More led taillights
Looks good to me but I couldn't get them to be as bright as my stock light. I am assuming you are using satin ice acrylic I think that is 89%.
Are you going to be putting it behind the stock lens or making a new one? What is the cat code on your LEDs?
Are you going to be putting it behind the stock lens or making a new one? What is the cat code on your LEDs?
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Now that I got some hot spots from the 5/8 satin ice I'm going to try for an inch and see what it looks like. Only bad thing is that it's too tall so I'll have to mount these further back in the light and create a new lens for the center of the light. Can't decide if I'll got with clear red or just black it out yet though.
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Hot spots are gone with an inch, brightness doesn't really looked diminished with the thicker cut. Now the hard part comes in making another new lens and mounting everything to give it a clean finish. Hopefully by next weekend I can get some pics of a near finished product.
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So study for my finals took longer than I though and I couldn't get through the soldering of 72 LEDS....only the top bar of 42. Here's some comparison pics both on full brake. Top bar is washing the picture out a bit which means it's the brighter of the two. Will hopefully craft a new center lens and mount one side for the first prototype finally. You never realize how long this takes until you do it lol.
Looks good. I have a ton of hours into mine already and I still need to cut out acrylic to create my dividers to keep light bleed to a minimum. I wish I could go your route but I want these things to look like I didnt do anything to them until I turn them on.
^ On my car: 
I did a writeup on how to do this a while back:
https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...cation-955336/
In short, it takes some time but can be done. Would be much better to have turboIIrotary make these for production. He does quality work and uses quality components.
I did a writeup on how to do this a while back:
https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...cation-955336/
In short, it takes some time but can be done. Would be much better to have turboIIrotary make these for production. He does quality work and uses quality components.
The Philips LEDs I have are used in OEM taillights. I had red rings you used in your DIY laying around so I decided to make a comparison. The Philips are total overkill for running lights but good for brake.
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As i already posted here:
i'd prefer something more elegant like this: https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...1011393/page9/
i'd prefer something more elegant like this: https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...1011393/page9/
Light output was really important to me as these are brake lights. We want them to look nice but at the end of the day, the people behind you need to be able to see you braking. So I spent a good deal of time measuring the light output of my setup. If you used two red LED rings (per light so a total of 4 per side with a two ring setup) for the parking lights , then the light output should be around 2.5X the stock units. If you are showing the two red led rings setup in your pic, then you have a good amount of light output from the Phillips design. I'd say, like you stated, for the parking lights that is too much light but you could measure it.
Obviously, the brake lights need to be much brighter. For each of my brake lights (two per side), I used a 366 lumen surface mounted Rebel LED. So per side, the light output was over 700 lumens. I did have to turn these down (via a dimmable driver) as the light output was too much and I ended up adjusting them down to around 1.75X of the stock units, or almost 2 times as bright as the OEM ones.
Like the poster has in his pic above this, I too like the curvy diffused look as well, but it is quite a bit of effort to pull off. The ring look can be done much easier and it's a nice upgrade to the car. I am still in process of redoing my 99 spec turn signals with a diffused DRL setup and that has taken me a lot of time and effort not to mention cost. As you've posted previously a sheet of the diffuser material sets you back over $300 and it won't do more than a set or so of the taillight assembly. And that doesn't cover the cost of the LEDs or the time and effort.
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Joined: Sep 2014
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As i already posted here:
i'd prefer something more elegant like this: https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...1011393/page9/
i'd prefer something more elegant like this: https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...1011393/page9/
A few of us are working on this. Really is time and money intensive as stated above. Everytime I feel I get close, little issues come up and the end product isn't something I'd want to move forward with. Back to the drawing board but I do have a new idea I hope will come out better
Agreed—the "elegant" curvy outline look really depend on the light subtly tapering down to a point or fading out towards the outsides, and being thicker in the middle. If it's just an even line it's going to look blocky like some of the experiments I've seen posted.
Nice diffused circles would be fine.
P
Nice diffused circles would be fine.
P
That is pretty cool. I don't think the red rings I used are ideal as I worry about the quality of them. They were of a higher quality than the GB ones but still there are better solutions. I think Mishimoto makes some COB LED rings but don't know if they come in red.
Light output was really important to me as these are brake lights. We want them to look nice but at the end of the day, the people behind you need to be able to see you braking. So I spent a good deal of time measuring the light output of my setup. If you used two red LED rings (per light so a total of 4 per side with a two ring setup) for the parking lights , then the light output should be around 2.5X the stock units. If you are showing the two red led rings setup in your pic, then you have a good amount of light output from the Phillips design. I'd say, like you stated, for the parking lights that is too much light but you could measure it.
Obviously, the brake lights need to be much brighter. For each of my brake lights (two per side), I used a 366 lumen surface mounted Rebel LED. So per side, the light output was over 700 lumens. I did have to turn these down (via a dimmable driver) as the light output was too much and I ended up adjusting them down to around 1.75X of the stock units, or almost 2 times as bright as the OEM ones.
Like the poster has in his pic above this, I too like the curvy diffused look as well, but it is quite a bit of effort to pull off. The ring look can be done much easier and it's a nice upgrade to the car. I am still in process of redoing my 99 spec turn signals with a diffused DRL setup and that has taken me a lot of time and effort not to mention cost. As you've posted previously a sheet of the diffuser material sets you back over $300 and it won't do more than a set or so of the taillight assembly. And that doesn't cover the cost of the LEDs or the time and effort.
Light output was really important to me as these are brake lights. We want them to look nice but at the end of the day, the people behind you need to be able to see you braking. So I spent a good deal of time measuring the light output of my setup. If you used two red LED rings (per light so a total of 4 per side with a two ring setup) for the parking lights , then the light output should be around 2.5X the stock units. If you are showing the two red led rings setup in your pic, then you have a good amount of light output from the Phillips design. I'd say, like you stated, for the parking lights that is too much light but you could measure it.
Obviously, the brake lights need to be much brighter. For each of my brake lights (two per side), I used a 366 lumen surface mounted Rebel LED. So per side, the light output was over 700 lumens. I did have to turn these down (via a dimmable driver) as the light output was too much and I ended up adjusting them down to around 1.75X of the stock units, or almost 2 times as bright as the OEM ones.
Like the poster has in his pic above this, I too like the curvy diffused look as well, but it is quite a bit of effort to pull off. The ring look can be done much easier and it's a nice upgrade to the car. I am still in process of redoing my 99 spec turn signals with a diffused DRL setup and that has taken me a lot of time and effort not to mention cost. As you've posted previously a sheet of the diffuser material sets you back over $300 and it won't do more than a set or so of the taillight assembly. And that doesn't cover the cost of the LEDs or the time and effort.
I tested with one and two ring and didn't really see a difference with having two in there at least to the eye. I even went out and compared a single ring to various cars in my driveway and it was brighter than all of them.
The most important part is the brake light I made a quick video of the brake portion functioning. I will probably use the smd rings for production runs as it cuts some labor time and they already do the job well.
I am going to produce here soon. David already made a DIY so I don't feel the need in making another one is necessary. My version also requires correct soldering tools and electronic knowledge to make so it would be fairly difficult for the average person to do.
