Tbird taillight LEDs and modifications Reply #60 – June 26, 2013, 12:22:29 AM Got the other side done. I am now at the mercy of waiting for things to cure. I was going to use a smaller LED in the edge/corner lamps, but I may just use a drop in LED bulb for those. The microcontroller is setup for 4 channels per side though, so I could just use a 1W LED on each side and dim it to match.Either way, this part is easy - small tpuppies, stuff LED in hold, use ABS/acetone mix to glue into place, and go. Assuming everything goes well, I should be closing the units up tomorrow, with a couple layers of fiberglass over the next few days to seal the rear up, and a layer of paint to protect it.I also need to clean up the outer lenses. They have a ton of scratches, but it'll all sand and buff out. I plan on spraying a couple layers of automotive grade clearcoat over them to help block UV. Quote Selected
Tbird taillight LEDs and modifications Reply #61 – June 26, 2013, 12:26:04 AM Quote from: Thunderbird88;417596Is this something you will make for people in the future? It isn't exactly cost or time effective. Maybe $300 in materials, plus the stock light housings, and a ton of time. It must also use a circuit that can dim the LED's for running lamps.I could think of many more useless ways to spend this money though.Now if I managed to make new tails out of aluminum plate, which could use the same outer and filter lenses, and just CNC up a few, that would make much more sense. They'd be cores where anyone could do whatever they'd like on the insides. Something like that would probably cost $100-200. I'd also like to try vacuum forming new outer lenses in a huge vacuum chamber. That project isn't something I plan on touching for a couple years though. Headlights first! Quote Selected
Tbird taillight LEDs and modifications Reply #62 – June 26, 2013, 12:11:58 PM Quote from: Seek;417588If anyone has some recommendations for price effective aluminum plates, I'd love to hear them. I will be using parts up to 6" tall, maybe 12" LONG, IN 1/4, 1/8, and possibly 1/16" thicknesses. At this point, I don't care too much about the alloy. It's not terribly expensive in the first place, but the everyday rate is around $15/sqft in 1/8".The only suggestion I have is to find a local fab shop and buy their s cuts. Might be hard to get 6x12x.125 from excess cuts though! Do you have any more pictures of the heat sinking? Quote Selected
Tbird taillight LEDs and modifications Reply #63 – June 26, 2013, 12:33:50 PM Quote from: JeremyB;417618The only suggestion I have is to find a local fab shop and buy their s cuts. Might be hard to get 6x12x.125 from excess cuts though! Do you have any more pictures of the heat sinking?I was thinking of using cheap 5052 alloy, being close to $8/sqft in 1/8". It should work for something such as this.I'll have to see what pictures I have for the heatsinking. I will get a last picture of everything before putting it together, and all the heatsinks will be visible/open to the rear for ventilation. It's basically a 4x3x0.5" amplifier plate for each side the backup lights (28W), and a 2" diameter circular, 1" tall heatsink for each brake light (5W). They all get around +40C over ambient at max output for hours, sitting flat on the desk. 40C above ambient at the LED star is the highest I ever go. If it's higher, I use a bigger heatsink. Being able to CNC parts soon should make these things easier once I get some speed in prototyping with it.A recent example is my LED lighting and heatsinking in another vehicle. 20W in the dome/map lights and 7W in the hatch/trunk. 40C above ambient burning away for hours:These heatsinks are relatively cheap at a surplus store up the street. I have a box of all the most useful heatsink shapes and densities. Quote Selected
Tbird taillight LEDs and modifications Reply #64 – June 26, 2013, 05:27:20 PM Quote from: Seek;417619I was thinking of using cheap 5052 alloy, being close to $8/sqft in 1/8". It should work for something such as this.Should be fine. The Googles say that 6061-T6 has ~20% greater thermal conductivity than 5052-H32, so you'll run a bit hotter with 5051. Probably not a real issue unless you're already at the edge of reliability. No other material differences should matter for this useage. QuoteI'll have to see what pictures I have for the heatsinking. I will get a last picture of everything before putting it together, and all the heatsinks will be visible/open to the rear for ventilation. It's basically a 4x3x0.5" amplifier plate for each side the backup lights (28W), and a 2" diameter circular, 1" tall heatsink for each brake light (5W). They all get around +40C over ambient at max output for hours, sitting flat on the desk. 40C above ambient at the LED star is the highest I ever go. If it's higher, I use a bigger heatsink. Being able to CNC parts soon should make these things easier once I get some speed in prototyping with it.I can't visualize it, but would like to see the pics when you get it together! Quote Selected
