LED taillights

[E30Andrew]

Those LEDs look sick. I would also like a set if they were ever mass produced. keep going on these i know a bunch of people that would probably buy them

[nefarious7907]

I wired up LED boards but I could never get LED's even square ones bright even to satisfy me. So I went back to 1156 bulbs.

[AndrewBird]

How about using a few of these:

http://www.oznium.com/led-flex-strips

[george graves]

Quick - cheap - easy.

The above three things have nothing to do with making a set of these correctly.

If someone wanted to make these in their basement, you'd be looking at $500 for a set easy. They just wont sell at that price.

If someone wanted to mass produce these, it wouldn't make sense to put all the R&D into it - they would not sell well even at $250.

Installation would require a ton of cutting and trimming plastic, sealing things up with caulk, ect...

I know there SEEMS to be a lot of interest for these, but it's so easy for someone to type "Oh I want a set - I'd gladly pay $500!!!" But, I bet when it came time for a group buy, it would just be the sound of crickets ...


my 2 cents...

[AndrewBird]

Quick - cheap - easy.

The above three things have nothing to do with making a set of these correctly.

If someone wanted to make these in their basement, you'd be looking at $500 for a set easy. They just wont sell at that price.

If someone wanted to mass produce these, it wouldn't make sense to put all the R&D into it - they would not sell well even at $250.

Installation would require a ton of cutting and trimming plastic, sealing things up with caulk, ect...

I know there SEEMS to be a lot of interest for these, but it's so easy for someone to type "Oh I want a set - I'd gladly pay $500!!!" But, I bet when it came time for a group buy, it would just be the sound of crickets ...


my 2 cents...

I can't POSSIBLY see how making a set for yourself at home would be $500. I mean, You're not paying for labor as you would be doing it yourself, so all you would have to pay for is materials, and LED's are CHEAP!

[george graves]

I can't POSSIBLY see how making a set for yourself at home would be $500. I mean, You're not paying for labor as you would be doing it yourself, so all you would have to pay for is materials, and LED's are CHEAP!

If someone wanted to make these in their basement, you'd be looking at $500 for a set easy. They just wont sell at that price.

Didn't mean $500 in parts - but to make them in your basement, then try and SELL them, you'd need to charge $500 for a full set.

Sorry, I wasn't clear.

Think of how many LED's it would take!!! Front (left and right), rear (left and right) - hundreds of them....ok now, times that by two and thats how may solder points you have. Not to mention custom trimming/drilling of the PCB, a control circuit to make the break light "brighter" when breaking, a small harness to tie into the factory harness, ect...

...

[C ///M]

You'd be surprised what someone who actually builds these things can do.

A complete set of LED tail lights for an e30 won't cost $500.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, my buddy Nick (Inspar8r) designed and builds from the ground up all around LED lighting for IS300s.

He has two IS300 designs, flare and ring. Both are Dual Stage setups. The flare is lit up all the time and gets much brighter when you're on the brakes. His ring design only has the outer ring lit up all the time and when you get on the brakes, the dual stage kicks in for the outer ring to make it brighter, and the inner rings come on.
Go here to check it out: Click on LED Tail lights. He's got the best lighting available for the is300. His work is amazing.

http://www.mmsportonline.com/products.htm

Here's the deal with the e30. I have early tail lights, therefore, we'd do an early tail light version first. Only problem is that the early housings are a pain in the ass and we both have full-time jobs/lives. We'll eventually get around to it. He'd have to pick up some later housings to design a set of those. Donations are accepted and will put you at #1 on the list if he builds them. The later housings are MUCH easier to work on and he could probably kick out a set pretty fast, but let's be honest here, the is300 market is much better than the e30 market, so there's no incentive to mass produce e30 units.

If he had designed an e30 set, buyers would either have to do the install themselves, or be without their tail lights for at least a week while they sent them to Nick to install. The price would likely be at least $350. While not $500, getting $350 out of an e30 owner for tail lights isn't the easiest task.

He may do the front turn signals for people soon. I'll have to see if I have my old aluminum bumpered/m3 bumpered turn signal housings so he can made both size boards (Plastic bumpers and divingboard/m3 lights).

Anyway, if Nick's e30 hadn't been thrashed by some *******, we'd already all have LED lighting. But it was, he bought an IS300, and his lighting products are selling like mad to the is300 community.

I'll see what I can do, but so much stuff is always going on ya know..

EDIT: FYI: any e30 products that Nick develops would always have to be made to order, considering the low demand of the e30 market. So expecting a lead time for every order is something to keep in mind.

[AndrewBird]

Didn't mean $500 in parts - but to make them in your basement, then try and SELL them, you'd need to charge $500 for a full set.

