LED taillights

[Gadea]

let´s suppose for a sec. that you managed to do that. What do you think would look better? A lot of tiny 3mm leds, the bigger 5mm, or something else?

[george graves]

Yea. That and you have to have the led's fill the whole area - anything less doesn't look right.

[Gadea]

such a job takes a lot of work. I don´t think anybody has LED tails on E30s this side of the Atlantic. I think the hardest part is to fit them in the tail light housing while retaining the ability to attach the housing to the stock holes in the body

[nando]

they would buy them - for $10 a pair, you pay shipping. ;)

[george graves]

The thing about something like this is that you'll get people saying "I'd buy them! I'd buy them!" but then when he offered to custom make them it was all crickets....

[sweetride01]

Outside of the average r3v'ers budget.

I woulda bought them... but then I'm selling my car now, so a bit pointless...

[george graves]

Outside of the average r3v'ers budget.

[MaxBell]

I hate to dig something up from everyone's past, but what came of ye olde LED taillights?

[Sam Cogley]

Yea, thats what I'm referring to with LED replacement bulbs. Your LED panel design eliminates that and is the "right" way to go about having LED taillights. Too many people are interested in the cheap or easy way, not necessarily the right way. I cant help but laugh at the cars with a dimly glowing spot the size of a quarter in an otherwise dark taillight who bought LED "conversion" bulbs thinking they would get a visibility improvement.

To realize the benefits LEDs have, proper design must take place. Sounds exactly like what you are up to, much appreciation for that.


Load resistor... are you talking about modifying the flasher unit itself, or adding a dummy resistor? I understand a plug and play system is more desirable, but I would think a different flasher would be a good choice to realize the benefit of lower current draw.

I have the LED conversions in my 77 Corvette - they light up the stock taillight lenses as well as stock replacement incandescent bulbs and are brighter. YMMV.

[VAPORBLADE]

if I remember Libertek does some nice custom work in canada. They did my old CBR.

[sweetride01]

Changing the flasher has had spotty results in other applications, so I will use a resistor that will maintain the correct flasher rate. They won't ever get hot for the turn signals, because the voltage is not constant.

Perhaps this weekend chris and I can test out the front LEDs again.

Any news???
Someone else on here already did their own custom setup that's pretty sweet, I want to know when your stuff is done ;-)

[Inspar8r]

Yea, thats what I'm referring to with LED replacement bulbs. Your LED panel design eliminates that and is the "right" way to go about having LED taillights. Too many people are interested in the cheap or easy way, not necessarily the right way. I cant help but laugh at the cars with a dimly glowing spot the size of a quarter in an otherwise dark taillight who bought LED "conversion" bulbs thinking they would get a visibility improvement.

To realize the benefits LEDs have, proper design must take place. Sounds exactly like what you are up to, much appreciation for that.


Load resistor... are you talking about modifying the flasher unit itself, or adding a dummy resistor? I understand a plug and play system is more desirable, but I would think a different flasher would be a good choice to realize the benefit of lower current draw.

Changing the flasher has had spotty results in other applications, so I will use a resistor that will maintain the correct flasher rate. They won't ever get hot for the turn signals, because the voltage is not constant.

Perhaps this weekend chris and I can test out the front LEDs again.

[DaveSmed]

Because most people don't like the "dot" of light coming from the middle of replacement bulbs.

Yea, thats what I'm referring to with LED replacement bulbs. Your LED panel design eliminates that and is the "right" way to go about having LED taillights. Too many people are interested in the cheap or easy way, not necessarily the right way. I cant help but laugh at the cars with a dimly glowing spot the size of a quarter in an otherwise dark taillight who bought LED "conversion" bulbs thinking they would get a visibility improvement.

To realize the benefits LEDs have, proper design must take place. Sounds exactly like what you are up to, much appreciation for that.


Load resistor... are you talking about modifying the flasher unit itself, or adding a dummy resistor? I understand a plug and play system is more desirable, but I would think a different flasher would be a good choice to realize the benefit of lower current draw.

[sweetride01]

as for an update, I haven't made much progress, I've been slacking off, and I have a ton of web orders to fulfill for the IS300.

I'm hoping chris will be able to help out on sunday, perhaps get the additional boards built and start testing them out. I had to change a load resistor for the front turn signals because I had to account for 14.4V dynamic power (it's 13.7 believe it or not on the IS300).

So the fronts are almost done?
That would be sweet! If you had some Euro smiley parking light LEDs running off the side light power, would it affect the turn signal functioning? I doubt it, but always better to ask...

[Inspar8r]

as for an update, I haven't made much progress, I've been slacking off, and I have a ton of web orders to fulfill for the IS300.

I'm hoping chris will be able to help out on sunday, perhaps get the additional boards built and start testing them out. I had to change a load resistor for the front turn signals because I had to account for 14.4V dynamic power (it's 13.7 believe it or not on the IS300).