Newbe with some LED questions (yet another tail light thread)

[majorboost]

I never thought of that! I have all of the spare material I need. I'll give that a shot with different grits on some scrap. That would hide the LED's a little more when they are not illuminated too. Thanks for that idea!!

[cadstarsucks]

I never thought of that! I have all of the spare material I need. I'll give that a shot with different grits on some scrap. That would hide the LED's a little more when they are not illuminated too. Thanks for that idea!!

  not a problem... it just registered the look you were going for.

Dan

[cadstarsucks]

I never thought of that! I have all of the spare material I need. I'll give that a shot with different grits on some scrap. That would hide the LED's a little more when they are not illuminated too. Thanks for that idea!!

We wait with baited breath...

[majorboost]

We wait with baited breath...

LOL

Hopefully I'll have some pics up after this weekend. Life is getting in the way of working on the project right now.

I have played with sanding the lenses, and also adding window film (like what you would find on an exterior bathroom window to block nude views) to the inside face of the lens. I need to add the additional K2's to the assembly this weekend.

After the additional K2's are added I will be posting pictures and asking for your opinions on what style lens looks best, both from an aesthetics standpoint and a light refraction standpoint. From what I saw with just the LED's that are in there right now, I'm not sure what I like best. It will be a toss up between the clear smoked black lens, and the smoked lens with the window treatment added to the back of it. Two very different looks, either way would look good. The main advantage of adding the window treatment is you can't see through the lens when the LED's are off, so everything in the light housing is 100% hidden. So in my opinion when you have a difficult decision to make...................... Go to the masses. I'll be asking your opinions and also the opinions of others on automotive forums I am a member of.

I did finish the redesigned backup lights. I know for a fact I like the new design much better. It isn't as gaudy as the star was, it is just a simple 18 LED rectangular design arraignment with both 5MM and 3MM LED's in the inboard corner. I figure the 5MM and 3MM are OK in this app due to how infrequently the backup lights are on (plus the assembly is easy to replace when they do go).

Thanks again! I hope to post up pic results in the near future. Then it is up to the masses to decide what the final product will be on the car. Everyone that voted for what ends up on the car gets to say "yeah I told him to go that route with the tail lights" =)

[majorboost]

Here we go............. CLOSE to the final product.

The last issue is on the lens. What looks better the smoked lens with the "filter" on the backside ,or just the clear smoked lens? The filter lets the light refract on the lens more, less light past it, and hides the reverse light LED's when the brake lights are on. Without it, what you see is what you get, pure blinding light.


Backup lights no filter

By majorboost, shot with E5400 at 2008-08-03

Brake lights no filter in the daylight

By majorboost, shot with E5400 at 2008-08-03

Brake lights no filter in th darkness

By majorboost, shot with E5400 at 2008-08-03

Backup lights with filter

By majorboost, shot with E5400 at 2008-08-03

Brake lights with filter in the daylight

By majorboost, shot with E5400 at 2008-08-03

Brake lights with filter in the darkness

By majorboost, shot with E5400 at 2008-08-03

[cadstarsucks]

Well I think the filter looks better, but I can not tell how bright they actually are. 

[majorboost]

Well I think the filter looks better, but I can not tell how bright they actually are. 

They are brighter without the filter, but I would end up tuning down the ma without the filter because they are blinding bright. With the filter they are "Cadillac" LED tail light bright. Considering the Cadillacs have 28 LED's in one of their tail lights, that's impressive! I wonder what type of LED's GM uses in the Caddy tail lights. I am going to let people "vote" for a week or so, then finish the project up. As of right now, on two other sites it is a DIRECT 50% 50% split on who likes what! That's with a total of 64 votes. I didn't think it would be that close on voting on the first day of voting! I do think I am starting to lean towards without the filter just due to how "crisp" the light color is. That's odd, because that's not the origanal "look" I was going for. I think once I added more K2's and the dots were pushed closer together I just liked the pure LED look better. I'm going to sleep on it for a few nights, let the votes roll in, and make my final decision later.

Then, it's on to getting the "dim" feature to the perfect brightness so you can tell when the brake is hit.

[cadstarsucks]

They are brighter without the filter, but I would end up tuning down the ma without the filter because they are blinding bright. With the filter they are "Cadillac" LED tail light bright. Considering the Cadillacs have 28 LED's in one of their tail lights, that's impressive!

That sounds like you were perhaps a bit skeptical when we first mentioned just how bright these things are! 

[majorboost]

Skeptical only because of my own mind. I have seen cars come from the factory with LED tail lights for a few years now, and they always have more than 20 LED's in each lens. I think what was going through my mind at first was "if these LED's are so bright, then why do the car manufactures use so many of them?". After finishing the one side light of my own, I now understand why. It simply has to do with cost. Once you add everything up to build a K2 style assembly with buckpucks the cost adds up real fast. That means the manufactures are using a sub par LED. I would still like to know what the automotive manufactures are using for their LED's. I might just have to buy a used lens from a bone yard just to find out.

[cadstarsucks]

I suspect they are using UFO types in strings of 3 or 4 in series with simple dropping resistors.

They would not bother with buck pucks or stars.  It would be a simple matter to mount all the LEDs and they drive electronics on a PCB if they wanted to.  The fact is that they are indeed cheap and have them mounted by cheap labor.  If they actually had to pay for the labor it would be more cost effective to use the power LEDs.

Dan

[justDIY]

is the other side still factory?  can you give us pictures where both the factory and upgraded sides are in the same shot, so we can judge the brightness better?

how are you getting rid of the ~36 watts of heat your leds are generating, assuming you're running the twelve K2's at half power

[majorboost]

is the other side still factory?  can you give us pictures where both the factory and upgraded sides are in the same shot, so we can judge the brightness better?

how are you getting rid of the ~36 watts of heat your leds are generating, assuming you're running the twelve K2's at half power

I sold my factory lenses already, they helped fund the project =). They are at least three times brighter than the factory 1157 bulbs. Each side used two 1157 bulbs. That's the main reason for the upgrade, you can't really see '71 brake lights compared to today's brake lights. I needed to warn the people that are used to today's technology that I am stopping. Plus LED's just look cool on a vintage car, it brings it closer to the 21st century.

The complete tail light housing is made of 6061 .125 thickness aluminum TIG welded together. The complete housing is a heat sink. If I get a chance I snap a couple of pics of the housing to show you what they look like. It may be a few days, it's hard to get out into the garage as of lately. I had the lights running at full lm on a car battery and charger to bring voltage up to 14.0 to ensure they didn't overheat. They never so much as got warm to the touch, but the housing did get a little warm, that tells me the housing is doing it's job. That was also in 91* weather here in the Chicago area.

[cadstarsucks]

The complete tail light housing is made of 6061 .125 thickness aluminum TIG welded together. The complete housing is a heat sink. If I get a chance I snap a couple of pics of the housing to show you what they look like. It may be a few days, it's hard to get out into the garage as of lately. I had the lights running at full lm on a car battery and charger to bring voltage up to 14.0 to ensure they didn't overheat. They never so much as got warm to the touch, but the housing did get a little warm, that tells me the housing is doing it's job. That was also in 91* weather here in the Chicago area.

What are you using between the stars and the sink?  Grease?

[majorboost]

What are you using between the stars and the sink?  Grease?

Yes sir, I picked up some silver thermal paste in a syringe from my local Radio S*ack.

[cadstarsucks]

good deal