to be reflected like stock bulbs.



I think I may want to keep my ambers though, so I would need Red, Orange, and Clear LEDs,

 

wow...sad for me to see a set of iroc tails cut up

subscribing to see how you will seal them up

 

The direct replacement LED bulbs I've tried, that fit the stock sockets ,have sucked in the daytime.

 

i need a good video camera to take a video for you

 

you gotta crack an egg to make an omelet.

oh, and you were already subscribed!

 

Yes...Please do.

Maybe I missed it above, but what bulbs? Direct plug-in replacements to fit the stock sockets?

 

I can still put amber & white in my tailights.All i would need is to buy the amber/white units & install them the same way as the brk/taillights.

 

I meant that they don't have to be packed in like sardines. but that they needed to fill the panel still.

 

well, who is the vendor, what make/style are the LED's?
I'd like to replace my LED bulbs since they aren't as bright as the stock bulbs.
I have 36 LED bulbs right now.

 

I did a little math, and I can pack about 8 of the SMD's into one taillight, but thats over $320 worth of LED strips. so I'm thinking I might try to make my own, I just need some very BRIGHT LEDs.

Edit:

http://www.oznium.com/led-ribbon

I might go with these, they are listed on their site as "Exceedingly Bright!" which is what I want.

but those come out to be even more, $45 to do just one of the amber lenses, another $45 to do reverse, and probably another $144 for the reds, and thats one side.

 

Got some LED's in the mail, pictures are of one strip, behind a lense in direct sunlight, with a black backer.

Off



ON.




Once I fill the area behind the lens, they'll be plenty bright enough.

 

And those are the ribbon ones that you posted the link to above?

 

No, these came off ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...4257&viewitem=

 

OK. It says "cuttable along every 3 LEDs".....What would be the length of that?

With my STS lights, I need 4 light sections per side. And with the narrowness of a strip of those, I need a minimum of 3 strips per section.....That would make for 24 LED strips (12 per side).

 

aprox 2 inches, or 5 cm. they would have to be soldered back together to work correctly, but I think you could handle that.

 

interesting...can't wait to see more pics.

my 3rd pair of led bulbs should be in thursday..to wire my reverses as sequentials.

got my new set of taillights vinyl wrapped

 

Subscribed. Now i'm a Trans Am guy, but that's a phenomenal idea! It's gonna look killer when completed.
Good job bro.

 

Thanks, I'm pretty stoked about getting the ball rolling finally on this (I made that 'chop about a year ago!) I plan to do a little welding on it on my next day off.

 

Some nice VHT Night Shade would compliment your exterior color as well.

 

Thats not my car, thats a MS paint 'chop of someone elses car(note the edit). my car is primer gray and in a million pieces right now, hopefully not for long though.

 

HAHA my mistake! What color are you thinking of? I've always liked Irocs in that bright red color, then with a ram air II hood with the ram airs painted gunmetal. I just love it.

 

Dark blue, with silver GFX, I can't stand ram air hoods on Camaros, they just don't fit the lines IMO. I'm going to go with a low rise hood (no big cowl) maybe a fiberglass iroc hood with the louvers opened up, or some kind of heat extractor.

 

That's a dope color combo. Maybe run the "SS" hood from Hawks.
http://www.hawksthirdgenparts.com/ca...-92sshood.aspx
And maybe incorporate some of your silver two tone on it. That's gonna be a slick color combo.

Or even the "sunoco" is a nice low rise hood too.
http://www.hawksthirdgenparts.com/ca...stylehood.aspx

 

I really like the blue and silver, but I've yet to decide on a blue to do.

The big thing for me is that I have no need for more hood clearance (LT1 FTW!) so I don't want to go higher and have no added function. I do like both of those hoods alot though, if it was a carb or TBI car, I'd do it in an instant.

 

Hahaa, I was just thinking for aesthetics, vs the rs hood. I plan on doing the Ram Air I for my GTA, just a change up from the stock hood. But each to his own.
There's so many blues out there too, it's honestly going to be a tough decision to make bro...