LED taillights

[thereisnoyun]

rice

We could do it so more of the tail light actually lights up. We could incorporate the rear foglight lens area to be lit up when the rear lights are on as well, but it's definitely not the look I want. I want an OEM look. We could also do a dual stage setup. The idea behind being able to make custom lights is that you can make it however you want.

They will definitely be brighter than the standard bulbs and I love the way LED turn signals look. An LED has two settings, completely on and completely off. It's a real crisp blink as oppose to halogen bulbs which which have a slight ignite delay. If you don't know what i mean, look at an LED blink compared to a halogen bulb.

Anyway, this is just something cool and unique and quite frankly, I've never heard anyone say that the Startac smoked or MHW smoked or all red tail lights are rice. Exactly what "function" do they have? I suppose getting the european clear turn signals for the e36 to get rid of the hideous amber lenses must be rice as well.

Hell, why stop at lighting? You essentially just stated that any modification you make strictly for aesthetic purposes is rice. We better have a talk with all the car manufacturers, because they produce rice all over the place then. But I digress, I just think it looks cool and I'm bored with my car. So I need to do something new and custom/unique is always fun.

essentially tru. most mfg and stuff do produce just like you say... RICE products.

all the things you listed are the things i think its pretty rice.thats why I wouldnt even consider startec of MHW.

back to clear side markers, to make it look modern for fraction of the cost, some things arent so rice, and seem practical. To look out there, for pure looks is definitely rice. With 100 billion LED is definitely the "out there look", thats the same as getting bling bling chrome wheels, and if you dont think its rice, then its whatever, I just gave some opinions, didnt attack you personally.

[AndrewBird]

How are you accounting for dimming the LED's when the headlights are on, but not the brakes? A dimmer circuit or a different resistor/LED combination?

[Inspar8r]

sweet. are you just using a LED circuit board grid? also what MCD are the LEDs and are they in series or parallel. very cool project, i wanted to do this but i gave my spare tails to TJ and he never gave his old ones.

Everything is custom. The boards are burned professionally, the circuits were engineered by myself (and engineer in the field since 2001). The MCD for this particular board was 5000mcd. I have everything from toshiba 10000mcd to 3000mcd HK LEDs.

There are some limitations to the early tails, due to the way the bulb carrier plate attaches to the tail. Again, I don't expect to make everyone happy, and I also don't expect the first design to be the best either. It took 3 designs before I actually released the IS300 taillights.

Those will be the last pics that I will have until I have a product installed on matt and chris's car. Until then....

Keep an eye out for LED front turn signals, those will be released fairly soon, at around a $100-$150 price range.

[BDSax]

sweet. are you just using a LED circuit board grid? also what MCD are the LEDs and are they in series or parallel. very cool project, i wanted to do this but i gave my spare tails to TJ and he never gave his old ones.

[C ///M]

cool. i'd be interested in a set if they filled up most of the inside area. like the one posted in the beggining of this thread:

Like I said, nick can make them anyway he wants.

The later tails are easier because they're bigger. Nick could easily make later tails that look just like the picture above. The thing is, I don't have later tails, so we're starting with early tails. We need some junk later tails to experiment with.

The thing we're focusing on right now is how I want the setup to be with early tail lights. The later tails are cool because you can do the three separate panels and it looks nice. We may or may not try splitting the panels in 2 for the early tails since they have the little separation in the middle.

Guys who do have an idea of what's required in building these know that you can design a board any way you want. I could have nick put together a smiley face pattern if we wanted.

I don't have a whole lot to add to this thread other than what's been said. Nick is the tech behind this project, and he can put together any design he likes.

P.S. No, you will not trigger the check panel light. This is complete plug and play.

[BDSax]

do you get a check panel light because of the LEDs?

[golde30]

cool. i'd be interested in a set if they filled up most of the inside area. like the one posted in the beggining of this thread:

[Inspar8r]

I love the LED look, but having hundreds of LED in the back... its just not appealing unless more of the tail lights up and it would have to be ALOT ALOT brighter. Or else it would defeat the practical ergonomics of the upgrade. Pure light upgrade without function = RICE

ummm, okay.

