rear lights LED mod

[egres_svk]

hi folks,

been there for a few months, spend most of the time looking for help and reading older topics about carb issues etc..

now when the car is finally running fine, i've decided it is a good time to add something extra to it.

i have a problem with lights. front lights (=driving lights? i mean regular beams, not high beams) have quite low brightness, despite the fact that previous owner replaced ordinary H4's with osram nightbreakers H4. That will be sorted with additional high beam lights, slightly tuned to give reduced light output and also directed closer than high beams.

rear lights are a problem too, driving lights are dim, and they are a bit.. usual.. to my taste.

my LED mod definitely had to be street legal, so no visible modification (e.g. clear optics).. i have another micra, from which i've got spare lights to tinker with. after some attempts i came up with the idea of 14 10mm leds inserted into the light through the bulb insert hole. module has to be as close to the glass as possible, so i needed to hold it there. 12cm screws are a bit overkill, but they do their job nicely.

photos will tell you more. also, LED lights will be active together with regular bulbs.. at least that's the plan.
(i know it is not exactly horizontal, it will be )

what do you say?

 

[Shaun]

Bloody awesome! and as they are the same as my rear lights me want me want how long till you start seling them off! also... you sure these will be legal i have enough trouble with police thinking im too young to drive lol

 

[egres_svk]

@sed5000

well.. there is a question if they are street legal.. if you want to install those LED modules, you have to simply insert them inside and secure them with screws. no mods visible from the outside. except for the look of the light

on the other hand, how the hell will cops find out, whether the light isnt original? does it have E - homologisation sign? it does. no problem.

another thing.. you do not have to connect the wires to the socket of the braking/driving bulb. at least not the ground. you can run the ground from the front and have some kind of killswitch there.. LEDs+bulb, bulb only, LEDs only.. as you wish

when will i start selling them? good question.. maybe if there will be serious chance of few people wanting them BTW - this still looks like beta version, if i had to do another, i will do them with regular circuit board covered in silicone. and if somebody wanted to be extra (and had money to be extra ), there is no problem with constructing similar led light saying "F*** YOU" with the flick of a switch or even "invisible" message board running inside the light itself.. possibilities are endless, technology and skills are not a problem with such simple projects like this

 

[Shaun]

Would You If You Get The Time Make Me An Led Board Sayin Nissan For The Left and - Micra for the right i think that Would Look Nice! well im just thinking ill let you do the rest looking good i would think loads of people would want this kind of thing especially if you could customise the lights for shows etc. what kind of price range are you thinking of roughly?

 

[egres_svk]

Would You If You Get The Time Make Me An Led Board Sayin Nissan For The Left and - Micra for the right i think that Would Look Nice! well im just thinking ill let you do the rest looking good i would think loads of people would want this kind of thing especially if you could customise the lights for shows etc. what kind of price range are you thinking of roughly?

well, board like wont be exactly cheap, count with 35 euros for high brightness LEDs only, if it has to look good (will need about 200). or around 20 euros for less bright LEDs.. 10-15 more for a good quality translucent PCB, plus something for the work, design of the PCB and soldering. and shipping from Slovakia to GB, but it wont be too expensive

 

[Shaun]

thats cool would love to see a finished version it looks awesome!

 

[pjg1979]

Well, though it is a great idea and you've done a good job, unless the rear clusters have LED's as standard they'll be illegal, PRISM already do a few different types of LED replacements for the 380 bulb fitted. The best one they do is the LED3680 which has 3 LED's facing backward and 10 LED's facing the reflector, even these are for offroad use only, but people still buy them.

I reckon instead of making a plastic board like you've done, I would drill 18 holes in the back of the reflector and put LED's there instead. See attached picture which is the lamp you've done, the red dots is where I would have the LED's.

 

[Shaun]

Well, though it is a great idea and you've done a good job, unless the rear clusters have LED's as standard they'll be illegal, PRISM already do a few different types of LED replacements for the 380 bulb fitted. The best one they do is the LED3680 which has 3 LED's facing backward and 10 LED's facing the reflector, even these are for offroad use only, but people still buy them.

