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View Full Version : LED 3rd brake light, woot!

240meowth
03-11-2005, 05:37 PM
So yesterday, me in my utter bordomness decided to take apart the 3rd brake tail light for some ha ha fun. Than, at 3am in the morning, I decided, why not chuck some LED's in there for more fun! Since i had some LED's left over from another project. (this is for cars w/o spoilers)

And today, i went down to el radio shack, for le PC board, so I can start the project.
http://www.mizatt.com/jeremy/IMG_3144.jpg

So I cut the PC board in half, and started to solder LED's on. After the LED's were soldered on, I used some rather creative ways to solder the resistors on... Since it was a one sided PC board.
http://www.mizatt.com/jeremy/IMG_3147.jpg
all 32 LEDs lined up in a party!!! 64 pins to solder!!!
http://www.mizatt.com/jeremy/IMG_3148.jpg

So i soldered the positive wire on and while i was getting to the negative wire, i stood there for 10 minutes like a deer caught in the headlight; in awe of what I've done to myself. Looks like i totally forgot about the negative wires... And to solder them together, it'll take two days. After half an hr of thinking, i used the LED legs that I cut off to connect the grounds together. BRILLIANT!
http://www.mizatt.com/jeremy/IMG_3149.jpg

When all was said and done, I decided to plug the dudes into the power supply. And than it turned out I used the wrong resister and blew out all 32 LED's and threw the whole thing away...




































j/k! I had to do some finishing touches on it, turned out a few LEDs were whacked and didn't get the connection soldered right. When that's done, I chucked it behind the 3rd brake light housing.
http://www.mizatt.com/jeremy/IMG_3152.jpg

than i chucked it on the car in the blazing sun! And it shows through!!! (notice you can't even see the normal brake lights well)
http://www.mizatt.com/jeremy/IMG_3156.jpg

and a close up w/ my pretty zilvia sticker that I received long time ago for some donation for some server or some software stuff...
http://www.mizatt.com/jeremy/IMG_3157.jpg

and when i was done, i went to the local high school and tried to pick up girls, and it didn't work. So don't do this mod. :fruit:

WOOT!

So what do u guys think? yay or nay? perhaps i'll get some pictures of it at night.

edit:attached night picture
dct223
03-11-2005, 05:49 PM
night pictures!

over all looks pretty clean, how bright are the LEDs? maybe you can extend the LEDs so it covers the whole brake light.
240meowth
03-11-2005, 06:13 PM
night pictures!

over all looks pretty clean, how bright are the LEDs? maybe you can extend the LEDs so it covers the whole brake light.

they are 18000mcd. I bought a bunch of them a while ago for some project i plan to do, and it didn't wokr out. So if you guys are interested in LED's let me know! as well as the 1 watt metal oxide resisters. I got a bunch of those.

I thought about extending it throught the whole tail light, but than, the longest PCB they had was 6" You can surly do it to extend throught the whole brake light if you have a long enough PCB.

Oh, and it took me 2 and a half hrs to do it. I'm sure if anyone else want to do it, they can make it much quicker, just learn from my mistakes: Get the circuit wiring figured out before you jump in. And priortise what needs to go in first.
Yoshi
03-11-2005, 07:05 PM
Looks good man... little excessive on the solder tho huh? ;)
240meowth
03-11-2005, 07:12 PM
Looks good man... little excessive on the solder tho huh? ;)

i'm a noob man... that's w/ a new soldering iron i just bought! not bad eh :rawk: And i don't know any other way to connect the dots that's right next to each other than just to blob it up. and i said "creative" ways solder =b that's exactly what i ment :fawk:
reefer1114
03-11-2005, 07:13 PM
how much was the total cost to make one? maybe you should make a lot and sell them to make some dough?
240meowth
03-11-2005, 07:36 PM
how much was the total cost to make one? maybe you should make a lot and sell them to make some dough?

a while ago i bought a bunch of parts for this thing i wanted to do, but it didn't work out. i bought like 400 LED's in bulk, so it was just over a buck each. the PCB was 4 bucks from radio shack. Resistors i bough in bulk with like 4000 of 'em for like 40 cents each.

so
32 leds = roughly $40
8 resistors = $3.20
PCB = $4
2.5 hrs of my work==priceless

total=$47.20+pricelessness

I didn't do this to make money, I just had some extra parts laying around, and I wanted to contribute to the 240 community. I mean zilvia taught me everything i know about the 240's for 3 years now. That's why i tried to document everything i did. Because it's really not worth my time, i don't have lots of free time.

