LED tail conversion - preliminary discussion and idea thread

[gli liphon]

Sorry for the lack of info, I'm still really busy with this. I'm working on a smaller design with less LEDs and I'll be making these for the sedan first. I'm also working on making a circuit board that holds the led and does all the wiring so it will be really high quality and be easy to install.

I won't be updating this as much since I'm working on a sedan design and I'm still a few weeks from having a fully working item. If you want other updates or info, drop me an email and I'll keep you in the loop.

[brandonbeeb]

any updates on this?check the sedan thread later today for some led tails we have in the works. couple teaser shots going up

[gli liphon]

any updates on this?check the sedan thread later today for some led tails we have in the works. couple teaser shots going up

Nice, I definitely will check them out. I'm actually working on some sedan tails as well since the coupe tails are so pricey. I'm hoping to have my first set put together this weekend.

[brandonbeeb]

did you have trouble popping apart the sedan tails?

[gli liphon]

did you have trouble popping apart the sedan tails?

since its not actually a rubber or silicone seal, i didn't have any luck baking them open. it looks like the seal is actually a combination of the abs bottom housing and clear top melted and fused together. that's why i figured out that baking wouldn't work, in order to get that seam soft enough you'd have to get the whole thing pretty hot. i tried a few things and found that cutting or melting was going to be the only way in. i ended up going in from the back just so i didn't distort or mess with the clear plastic. its really noticable if you do anything to it because it gets cloudy or cracks. i'd say just do a few of them for practice and you'll figure it out. eventually i want to put up a diy for people if they want to do it themselves, but i'm still not completely happy with my technique, so its going to take a few more lights to get good at it.

good luck, feel free to drop me an email if you need any other pointers or anything like that.

[gli liphon]

Even with the lack of updates I've been hard at work finishing the design for the sedan tails. I just got a great deal on a pair of used coupe tail lights (hat tip to brad), so I'll be back to work on the coupe design once I get them and open them up. I'm hoping most of the sedan design can be reused, but I won't know until I get the top off. I found that even my best measurements were off considerably on the sedan tail and could only get really accurate results with the tail being open.

Brandon - Did you have any success with your sedan tails?

[mcheddadi]

I've been checking your thread on NissanClub and I got to say you work super fast !I love these kinds of fabrication threads. Did you see the new L.E.D taillights that just came out on ebay?

http://cgi.ebay.com/08-09-NISS...wItemh ... SS...wItem

[gli liphon]

I've been checking your thread on NissanClub and I got to say you work super fast !I love these kinds of fabrication threads. Did you see the new L.E.D taillights that just came out on ebay?

http://cgi.ebay.com/08-09-NISS...wItemh ... SS...wItem

Yeah I started doing some research on those since they are cheaper than buying oem's to mod. It looks like they are eagle eye brand, whatever that is. Not much on the web about the brand and the random posts here and there point to some quality issues. My other issue is the lit up led ring they show in the inset picture is definitely not from the tail shown. Oh and I also didn't like that in the ebay posting at the top saying they are street legal/dot approved and at the bottom saying they are not street legal and for offroad use only. Who knows, they could be fine, I'm just paranoid like that sometimes.

[legend_217]

GL ! I don't offense you or anything but to let you know that at the bottom they said " Some products are intended for off-road or show purposes only". It doesn't say specifically the LED taillights is illegal. For the seller the with thousands of positive feedbacks, I'd give them a try. Even though the company not reputable, but who know it will be someday.

[DAAN.]

does anyone know if the turn signal is LED as well ?

http://cgi.ebay.com/07-09-NISS...wItem

[gli liphon]

GL ! I don't offense you or anything but to let you know that at the bottom they said " Some products are intended for off-road or show purposes only". It doesn't say specifically the LED taillights is illegal. For the seller the with thousands of positive feedbacks, I'd give them a try. Even though the company not reputable, but who know it will be someday.

Nah, no problem. I know that I have to put that boilerplate on there too, I just notice details like saying two different things in the same auction and it irks me. But i'm also a crazy retentive perfectionist, so just chock it up to that.