I reckon instead of making a plastic board like you've done, I would drill 18 holes in the back of the reflector and put LED's there instead. See attached picture which is the lamp you've done, the red dots is where I would have the LED's.

thats a good idea too but i was thinking for shows or "cruises" could use a slogan even MSC lol Would Be Cool (Y)

 

[egres_svk]

@pjg1979: i am familiar with LED bulbs, and they do not suit my needs. it is simply a bunch of wide-angle high brightness LEDs, and if you do not count smaller current draw and immediate light (it takes a few hundreds miliseconds for a bulb to become 100% bright), they are similar to bulbs..

i wanted a simple LED stripe and after checking, that i have only 28 high brightness red LEDs left, i went with my final design.

you cant see it on a picture, but i drilled a hole for LED into the back of the reflector before i found out, that led stripe secured inside would be the best way. LED inserted ~6-10cm away from the glass, despite very narrow angle, shines like ****.. not that it was dim, no.. but instead of 14 bright dots you would see uniform backlight, like with the bulb.

at the beginning i wanted two large 5mm LED rectangles, first approx 14x6cm, second, inside the first 10x2cm.. it would be really cool looking, but i did not want to cut the reflector from the back, and i would also had to order LEDs..

 

[egres_svk]

thats cool would love to see a finished version it looks awesome!

the lights are finally in car, it looks pretty good, i'll try to take pics and post them tomorrow, if everything goes well

 

[Shaun]

the lights are finally in car, it looks pretty good, i'll try to take pics and post them tomorrow, if everything goes well

excellent cant wait! (Y)

 

[egres_svk]

sorry for delay got a load of things to do

here are some pics - not very good, because my camera cant handle spot light in dark very well

right light combined bulb has non working parking/driving light.. brake part works.. ive decided to let it stay inside for photo purposes - driving light with two groups of LEDs consists of LEDs only, when braking, bulb switches on too..

to sum things up, looks like i will be redoing it soon.. at first i wanted something not involving cutting the reflectors open, but that setup is not exactly good.. mainly because of the structure of the glass - some leds look like they shine only at 60% power, setting the precise position is a pain in the *** too.. .for testing purposes allright, driving light without bulb is really nice, but brakes still have to be supported by bulb - 14 high power leds are not enough.

next plan is to get some time and cca 200 5mm/3mm LEDs, cut the reflectors open and do a LED rectangle around turn and brake lights.. should be really nice and if i get that time, sed5000, your nissan micra led boards could come too - are you still interested, after my calculation of the approx. cost?

 

[Shaun]

i would definately still be interested am looking for left-NISSAN right-MICRA if possible could you show me the final piece when your done and a final price looking really good (Y) keep it up!

 

[SammoHung]

great mod!

I have to ask what the piece of kit is in the background on your early pics???

looks like something from an EMC test lab (LIZN or something?)!

Rich

 

[superls]

how have you got round the 'stop and tail' system? just by having half of them on for sidelights and then all of them for brakes? if so i dont think that there legal.

 

[egres_svk]

sorry guys, gmail marked the forums-new-reply-reminder a spam, so i did not know there are new replies

@sed, could you contact me at matej.svantner(at)gmail(dot)com ? I do not want to spam this topic with us discussing the final price, brightness of LEDs and such things.. on the other hand, if anybody else is interested, let me know, then we can discuss it here

@SammoHung, if you mean the box in upper right corner, it is hand made i thought about buying special universal test lab equipment, but i think that it is simply a RIPOFF.. so i built my own 0-30V 0-6A power supply (cant see it in pics), made a big box with central switch, key lock, some wall plugs with switches, another smaller pwr supply, ATX pwr supply, and few more things. still, it is only a small part of my el. stuff... i go DIY a lot of time, because same device in the shop is 3-4 times more expensive, most times i want it to look different and it is much easier to include more functions when you design something from zero.. also, i can use "overkill method" on some parts, for example regulation transistors in power supplies are rated for much, MUCH higher current - just in case

@superls, 8 of 14 leds are used for tail lights on 50% brightness. when you hit the brakes, all of them shine on 100% brightness. and also, they are LEDs, so the light is immediate - great for highway driving, because if you can see them 100-200 ms sooner than bulbs, it is quite a distance you pass during that time.. yes, i admit, they are NOT exactly street legal - thats why regular bulbs are used simultaneously, and i have a kill switch to disable LEDs.. just in case

 

[egres_svk]

could not resist to post a pic of sed's lights.. build in progress, leds are bright as hell


(compared to standard 21w bulb)

 

[Shaun]

thanks for the email! and it looks awesome!