LED tailights

[marley4us]

I found a supplier that made custom sized boards to any dimention


Heat the lens up in the oven at warm, or 200 or below. for about 8 min watch to make sure they dont melt. carfully pull them apart with out cracking the lens. take your time these break fairly easy.








disassemble lights







Mounted the LED panels, and polyseam selled them in.



LED panels on, u can see it needs a full 12v not a tinny 9v powering all 4! so it will be crazy bright in the car!



lights on


lights off




Or should I just have 3 lights and a reverse?























you can wire them in anyway you want, to have a few lights light up as brake lights or all, and use ressistors to make it brighter or dimmer for running lights

[gaijin_rokurunner]

nice post ......but you forgot to put who the supplier of the LEDs was for those who want to convert their lights

[marley4us]

its an old post I am reposting, since the site went down, there are tons of places that make premade boards I would search locally. or even ebay if need be.

[JHON-STIFFLER]

You know what these Led lights have been banned in our country.Just because they are continuously causing accidents on the roads.And i also feel that it is really a kidding sometimes to put LED lights in cars its dangerous so it must be neglected by us and also by the government.

[ga_goosh]

You know what these Led lights have been banned in our country.Just because they are continuously causing accidents on the roads.And i also feel that it is really a kidding sometimes to put LED lights in cars its dangerous so it must be neglected by us and also by the government.

thats wierd cuz cadalac put them in there tails so they could be seen that much faster in rain and fog and other low visibility conditions since LED bulbs get to full lumins faster then halogen bulbs do. what country do you live in? also what is the reason for the ban? it cant be somply cause it "causes accidents" there has to be a more spacific reason.

[NC Panda]

They look too baller.... especially when people do custom designs. I can't wait to finish mine lol, i'll be putting some homage to my user name and paintjob. But yea, I always thought led's > halogen, and the car company's seem to be under the same thought process

[Red]

Marley, thanks for the post & the detailed photos. I'm not sure whether I should laugh or cry when I see our cars are put together with a hot glue gun. Wait, I'll have to ask Martha Stewart about that.<G>

FWIW if you put white LEDs behind colored plastic, you radically reduce the light output, compared to just using LEDs that are the same color as the plastic. So you want yellow LEDs behind the turn lenses, red behind the tail/brake lights, white only for the backup lights.

Jhon, what is your country where these are illegal?

In the US, any change from the factory tested and approved lamp assemblies is illegal, LED or otherwise. The main problem with aftermarket LEDs is that they rarely, if ever, have the same brightness and the same visibility from all angles, that the original DOT-approved assemblies had. That's why 1157 replacement bulbs for our cars don't meet legal spec. It can be done--but as best I can figure you'd have to spend about $100 per "bulb" to match what a tungsten bulb does.

Or, use a custom array like Marley shows. Which might or might not be legal, you'd have to do tests with the LEDs to find out for sure. Most state laws require certain visibility levels and they don't enforce the DOT standards as long as the state levels are met.

The prime LEDs like Cree, which are used by car companies, typically have 24 LEDs on each side, 48 LEDs total. And they'll cost you about $7 each, in quantity, on the retail market. Yes, that's $336 worth of LEDs and that's just the start of it. The ten cent LEDs from China on eBay just aren't the same.

[KonaTrueno723]

Nice! Man those tail LEDs are cool as heck..!

[marley4us]

pics of the first set finished.

Driving lights


braking



I sold these, and ended up getting redlines, I am in the process of finishing.

[ae86xy]

Where do you buy those LED

[marley4us]

Here a little sample of what I am playing with for my daily driver a NB miata





Red Tinted the whole taillight, blocked off a square to fit in the reverse lights.




I also will install a pair of rectangles across the right side and a diode and resister set up to make it high low. Below that there will be a thine strait line that will be the blinker.




.... I think I am a bit ADHD... cause I can not focus on just one project... lol



blinker, may use it as a running light and put a diode so it goes low to high for braking.

[Skizzup]

did someone say LED tailights? heh

been rocking these for a while now...

made by the one and only mike yee of solo 8 performance.

[marley4us]

Ya man I always loved your set, and I have talked with mr yee a few times on board design!!! he is great!

[rw29]

this is pretty slick! definitely want to do something like this for my tail lights

[yoshimitsuspeed]

ebay LED YZF R6 tails

cheap, fast, light and easy.

[rix86]

Mr fusion belongs in a DeLorean

[marley4us]

IMG_0899 by marley4us1985, on Flickr


IMG_0902 by marley4us1985, on Flickr

IMG_0904 by marley4us1985, on Flickr

IMG_0900 by marley4us1985, on Flickr


IMG_0896 by marley4us1985, on Flickr

Not sure I like the turn signal so I may pull it out, and just but a LED board.

IMG_0901 by marley4us1985, on Flickr

[RuizXIII]

Sweet work, Marley! They look slick.
Can you post info on what LEDs you used and maybe how you wired everything up?
Any other pics would be awesome.

Thanks!

[marley4us]

I am adding in diods and ressitors so I can have high/low (brakes/drive) lights I will post a video

[Streetdriven]

These are all pretty cool ill have to save this for future reference

[RuizXIII]

Thanks, Marley. I would love to see that and use your DIY as a reference, man =)

[marley4us]

Here is some info to help others do LED tails for them self

After you have your tails apart and mounted the leds, here comes the wiring.

Supplies:
Crimper
wire cutter
Diodes 3amp 50piv
resistors 220ohm
male bulb with 3 wires



IMG_0907 by marley4us1985, on Flickr


IMG_0908 by marley4us1985, on Flickr


IMG_0909 by marley4us1985, on Flickr


here is a pic of it wired up for high and low beam

IMG_0912 by marley4us1985, on Flickr

take the two power wires, for high and low beam. put Diodes on the (make sure to have them facing the direction you want the current to flow)

IMG_0913 by marley4us1985, on Flickr

On the low beam wire, put a resistor on it.

Connect highbeam to high beam

low beam to low beam

and ground to ground.


Boom your done

[c4ptiv3]

Anyone find a reputable source for LED's for this mod yet?

[goofesgts]

the previous owner of my ae86 put these star led on the tails, and im still rocking them lol

[rongfk]

here are mine from a few years ago.

Ok so a while back i seen all the diy led upgrades that were going around on the net. so, i decided to try it on my own car. quite an experience, there is a lot of work that goes into these, so i cant disagree with someone charging $500+ to make a set (i would probably charge the same). so by checking out the newer cars equipped with led tail lights, i figured out how i wanted to design mine. i believe it was an Audi that inspired my led design. if you plan on attempting something like this, do your homework, learn the led and resistor values, search, search, search... is the best advice i can give you. so on to the pictures..

here is my led boards all put together and installed. each large board holds 99 leds


running light, reverse light and signal on


brake light, reverse, and signal on


now installed on the car

running lights


brake lights


signals lights


reverse lights


later in the day shots




a few other things i did.

made these for my dads 33 ford



made some halos for my friends challanger

[ToeKnee805]

no one has wanted to answer so ill ask again, where is everyone getting their premade boards from

[rongfk]

made all my own stuff, parts purchased off eBay.