Acree

iTrader: (29)

i havent decided if i will or not. right now, i have a little over 70 hours of testing, soldering, test fitting, and general labor. since the materials are well over 200 bucks, without buying new rear housings, the price that i would want to sell them at reaches 700-800 bucks very quickly. then on top of that, for me to offer this as a service, i would need a set of housings. i did not replace my own when i did this conversion, so the customer would need to either a) buy a new set of housings and send them to me, b) have me buy them and include it into the cost or make a trade of housings, c) ship me their housings and be without a rear bumper for week or so.



currently materials are hovering right around $250. the 3 watt stars i bought for 8 bucks a piece i believe. the stars are ran in series and powered by a driver from www.taskled.com. the products from this website are top notch. it is ran by a single guy who engineers and produces all of his own products. he also has very decent prices.


i'm not quite sure what you mean. the reverse lights are white, and the turn signal is amber. this retrofit is 1000x better than any led wedge bulb you could buy, and is far more bright. if you havent watched the video yet, please do. you will see how the turn signal works. the pictures above are only of the reverse lights.

Robert_K

iTrader: (25)

I'm at work so can't watch the vid. But if the turn is amber than cool. The pic looked like the turn was white.

Sponge

iTrader: (5)

WOW Nice turns! I really like the sequential timing.

A question though, can you adjust the speed of the blinker? I think it might look better if you could slow it down some. I'd love to see you sell a 3 or 4 LED wide full length strip that blinked just a little slower like the rear blinkers on my old 73 T-Bird hardtop.

Nice work, nice idea

Wired 24/7

iTrader: (2)

I like the reverse lights a lot... it seems like they're saying:

"I'M BACKING UP MOTHERFOCKER, WATCH YOURSELF!"

Looks like you've outdone yourself Acree

ClaytonC01

iTrader: (4)

i like those

Robert_K

iTrader: (25)

Just watch the vid... Looks awesome!. So are you gonna start up a group buy?

old_s13

iTrader: (1)

LEDs sure are a lot of work, eh? Congrats, looks pretty. :-)

Mike / ClearCorners.Com

rolling

iTrader: (2)

you should write up a HOW TO for these ..
sounds liek an excellent plan and, they look keeeewl!

Acree

iTrader: (29)

A group buy, highly unlikely. a full set of these signals take close to 100 hours of labor. if i do start making these for other people, they will definately not be mass produced. i'm thinking less than 5 pairs or so.

if anyone is truely interested in a pair of these, please pm me and i will reply with real price.

Acree

iTrader: (29)

actually, yes the speed is adjustable, but not how you think. the time period that the blinker is on, does not change. it is the stock timing, which is 85 flashes per minute. but i can adjust the timing of each segment, which means i can make 9 segments fit in one blink, or 3. so to answer you question, yes i can but i would change the circuit and also change how i wire up the leds.

rolling

iTrader: (2)

since it allot of work and expence to do this for other people
would you maby consider making a very detailed "how to" guide with pics and parts and costs?

then you can sell your plans!!

id buy a set from ya

thanks

HockeyZ39

+1 I have been thinking of doing such a retro myself for quite some time. I wasn’t planning on going sequential but defiantly wanted luxeon stars for my reverse lights! I would drop some doe for a good write up and parts list.

Acree

iTrader: (29)

this isn't really a DIY mod. the housing has to be modified. you have to make your own custom set of led boards. you have to solder together the circuit, which might i add is fairly complicated. you have to measure and cut the boards to fit. get all of the wiring correct. trouble shoot, then trouble shoot some more. i could post a link to the basic circuit layout i used, but the parts have to be purchased from multiple sources and yadda yadda. if someone is really into electronics, they could easily figure out how to make this work. if they are not, that's what i'm here for.

Acree

iTrader: (29)

i don't want to make money by selling people information. i will definately help anyone with this project, but they need to show initiative and willingness to research. how do you think i learned how to do this in the first place? 99% self taught. searching the interet for hours, researching leds, and lighting alternatives, and electronic components. i will be making a drawing schematic of the circuit in the next few days and will post it up here once it is finished. if you can follow the circuit and know how to do it, i will post up a parts list, but this thing involves over 25 components. i will definately help anyone with information on luxeon leds or any leds in general and give my fair and honest opinion. i suggest to get started, purchase a set of rear turn housings, open them up and start to get a feel for how you need to layout the pcb.

HockeyZ39

I feel I have the basics of LED's down and have a few sites bookmarked for reference, but defiantly hook up any sites or links you have to the layout you used. I am pretty electronically inclined so any "guide" or "how to" you made would just be like a walk through I guess. What I am kind of struggling with is the different types of LED's and what I should use for this type of project. I have the basic idea of what I want to accomplish, and I think I have got the circuitry all worked out ON PAPER, just need to throw it together and start the trouble shooting.

PS. Do you have any links on how to pull the housing out? Does the whole rear bumper have to come off? I am going to purchase an extra set but will need to know how to install them!

Acree

iTrader: (29)

yes the entire rear bumper needs to come off. the housing is fairly easy to get open, just like a head light. heat it up until you can pull it apart. i don't have a magical over temp for you, but i just turned the oven to 250 or so and let it sit until i could pull it apart. as far as leds, i recommend using nothing other than true superflux leds from lumileds. the light output is hands down better than any led i've ever seen. the viewing angle on the ones i am using are 70 degrees. they throw an amber glow everywhere. the basic circuit can be found here.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep...htm#4017-2.gif

that is the basic circuit layout. then you need to replace the transistors with scr's. after that, decide how many segments you want to light up, then you can adapt the circuit to that number of segments, and also determine which resistor value you need on the 555 timer to get the number of segments to light up in the amount of time the turn signal is on. what would really blow your mind is if i tried to explain how i went from 85 flashes per minute to 22k ohm resistor. also pay attention to the circuit under that. the part of it that has the cap and resistor on the input to the decade counter is important. it will keep your turn signal starting on one instead of random segments sometimes.

MyV6IsFast3r

iTrader: (38)

Those are VERY nice. I like that a lot.

350Z_Italy

iTrader: (1)

First time that i see something like this.
but another question..why on my car i have only one light for rear gear!?!?

Where is your fog light?!?

Acree

iTrader: (29)

hah, well that's because in the US, we are not required to have a "fog light" in the rear of the car.

HockeyZ39

Hey Acree, I was actually thinking about turning the rear turnsignal/reverse lamp into a FULL reverse lamp (with stars all around) and making it so my rear lights (06 tails on the way) blink for my turn signal. The reverse lights I could make pretty ez from what it seems, but what would I need to make the brake lights blink for the turn signals?