[brandonbeeb]

ya i got the reverse light done but myself and dangeris have come up with a crazy brake light thats not just a brake lol. heres a little teaser so far havnt decided on colour so we blacked them out for now. forgot to mention the reverse light comes in either white or red depending on preference

[mikegtr06]

that looks really good.....

[bina12834]

forgot to mention the reverse light comes in either white or red depending on preference

doesnt the reverse light HAVE to be white?

[brandonbeeb]

no it doesnt, the reason we went with red for the test is because alot of people emailed me asking if they could get it in red so if they wanted to run it to the brake light and reverse they could have them together like a second light. we can get them in any colour some people have even asked for blue. i see it this way, some people will say a red reverse light is illegal, but really how many times are you going to be reversing in front of a cop, its not something thats got to be worried about like an external wastegate does. its just for show, so for people that want white imagine it white because they come in all colours and they are extremely bright. i think the brake light design we have in the works in crazy and hasnt been done before so you guys should flip out when you see that

[bina12834]

im pretty sure its VERY illegal to have non-white reverse lights.....if a cop sees it, its a ticket for sure. And then what? you wasted money on lights that you cant use because theyre illegal

[brandonbeeb]

you could say that about the guys that red out there tail lights completely, or smoke there headlights. where not saying to do it, we just didnt want our demo piece to be a plain thing, and we wanted to show people that you have many options. personally i ran all red tails on my subaru for over 4 years, never had any trouble once, but if you want to keep it legal stay with the white

[brandonbeeb]

also like i said before it comes down to are you reversing infront of a cop anytime soon? half the time if you did i bet they wouldnt even notice, depends where your located though as well.

[bina12834]

the red vinyl overlays have a cutout for the reverse light, and the people that smoke their whole headlights(over the low and high beams) do it very lighty(read: the 3rd gen altima headlights)

[gli liphon]

I see what you're saying. It'd definitely be cool, I'm with bina though and don't think its worth the risk or hassle. Cops here in Ohio look for any reason to pull you over. And although you may not back up around cops, the reverse lights do come on for a sec when you go from park to drive. So if it was blue or some other color, it will probably flash for a second.

I pulled the DOT requirements a few weeks ago, here's the specific subsection dealing with number of lights and colors.



Full reference is here, the pic from above is on page 75: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/...8.pdf

Don't get me wrong, I dig the idea and the creativity, but at some point you have to draw the line and keep things legal.

[LongBeachCoupe]

i see it this way, some people will say a red reverse light is illegal, but really how many times are you going to be reversing in front of a cop, its not something thats got to be worried about like an external wastegate does.

Its not a matter of "some people saying" its illegal, it IS illegal, in all 50 states.

When does a cop see my reverse lights? EVERY SINGLE TIME I GET PULLED OVER, because i have to put the car in park, and go by reverse on the way.

Im not saying you will get tickets, because your own locality determines that (some places you can get away with ANYTHING).

Many peoples cars here wont "pass" inspection because of the modifications, but this is another modification that will not allow you to pass inspection (all 50 states) if you just dropped it off.

[bina12834]

you guys are right on about the shifting from park to drive or vice versa....a flash of the reverse lights is all a cop needs to pull you over....and bam....youre toast.

[bina12834]

If you still want to give the option for different color reverse lights, thats fine, but i must HIGHLY suggest people to not get anything besides white for your reverse lights.

[gli liphon]

Not sure how many of you are following the other thread, this is a repost of what I put up today.

My version 2 prototype boards showed up yesterday. I only managed to get the inside ring wired up, but it still looks good.



You'll notice the breadboard on the right side, that's because the v2 boards didn't have spots for the capacitors and voltage regulators, so I'm kind of piggybacking off of that. The caps and voltage regulators will keep the amount of power consistent no matter what the car voltage happens to be. Boston and I did some electrical tests on his sedan last weekend and we found that there can be a big difference between when the car is on (~14v), when the alternator is running (~15v), and if its just running off the battery (~11v). These extra circuits take care of that and make sure the leds only get +10v no matter what is being sent to it and minimize any engine noise that happens to be in the line. This will keep the leds from being over powered or diminishing the life of the bulbs because of too much current/continually alternating current.