So like, if anyone wants to make it, and need the LED's and resistors, i'll sell it just to get some of my money back.
Dark-Hawk
03-11-2005, 07:37 PM
Looks nice! I may try this with my tail lights if I get bored enough one day lol.
jdmsilvia909
03-11-2005, 09:09 PM
they look sweet i wunder if those LED lights would work on fastback 3rd brake light....hmmmmmmm?
wootwoot
03-11-2005, 10:02 PM
Definitely yay and I say you need to do that to your tail lights as well. This makes me wonder if I could maybe do an LED conversion when I get my Kouki tails for my hatch. Where can I learn about LEDs installation and such for f's sake! I want to learn!
AllenRPS13
03-12-2005, 12:47 AM
that's nice! look awesome!!!
Nostradamus
03-12-2005, 03:15 AM
Anybody who wants a longer protoboard let me know and I'll cut it to size and charge $1 over shipping costs. We have these laying around at work, not sure about sizes but I'll check Monday. As for the tail lights you definitely need to use more than one piece since the largest consumer protoboard I've seen is 7" long, I'm sure there are longer ones but I just haven't looked into it.
Drunk Bastard
03-12-2005, 03:21 AM
looks good
s14xman
03-12-2005, 03:29 AM
looked like a cool little project
240meowth
03-12-2005, 04:46 AM
they look sweet i wunder if those LED lights would work on fastback 3rd brake light....hmmmmmmm?

i'm sure you can. I don't have a hatchback here, if someone wants to donate their hatchback brake light, i'll be glad to look into it.
Fastback180
03-12-2005, 06:12 AM
Awesome! Send me one for mine!
Or better yet, trade for some Famicom games!

I bet i'll pick up some high school chicks with that in the parking lot
240meowth
03-12-2005, 04:40 PM
Awesome! Send me one for mine!
Or better yet, trade for some Famicom games!

I bet i'll pick up some high school chicks with that in the parking lot

i have famicom games, just not the counsol! Want LED's?
240meowth
03-13-2005, 10:50 AM
Does anyone want to donate their s13 hatch 3rd brake light for experiment?
RBS14
03-13-2005, 11:56 AM
are those just 5mm's or superflux?
HyperTek
03-13-2005, 06:08 PM
I was just htinking of how this would look in a old 240z... fair enough, i found a page where someone else did it.. http://www.v8zcar.com/s30z/tail-led.htm
altralosix
03-13-2005, 10:37 PM
$1+ each for those LEDs? That's insane. Check out http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=G12704&variation=&aitem=7&mitem=56
2500MCD and if you click special pricing, you can get 100 of them for $.55 each. I love the electronic goldmine :)
240meowth
03-13-2005, 11:02 PM
they are 5mm, would of used flux type if i had 'em, but i'm stuck w/ 5mm's! =b Those LED's on the website are 2,500MCD and these are 18,000 MCD! 18,000 > 2,500 =b
Wei240
03-16-2005, 10:49 PM
they are 5mm, would of used flux type if i had 'em, but i'm stuck w/ 5mm's! =b Those LED's on the website are 2,500MCD and these are 18,000 MCD! 18,000 > 2,500 =b

cool stuff,
may i ask what the beam angle is?
because 18000 mcd may not tell how really bright it is in terms of lumens...
there's some formula that takes beam angle and luminous intensity (mcd) to get lumens...