LED tail light designs (pics)

[Kalos]

That's the guy we're talking about, and yeah he did a really great job. The pictures I used in photoshop were his car, with his LEDs as work in progress.

 

[tekdeus]

I actually tried to light up the center section, but found it impossible to remove the silver paint from the inside of the center lens and have it be clean enough for light to shine through cleanly. Not only is it very difficult to remove the lens itself, but I ended up destroying 2 of them trying various paint remover products/methods. Your first pic was actually my original intention to build, but it took so long to solder so many LED's that I settled on a simpler design. Also in the end, I was glad to have it look a little more OEM and a little less like a spaceship to avoid unwanted attention from cops.

The Suprflux LED's I used were so damn bright, I had to build 2 pwm's to dim both the brake and park circuits. This required a relay to be built into the switching circuit so that the 2 pwm signals would not mix when the brake was applied with the parking lights on.

And yes, the square reflectors scatter the light a lot, and can easily mess up your pattern.

 

[staticpage]

I like the stock lights but if i had to pick one of yours, the Circles.
not only that i could never get leds to last in my car they always burn out

 

[RogueSteel]

I LOVE these, although i'd settle for some black covers that outlined that shape.

 

[hvyman]

I actually tried to light up the center section, but found it impossible to remove the silver paint from the inside of the center lens and have it be clean enough for light to shine through cleanly. Not only is it very difficult to remove the lens itself, but I ended up destroying 2 of them trying various paint remover products/methods. Your first pic was actually my original intention to build, but it took so long to solder so many LED's that I settled on a simpler design. Also in the end, I was glad to have it look a little more OEM and a little less like a spaceship to avoid unwanted attention from cops.

The Suprflux LED's I used were so damn bright, I had to build 2 pwm's to dim both the brake and park circuits. This required a relay to be built into the switching circuit so that the 2 pwm signals would not mix when the brake was applied with the parking lights on.

And yes, the square reflectors scatter the light a lot, and can easily mess up your pattern.

so hard do you think it would be to light up the center section with regualr light bulbs? is there any difference between the jdm tails vs the usdm tails in that part other than there darker to make it light up better.

thanks.

 

[Poodles]

They're darker because they paint the back of the center section gunmetal instead of silver like USDM tails (JDM tails also have tinted diffusers inside the main lights). Removing the paint is a chore. I should know, I did it so the center matches on USDM tails.

I'd post a pic but photobucket is doing maintenance...

 

[te72]

I've been considering doing this for some time now, should have done it when the car was down last year... I have a few ideas, mostly off the wall sorts, but I think they'd be a bit different. Toyota logos anyone?

 

[RazoE]

nah, a Toyota logo would be cheezy...

I like the circles, I used to have them on my taillights (not LEDs though), using 4" PVC piping cut and inserted..

looked good, but I eventually went back to the stock look..

 

[figgie]

K.I.S.S

Keep it simple stupid. Adding complexity to an already complex design will justmake you quit faster or make you wish you never tackled the project to begin with.

 

[kanji1jz]

What about doing a single circle that clears the reflector? Just a thought

 

[Ozz89supra]

circles ftmfw

 

[Inygknok]

The first one although the whole thing seems too bright for my personal taste.

 

[thorpedo]

Circles +1

 

[Kalos]

I actually tried to light up the center section, but found it impossible to remove the silver paint from the inside of the center lens and have it be clean enough for light to shine through cleanly. Not only is it very difficult to remove the lens itself, but I ended up destroying 2 of them trying various paint remover products/methods. Your first pic was actually my original intention to build, but it took so long to solder so many LED's that I settled on a simpler design. Also in the end, I was glad to have it look a little more OEM and a little less like a spaceship to avoid unwanted attention from cops.

The Suprflux LED's I used were so damn bright, I had to build 2 pwm's to dim both the brake and park circuits. This required a relay to be built into the switching circuit so that the 2 pwm signals would not mix when the brake was applied with the parking lights on.

And yes, the square reflectors scatter the light a lot, and can easily mess up your pattern.

Hmm. Well, as much as I liked the bars, I may just do circles so that I don't have to experience the process of removing old paint, just to have a lens that is of different translucency than the two sides. Poodles, what was your secret? Do you think that if you had similar bulbs behind your center section, it would show up similar to the sides?

What about doing a single circle that clears the reflector? Just a thought

Thanks for the input and the idea. I will render something up.

The first one although the whole thing seems too bright for my personal taste.

Those were just design ideas. The brightness isn't indicative of my desired light output.

 

[Poodles]

I didn't get ALL the paint off. It was a nightmare. Used castrol superclean and soaked it for over a week. The colors are the same, but the diffusing pattern might be different.

My idea was to put a row of LED's across to act as a third brake light on wingless cars or for any wing that doesn't have the light bar (and don't want to run the crappy window mount one).

Here's a pic of the work, I had to cover the holes in the back plate with electrical tape to even out the background (it would show the read paint through those holes making it looks splotchy)

 

[staticpage]

I work in the lacquer paint industry I know theres stuff in our shop that will take the paint off.
why cant you just sand the paint off with 220+ and buff it down after?

 

[Poodles]

Because it's a diffuser on the inside, not flat.

 

[89nasupra]

if you want circles, why not go to a truck stop and look at the LED lights they have? may have something there to make the job alot easier.

 

[Kalos]

This is what the inside of the taillights look like.

Thanks for the info, Poodles, sounds like it was quite the project.

As far as circles are concerned, I think there is a way around that square diffuser. If the entire circle was diffuse light instead of pinpoint lights, and you had a frame that prevented scattering outside the pattern, the section that ran into the diffuser wouldn't look out of place. For example, in this picture, the outer rings are diffuse, solid led light:

Perhaps a form like that, placed very close to the lens would still give a clean circle of light even if it did contact the diffuser. I don't necessarily need a "pinpoint" type of tail light, I think I like solid diffuse light better.

 

[Poodles]

People tried that by glueing PVC rings on the inside, it still scatters weird.