True LED taillights?
Two diodes actually. Without the diodes, it was impossible to light up just the two bars for the parking lights. One diode keeps the power from going to the brake light circuit when only the parking lights are on, and the other diode bypasses the resistor to make the two bars as bright as the rest of the tail light when the brakes or blinkers are activated.
Would love to see the "seam" where you cut the housings apart and then how you "sticthed" them back together? Pics would be killer, been wanting to do some t/a ones for the longest, even boguht a new spare set of lights. Heard the oven deal was a no go too.
PLMK-Thanks!!!
PLMK-Thanks!!!
The backs are by no means "neat," but no one sees the backs anyway. You can see from the picture, that there was some modification required to the back of the tail light housing to fit it back on the lens. Some fairly large pieces were cut out, and the back of the housing ended up in two pieces, then reassembled with silicone. here is a picture from the back of the assembled finished product.
As a precaution to anyone that's considering doing this, without modification of the tail light lens itself, to remove the diffusing angles, without LED diffusers, there is currently no LEDs on the market that I am aware of that are bright enough to be seen in daytime through the stock lenses. If you'd notice the factory LED tail lights on cars, the lens is simply a translucent red lens with no diffusers. The diffusers very effectively ruin the beam of the LEDs, causing the light to be wasted inside the tail light, and making for dangerous brake lights in the daytime.
My tail lights, when standalone, were absolutely BLINDING. Once installed in the factory housings, at night they were very visible, but in the daylight, they were near impossible to see at all.
I have since removed my LED tail lights, and for my next project, I will be working with Luxeon LEDs as they are much brighter and give off beam patterns similar to that of an incandescent bulb, while still providing the benefits of LED light.
As a precaution to anyone that's considering doing this, without modification of the tail light lens itself, to remove the diffusing angles, without LED diffusers, there is currently no LEDs on the market that I am aware of that are bright enough to be seen in daytime through the stock lenses. If you'd notice the factory LED tail lights on cars, the lens is simply a translucent red lens with no diffusers. The diffusers very effectively ruin the beam of the LEDs, causing the light to be wasted inside the tail light, and making for dangerous brake lights in the daytime.
My tail lights, when standalone, were absolutely BLINDING. Once installed in the factory housings, at night they were very visible, but in the daylight, they were near impossible to see at all.
I have since removed my LED tail lights, and for my next project, I will be working with Luxeon LEDs as they are much brighter and give off beam patterns similar to that of an incandescent bulb, while still providing the benefits of LED light.
Pic works now, any new updates? If you have researched leds tails, you will have heard of a company called "spaghetti engineering", they make them for older cars but not late model fbodys, they will do a custom set but the problem is getting inside the housings, after that, its $4-600 with sequentials too.
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Douchebag On The Tree
Joined: Nov 2009
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From: Indianapolis, IN