Tbird taillight LEDs and modifications Reply #65 – June 27, 2013, 02:05:24 AM Here are the backup LED's mounted with thermal grease, threadlocked in place, and with silicone to manage the wires. There is also a rear shot of how the tails currently sit, waiting for RTV to cure for a seal between everything. Tomorrow I will start working on sealing up cuts from the rotary tool, and adding the interior/exterior barrier back in where they were cut. You can see where it was cut in the area of the backup light and innermost brake light. Quote Selected
Tbird taillight LEDs and modifications Reply #66 – June 30, 2013, 01:43:50 AM Finishing this up! Just need a few more layers of ABS on the back, wiring, and sequencer testing. Looks pretty good. below are comparison pictures, with the car running to provide full voltage to the stock bulbs. The LED's reach max brightness at just over 10V. It's obvious which side is which. Quote Selected
Tbird taillight LEDs and modifications Reply #67 – June 30, 2013, 02:33:09 AM looks awesome man Quote Selected
Tbird taillight LEDs and modifications Reply #68 – June 30, 2013, 10:23:53 AM I should add that the fluting on the lenses make the backup light LED's appear crooked. The LED's are mounted quite symmetrical. If you shift angles, they shift around. At most viewing angles, the bottom LED's appear closer together. It might be a good idea in a future project to spread the bottom two LED's out a little in an attempt to give a more symmetrical look through the lens.The third brake light has a very strong fluting effect. As you move side to side, different areas of the third brake light get bright. The fluting combines the light from the 6 LED's into different columns of light. This was seen in a wall shot earlier in the thread. Quote Selected
Tbird taillight LEDs and modifications Reply #69 – July 09, 2013, 02:28:06 AM The car's electrical system is VERY dirty, so there's some work to do with the sequencers. The tails look great on the car though.Headlights?Nope, just the backup lamps.Tails are all in running lamp mode. Brake is much brighter. As usual, cameras are bad at picking these things up so you can only compare bulbs next to one another. Quote Selected
Tbird taillight LEDs and modifications Reply #70 – July 09, 2013, 10:49:37 PM Those tails look amazing!!! I've read through your interior light, and this thread. I have very little knowledge of L.E.D.s but I badly want to convert my '84s bulbs to L.E.D.s. My only real experimentation is with the tower LED bulbs you can buy from superbrightleds.com or the strips you can cut and solder together on ebay. Quote Selected
Tbird taillight LEDs and modifications Reply #71 – July 09, 2013, 11:37:56 PM Quote from: cougrrr302;418331Those tails look amazing!!! I've read through your interior light, and this thread. I have very little knowledge of L.E.D.s but I badly want to convert my '84s bulbs to L.E.D.s. My only real experimentation is with the tower LED bulbs you can buy from superbrightleds.com or the strips you can cut and solder together on ebay.It really is pretty simple. A LED will take as much power as you give it (and then burn up). You buy LED "drivers" that limit the amperage (in my case, 0.65 Amps per driver). Wire up + to + and - to -. Apply power and be amazed. Heatsinking is required at these amperage levels...There's no reason to build your own LED drivers. Just buy something and use it. The ones I use need like 1 Volt more input than the LED requires. My red LED's need 8.5V for max light and my white backup LED's need 10V for max light. Provide the ("buck" - they lower the voltage, rather than "boost") drivers 9.5V and 11V, and the LED's get the voltage requires, with the driver limiting the amperage (current).I say just pick up a LED and driver from some place online and just play with them. There really isn't much do it. Single-LED flashlights also give you the same thing. You could take apart something cheap like http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006E0QAFY/ to observe how it works. Quote Selected
Tbird taillight LEDs and modifications Reply #72 – July 16, 2013, 12:58:50 PM I was thinking of using some collumated 5600k LEDs for mine, but just for the running lights. For brake/turn, I was thinking of using 3 of these per side, and sequencing the turn indicators. Quote Selected
Tbird taillight LEDs and modifications Reply #73 – December 29, 2013, 08:34:31 PM Quote from: TheFoeYouKnow;418744I was thinking of using some collumated 5600k LEDs for mine, but just for the running lights. For brake/turn, I was thinking of using 3 of these per side, and sequencing the turn indicators.That would be pretty bad ass Quote Selected
Tbird taillight LEDs and modifications Reply #74 – September 29, 2015, 11:47:59 AM I know this is an old thread, but how'd you open the tail light housing? Quote Selected
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