Got ya, I miss read. Yes, there would be quite a lot of time involved doing it by hand, and yes you would have to charge up the ass.

[Van Westervelt]

Chris. PM me your address, I will send a set of tails over pronto. :)

[george graves]

How many LED's is that? A few dozen. I'm thinking to do a e30 correctly, you'd need hundreds. Also, spacing and alignment is kinda off? no?




...

[C ///M]

Hi Guys,

I should add that that picture is extremely old and the very first set that Nick produced. The alignment isn't off, but the camera really just flat out sucked. It doesn't capture the uniform glow. His current products are flawless. That particular setup is 48 LEDs in each taillight, and 30 LEDs in the trunk lenses.

He does rectangular boards with LED blocks for turnsignals. Essentially, the e30 would consist of a LED circuit block for each section of the tail light. It's not my place to post about the manufacturing process. Maybe I'll get Nick to chime in this thread again. Be assured, if he did produce anything for the e30, it would be Professional grade. These aren't "made in mom's basement with ghetto tools." I can assure you, the circuit boards are software-designed to absolute uniform specs and spacing. Sorry the pictures can't capture it properly. I'll see if I can get some better pictures.

I'm going to see Nick tonight, so we'll chat about some stuff and I'll see if I can post any more details tomorrow.

Here is Nick's newest design for the IS300. See his website for details and more pictures. Apologize that the images really aren't the best. As soon as we get some time into the e30, I'll give you guys some good details and pictures.

E30 Groupie: PM sent. I should add, the tail light should not be in good condition as you will not be getting this back. However it needs to be in one peice. We need the housing to take the complete lens off and measure the space for board fitment.

[Inspar8r]

Boo!

I'll start where chris left off. I'm sure a bunch of the OG members here are aware of some of the custom stuff I have done in the past, for those who don't know, here's a few.

I was one of the first (along with eric lukas to be running around with HID headlights, though mine were in H4 assemblies.) Shortly after I went to ellipsoids.

After breaking a lens, I decided, I could do what Hella could do, and was the first to convert US ellipsoids into the smoked ellipsoids using the same methods as hella.

I did the angel eyes, and while that was fun, and looked cool, there wasn't much of a future behind it, and I stopped production (there was just too much work and CCFL was taking over, even though CCFL really wasn't working out too well for the e30s except in the nasty looking plastic headlight covers.

I did all the clear and smoked lenses too, which is how MMSport got started.

I've been around for the BEN forums and looked up to guys like Ove Kvam, that's right old schoolers!!! You know whats up.

I fought with Bimmersteven over V1 radar detectors, and anything else he disagreed with me on, no worries buddy, it was all in fun, lol!!

At any rate, I've been working as an engineer for quite some time, and running MMSport over on the IS boards, and was the first in the country to develop LED taillights for the IS300. After 3 years of doing that, my process is as good as it can be.

I've been meaning to get back into the e30s, so this is the way forward.

As it stands now, I have boards designed for the e30 on just one segment, and it is for the older style tails, like the ones on chris's car. There are 80 LEDs per side, and the turnsignal will have about half that per side.

It's tricky modding the housings CLEANLY, and I have to sets that I am hacking up to figure out a process. Once it's done, there will be a taillight exchange program, with contracts for those who want to swap. Like the IS300, I can offer tinting and red-out of the turnsignals (as well as use red LEDs for the turns).

For the tails, chris and I are cautiously optimistic of a product, but at this point, no pricing. If I had to provide a range, it would be in the 350-500 range for the full set (turn signals, brakes and tails).

The fronts i think have much more potential, and I would say I could have a working product within a month. Pricing would be between 100-150.

Since I know how young the community is, I don't expect to make tons of money here, I have plenty of business already on the is boards, so really, I'm doing this for the guys who just HAVE TO HAVE LEDs.

you can post here or PM me or Chris (I won't be able to check here as often, so you can talk to chris, I call him on a weekly basis).

Any ideas or feedback before we get into this any further? Again, I will be doing this FOR SURE for 2 people (chris and GRiB) so whether or not anyone else is in, there will be some type of product.

Hope to hear from some familiar faces.

[M42Technik]

If I provided you with my turn signals and my MHW smoked tails, you're saying it would be $350 to make them LEDs?

Not hatin' on the price, just verifying if you can have it like the car I posted a few pages back, I'd love to have smoked MHW's with LEDs...

[silversleeper]

I think something along the lines of the celis style lights on the e39 5er is more appropriate for our cars. As they are still LED, but blend well with the aged styling of our cars.

[nefarious7907]

I would honestly like to see some pictures of these lit up at night on an E30, I tried several different types of LEDs for my project and I could not find any that would be as bright as stock bulbs.