LED taillights

[Garageaholic]

you guys trying to talk LED jargon, keep your day jobs

hahaha it's true, fortunately, my day job is an engineer. hhahahaI would kill to become a bmw mechanic though

[Inspar8r]

Don't get your hopes up to see these soon. The early tails are so much harder than I anticipated. If someone wants to send me a spare set of later-style e30 tail lights, we can start working on those too. I believe their design is a bit easier to work with and would likely look like the silver e30 pictured earlier.

By the way, Nick doesn't make half-assed hack jobs, this is hardcore professional stuff. So if you're looking to do something for uber cheap, then keep looking at those crappy bulbs.

Chris, i just think that there will be a bar across the tails, segmenting the arrays, kinda like how the later style tails are separated...

I would say a month or so to get something together. i may be easier than we think.

[M42Technik]

Chris, i just think that there will be a bar across the tails, segmenting the arrays, kinda like how the later style tails are separated...

I would say a month or so to get something together. i may be easier than we think.

If you can get the same results as the car posted, I'll give you my smoked tails to do it on. That would be hot.

[Inspar8r]

i may be easier than we think.

But i'm not a slut.

Amazing what one missing 't' does to a sentence....

[KevRC4130]

Guys, it's been forever since I've posted on these forums, but I've been around since the e30sport days and even before that, and Chris (C///M) are currently working on a set for the e30. It's quite a bit more difficult, but not impossible.

I've already done the first LED conversion in the US on the Lexus IS300, and here are some pics of my car:

Obviously they wouldnt look like this on the e30, but you get the idea. The boards are custom burned and built on a single sided PCB. They could either be dual staged (dim, then get bright when the brakes are applied), or they can have separate sections for the brake portion.

I'll keep everyone who is interested posted on the progress. Just so that you are aware, if I did market and sell a kit for the e30, it would most likely be north of $250. So it would depend on how bad you'd want a set.

Is there any chance of incorporating the LED "stripes" that the late model E39's had? This would be amazing, assuming the lights would look stock (or close to it) in the day time.

[GaryE30]

Well, if you wanted to see the stripes clearly, the taillights would have to be completely transparent vs. what they are now. But for having equality throughout the entire section of the lamp, that could be a good idea.

[Van Westervelt]

Old thread, but is there any news on anyone making or fabbing any of these up? Or was it all just smoke up and out our asses?

[asubimmer]

Old thread, but is there any news on anyone making or fabbing any of these up? Or was it all just smoke up and out our asses?

I may do the turn signals but realistically, prob not. I don't have a ton of time to mess w/ things like that when I am working on other projects.

[C ///M]

Old thread, but is there any news on anyone making or fabbing any of these up? Or was it all just smoke up and out our asses?

Sorry I don't get to posting anymore.

Nick and I have been quite busy. He is also getting married soon so the tail lights have taken a back seat for a bit.

To sum things up, the front turns are cake and he's done them already (for many different types of car).

The e30 tails are definitely doable. The later style tail lights are quite a bit easier to do because of the housing design. As far as doing these lights for other people's cars, we're just in no hurry because we dont have the time.

Sorry about not getting back to you, when Nick and I get a free weekend and get some work done, I'll post here.

[Van Westervelt]

Good to hear as I am still keen on them.

[BDSax]

i like the look too, im going to try with a spare set from my parts car

[BeirBrennerE30]

Sorry I don't get to posting anymore.

Nick and I have been quite busy. He is also getting married soon so the tail lights have taken a back seat for a bit.

To sum things up, the front turns are cake and he's done them already (for many different types of car).

The e30 tails are definitely doable. The later style tail lights are quite a bit easier to do because of the housing design. As far as doing these lights for other people's cars, we're just in no hurry because we dont have the time.

Sorry about not getting back to you, when Nick and I get a free weekend and get some work done, I'll post here.

Hey.. good to see you around. Let me know when you have soem extra sets of LED stuff that you want to sell. Ill be your first buyer!

small lights... do you guys need to madify existing housings or are they going to just be able to install in any housing(like mhw's)?

[Drew325is]

Old thread I know, but I thought some of the people keen on LED tails might be interested in these LED arrays I came across:


These guys sell them: http://autolumination.com/1156_1157.htm

38x38mm with 36 LEDs and an OEM base. If only a little bigger, they'd be perfect...but probably wouldn't take too much tinkering to adapt them.

[sweetride01]

Sorry I don't get to posting anymore.

Nick and I have been quite busy. He is also getting married soon so the tail lights have taken a back seat for a bit.

To sum things up, the front turns are cake and he's done them already (for many different types of car).

The e30 tails are definitely doable. The later style tail lights are quite a bit easier to do because of the housing design. As far as doing these lights for other people's cars, we're just in no hurry because we dont have the time.

Sorry about not getting back to you, when Nick and I get a free weekend and get some work done, I'll post here.

So you have done the front turns then? Can you mass-produce them? Do they need a resistor? If they look anything like the ones on the German car on page 1, I'd like some!

[sweetride01]

Thread is old. I know, but i got around to picking up those bulbs to try them.
meh...


After depressing the brakes


The light is constantly on, leaving two little dots and brightening as I depress the brakes. I don't like that. However, It is an instant on and instant off which I do like. I was thinking of maybe making a small reflector that fits over the bulb so instead of projecting straight out, it would reflect back into the light housing (to make a brighter reflection with a dark spot in the middle?).

What exact bulb is that? I'm looking at some ones from superbrightleds.com that are 3W 70 lumen, are they the same ones?