Joined: Wed Dec 21 2005, 07:34AM
Location: indiana
Posts: 791
300Rag wrote ...
Here's what I played with. I modified the bucket to accept a 6" oval LED light. I had to use clear since my lense is clear.
This topic is still semi-active with me. I'm not sure the route I want to go, and the original LEDs I bought seem to no longer be available on Amazon, so I've been working on LED backing lights instead. Those will be much simpler to do as the wiring is less complex/crucial, and the LEDs for that are available from lots of vendors.
Hey 300Rag - Did you need to sink that oval light into the housing like that for clearance to the lens? Or??? I've been thinking about how you did this, and thinking about buying a pair of ovals to tinker with. Maybe I could CNC a bracket with 4 ears that would easily bolt to the housing and then easily mount a flanged version of these lights. These lights would presumably still meet all DOT regs even behind the car's lens, and all the S/T/T functionality is basically plug-play (although we would have to mod our harnesses, but so be it) So they look like a good route if other guys would want these for their 65s.
But I kinda want to save the $$$ if it requires the housing to be carved out. So far I’ve spent about $50 -75 in LED chips and voltage modules and not found a method that I really like yet. The LED modules I used for the pictures above have gone disco from the vendor on Amazon, and all the similar ones are just a bit larger, and the ones I have are a tight fit as it is. For future availability, oval lights are a safe bet.
Mike66 – I think a bunch of these mounted vertically would be ideal for you, you’d just need to wire them up to a sequencer. I’m actually thinking they might work better for me also, as the narrow size would be easier to locate directly behind the fluting of a 65’s lens. Could wire a few as needed for taillights, then a bunch more to kick in for the brake function. Modules like this are nice as they are waterproof, 12v, don’t need heatsinks, don’t need any extra voltage mods. Would need something extra to hide the wiring, though.
Joined: Mon Oct 10 2005, 08:43PM
Location: Calgary, Alberta
Posts: 978
Unfortunately the housing has to be cut so the lamp unit will recess. That is why I used a spare set. I needed them set back as far as possible so they were not visible behind the clear lenses and for light spread.
Joined: Sat Aug 19 2006, 05:03PM
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 2919
Chris, do you have a link to specs for those short light strips? Why do they have so many wires? Since they appear to have "RGB" in the part number, I'm guessing they are multi-colour.
Don't know if I mentioned this before, but I bought some "LED tape" to play with. I used it to make hidden lighting in a closet, and also for special effects on my kids' Hallowe'en costumes. It's flexible circuitry with LEDs and current-limiting resistors soldered on, and adhesive backing. Can be cut at any 3-LED boundary and wires soldered on to connect to a 12V supply. The ones I have are white, but red LEDs are also available.
What are you using for voltage modules? If/when I look into this, I was thinking of just putting together a circuit using a 555 timer generating a squarewave, and using that to drive a MOSFET for the taillight brightness, and driving the full brightness directly for the brake lights. Would need to add some current limiting to protect the LEDs too. A sequencer would be a lot more complicated though. Would need a microcontroller to run that.
Joined: Wed Dec 21 2005, 07:34AM
Location: indiana
Posts: 791
Thanks for the response Peter. The set of oval lights I was thinking of buying look pretty shallow, I may buy a set anyway just so I know the answer. For all the measuring I’ve done on this, I haven’t really mapped out the depth area of these housings.
Mike – Here are those LEDs: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DXFP3ZG/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1534TIOKYHGHL&coliid=I1PS99Q9338J1 The RGB refers to red-green-blue, you send 12v to it and then ground the wire for the color you want. I figured to snip or desolder the extra wires to clean things up on those modules I pic-pasted. I’ve seen/wondered about that LED tape, but lack of mechanical fastening made me look at other stuff instead. Although the small footprint of it would be a huge advantage, as are the built-in resistors. Maybe could make a mounting plate and pour some potting gel on it?
I envy you for having some electronics knowledge. I’ve only got DC electrical experience, so I have to depend on buying stuff that other people make.
Joined: Wed Dec 21 2005, 07:34AM
Location: indiana
Posts: 791
2 months to the day since last post, how time flies. Time for an update!
Based on 300Rag's setup, I bought some shallow oval LED lights. They would've worked with a bracket (didn't need to cut a hole in the housing) but the scatter wasn't as good as I'd hoped, they ended up looking like a big mega-bulb in the center of the lens. So $20 more spent for a pair of lights that 1 light got about 2 min of run-time and now they sit on a shelf with other unused LED stuff. C'est la vie...
I eval’d some new LEDs (similar to the long-narrow ones I mentioned above, but with brighter chips) and like them a lot, I believe they're what I’m gonna run with.
Benefits of this module vs all the other stuff I looked at:
reasonable cost to buy ($26 to do 2 lights)
they have mounting tabs built-in
they are 12v-ready, so no PWM modules, or voltage-reducers, or heatsinks required like the other chips I was looking at (which added cost and is another item to possibly fail)
they can readily be wired in parallel, so a failure in one still leaves the others operational
there is a red-only version which eliminates 2 of the wires in the pic I posted above
they are listed as waterproof, and the gel that does that probably helps with vibration also
Due to the narrow shape I was able to get almost all of them behind the fluting. Here are some pics of them in operation in daylight. Nighttime pics with LEDs do not capture realistically, even the taillight function looks like a flamethrower to a camera. These have 14 modules as brakelite, and 3 as taillight, I think I’m going to do them as 13/4 as the taillight looks a little weak. I’m sure I could improve the existing incandescent bulb’s scatter if I painted my housings with some chrome-silver paint, however that still doesn’t match the LED’s instant-on performance.
I had these lights on in the driveway for about 30 min while I was working in the garage, and the chips got warm, but were still cool enough to hold in my hand.
I am satisfied with the fit of the mtg plate shape in the housing (much more trial-error to transfer that into CNC than I would’ve guessed) and almost ready to make some alum plates.
I still need to figure out:
how to mount a terminal strip to the mounting plate,
how to route + chafe-protect the wires as they wrap around the mtg plate (that will actually be a tight fit and probably needs a bunch of scallops in the plate)
how to divvy up the wiring for parallel paths,
mounting brackets to the housing,
how I want to connect the wires to the car’s harness,
and whether to get an LED flasher or use load resistors to get the proper flashrate.
But those are all pretty minor details consider everything else I’ve gone thru!
Joined: Sun Jan 07 2007, 07:37PM
Location: London,Ontario
Posts: 166
One of the simplest ways to get brighter out put from old bulbs is to line the buckets with aluminum foil shinny side out. The entire bucket lights up and reflects outward from all surfaces. Actually, if you crumple the foil before inserting it in the buckets, the facets created by doing this causes an explosion of light reflection and lights up the entire outer reflector.
Fluting is very consistent on the lens. I used the '69 Chevelle kits, made my own mounting brakets. Each taillight used a complete Chevelle kit, so I had to use two kits. Here is a link to show more info on the kit. http://www.cool-leds.com/6018_69Chevelle.pdf