[medve]

I was thinking of doing something similar but with more brighter leds, close to cree strength. I also like how the BM1200 and some Audi's have the leds mounting on the top facing down on the reflector.

 

[G-Dub]

Watched the youtube video - I'd have that plumbing problem looked into.

 

[G-Dub]

Looks like you put a lot of work into this. Did you consider having them all lit all the time, just brighter for the brake? Seems you could run the tail light wire through a single, appropriately sized resistor so they would all be proportionately dimmer. Just a thought, maybe for v.2.0.

I have a tailblazer plug-in light. Was very disappointed with the LED they sold for it to replace the incandescent - like you said, it was more of a single point of light and didn't completely fill the lens.

 

[andrewsw]

Looks good to me.

 

[JoshS]

Looks great! You didn't happen to keep a pattern for the LED board, did you? Also, how did you secure the boards inside the taillight housing? This looks like a great winter project.

 

[Fillycheezstake]

Did you consider having them all lit all the time, just brighter for the brake?

I did, but for some reason I didn't go with that method -- I liked knowing how many lumens I had? I'm not really sure why.

Each LED is 10 lumens. The running light is 20 LEDs (200 lumens). The brake light is 60 LEDs (600 lumens) + Flasher is 10 lumens (100 lumens).

The incandescents usually have anywhere from 12 - 20 lm/W, with lower wattage incandescents being less efficient. So I'm guessing the 5w running light put out no more than 100lm. The brake light (5w+21w) probably put out no more than 520lm. I've beat the incandescent. With all the LEDs on, I'm pulling <4w - this includes power dissipated by the resistors. With just the running light, I'm pulling ~1w.

You didn't happen to keep a pattern for the LED board, did you? Also, how did you secure the boards inside the taillight housing?

I did make a paper/card-stock pattern, but sadly, I threw it out after the project was done.

The board actually fit very snugly. I didn't have to secure it in any special way, save a bit of high-temp hot glue. The blinkers were the same way. The boards I made nested right into the black blinker housings, and needed no glue. That took a lot of trial and error and Dremel time.

I also swapped out the license plate light, saving another 4.5w.