Here's a pic of the front and back of the board so you can see a little more detail in how it looks when its off.



The biggest thing to notice is how much simpler this board is than the first one I did. I manually drew out all the traces (thats the connections between the components) and have zero vias (those are holes in the board that let you move your signal to the front or back so stuff doesn't overlap). Compare that to the first board to this one:



And you'll see the rats nest of connections and vias because I let the design software do its own routing. Also the traces are much larger to reduce the amount of resistance between each component. This is also still whats called a "barebones" board, hence the reason its square and doesn't have a soldermask (the green layer you see on most boards) or silkscreen (the white lettering and symbols). But even with all that, you can see that it works, is stupidly bright and looks awesome.

I'm still getting the hang of soldering and thats a big reason for these boards besides testing the circuitry. You can see my soldering job a little bit on the back of the board. For any of you out there that do this kind of stuff, I'm sure it looks like crap, but I'm getting the hang of it and it goes a lot faster than I thought. I've also found the right stuff for sealing the boards, so these won't just be bare boards in the lights. There will be a layer of silicone adhesive on both sides that keeps things water resistant and sealed together (so you won't have to worry about solder joints coming loose over time).

Well that's it for now. I'm going to do some tweaks with the design and space out some connectors a bit more to make the soldering easier, after that I'm going to order up the first batch of production boards so I can stop talking about this and actually DO IT.

I have a pair of coupe tails on the way, so I should have them by early next week. Hopefully in a week or two I'll have a working pair to show everyone. The first sedan pair should be done at about this point as well.

[Bostonaholic]

sub'd since I'm helping gli liphon with his designs.

[gli liphon]

The pair of coupe tails I bought arrived last night and are in mint condition!



I'm going to open them up this weekend. Most of the seams are in the same place as the sedan tails I've opened, but they are slightly different. After I get them open I'll do some detailed measurements to see if the sedan design will work or if it needs to be tweaked.

The circuit design is finally complete as well. This has become a lot more complicated than any of the early prototypes I've shown. It was really important to me that this was wired and designed correctly to avoid issues with overpowering the leds and inefficiencies that lead to heat problems. Bostonaholic has been helping with all of this since he has an EE background. I wired up all 40 leds (24 for the outside ring, 16 for the inside ring) and will do some vids of it hooked up to my car tonight. I've already done some testing on my car and this circuit design works great. Its set up to handle all the different voltages that may be coming off the car and all the other circuitry specifics that I didn't know about. Here's a few shots of the setup in my kitchen. Its crazy bright.

Both circuits on full

Here is a closeup with the outside ring circuit on full and the inside ring on half.

The crazy thing is they are actually a bit brighter on the car, so I'll take some pics and vids of that tonight.

The biggest issue in doing the coupe tail lights now is getting the tails to modify. I still haven't found a vendor that sells aftermarket replacements.

[RobPaulson]

Its not a matter of "some people saying" its illegal, it IS illegal, in all 50 states.

When does a cop see my reverse lights? EVERY SINGLE TIME I GET PULLED OVER, because i have to put the car in park, and go by reverse on the way.

Im not saying you will get tickets, because your own locality determines that (some places you can get away with ANYTHING).

Many peoples cars here wont "pass" inspection because of the modifications, but this is another modification that will not allow you to pass inspection (all 50 states) if you just dropped it off.

not for the MT's W00T :shift:

haha JP i would never go with an alternate color for my reverse . . . my tints are WAY too dark to back up without white lights back there haha

[gli liphon]

The finished boards arrived for my testing group yesterday. Here's a teaser pic of the brake board and turn signal board:

[dangeris]

The finished boards arrived for my testing group yesterday. Here's a teaser pic of the brake board and turn signal board:

aaah,..what pic?....If you're using imageshack to host the pics you need the forum convention not the typical [img][/img]

[gli liphon]

I couldn't figure out how to inline the video. I'm hosting it on my own site so I'm not sure how to inline the code in a post to embed it correctly. And I think there are restrictions about linking to other sites. If you know how I can do html in my post, I'll try and put it up again.
Modified by gli liphon at 11:57 AM 2/25/2009