Hence the reason why I told chris I was even hesitant to post about this project in the first place. Even chris was skeptical. Can there even be an "upgrade" without "function?"

I went through countless designs to try and create LED tails for the E30 and regardless what i did or what kind of LED's i used they were never as bright as the stock bulbs. I even went so far as to grind the lense down to make it thinner, I tried pre made boards, and I made my own boards and in the end there were never as bright as stock even using a 100 leds per panel whether they were square or round LED's. Its not worth it.

nuff said, and my current design isn't even breaking a sweat. This design is far superior to the bulbs, and I am not very easily broken. I've actually toned down the brightness because I have had some customers who are concerned about blinding people behind them.

[C ///M]

I love the LED look, but having hundreds of LED in the back... its just not appealing unless more of the tail lights up and it would have to be ALOT ALOT brighter. Or else it would defeat the practical ergonomics of the upgrade. Pure light upgrade without function = RICE

We could do it so more of the tail light actually lights up. We could incorporate the rear foglight lens area to be lit up when the rear lights are on as well, but it's definitely not the look I want. I want an OEM look. We could also do a dual stage setup. The idea behind being able to make custom lights is that you can make it however you want.

They will definitely be brighter than the standard bulbs and I love the way LED turn signals look. An LED has two settings, completely on and completely off. It's a real crisp blink as oppose to halogen bulbs which which have a slight ignite delay. If you don't know what i mean, look at an LED blink compared to a halogen bulb.

Anyway, this is just something cool and unique and quite frankly, I've never heard anyone say that the Startac smoked or MHW smoked or all red tail lights are rice. Exactly what "function" do they have? I suppose getting the european clear turn signals for the e36 to get rid of the hideous amber lenses must be rice as well.

Hell, why stop at lighting? You essentially just stated that any modification you make strictly for aesthetic purposes is rice. We better have a talk with all the car manufacturers, because they produce rice all over the place then. But I digress, I just think it looks cool and I'm bored with my car. So I need to do something new and custom/unique is always fun.

[thereisnoyun]

Love the LED loko

I love the LED look, but having hundreds of LED in the back... its just not appealing unless more of the tail lights up and it would have to be ALOT ALOT brighter. Or else it would defeat the practical ergonomics of the upgrade. Pure light upgrade without function = RICE

[C ///M]

I went through countless designs to try and create LED tails for the E30 and regardless what i did or what kind of LED's i used they were never as bright as the stock bulbs. I even went so far as to grind the lense down to make it thinner, I tried pre made boards, and I made my own boards and in the end there were never as bright as stock even using a 100 leds per panel whether they were square or round LED's. Its not worth it.

Just wait... I don't know what kind of materials you use, but I think people will be pleasantly surprised. Keep in mind this is preliminary work.

[nefarious7907]

I went through countless designs to try and create LED tails for the E30 and regardless what i did or what kind of LED's i used they were never as bright as the stock bulbs. I even went so far as to grind the lense down to make it thinner, I tried pre made boards, and I made my own boards and in the end there were never as bright as stock even using a 100 leds per panel whether they were square or round LED's. Its not worth it.

[redhatpat]

Do you have a pic from about 20-30 feet away?

[Inspar8r]

Here is a pic of the preliminary design. The dimensions are going to be played around with slightly, but the isn't much room for changes.

As of that pic, there are 72 LEDs in that one board. Nevermind the off centerness and whatnot, and the damaged tail, we brought in tails to hack up for this project, and the board is just taped on.

I just taped it on because I know how excited some people are, and now you can see first hand that there will eventually be an LED solution.

Post Questions, comments, opinions



you'll notice they look kind of dim, and that's because the lens was flaring up. I'll try to wire up a bulb for comparison.

[NABR 1337]

next dream project---