both finished.

very rarely am I suprised by one of these things, its ussually about what I expected. the turn signals suprised me. but hey, dont take my word for it.

Here we have the stock rear signal, sorry I didnt take a photo of the stock fronts for apples to apples.


and the fronts with luxeons. now the thing is, the camera adjusted to the darkness for front and back, and thus both are overexposed. but not by much I promise.



and almost as important as how it looks on; how it looks off.(new on left, old on right)



side


front(ignore wierd streaks, it was bath day and she got a coat of zaino)



And the interior lighting. bad news of sorts. the Z uses the shortest, smallest festoon bulb size. that means I can barely fit 1 LED and definitly not 2 as I hoped .

2 would have been optimal and matched the output of the stock bulbs IMO. I can put 2 back to back, but then 1 wont face the right way, so it probably wouldnt be worth the cost.

though the stock looks brighter, thats because the bulb is putting out light 360degrees around, the LED is only shooting light straight out, not illuminating the dome reflector.

 

nice! how much for the turns?

 

The turn signals look really good. Dissapointing news regarding the interior lights. Any pics of the interior ones from farther away to get an idea of how well lit the interior is with them?

Price on turns?

 

the turn signals are 90 for a pair and 170 for a set of 4. they are 4 luxeons each and with a retail price of 10$ each, well, thats where the cost comes from.

I did take day time photos, but they didnt come out good. couldnt tell either side was lit, new or old. the sun was behind me and washing out the photos.

I tried to take photos of the interior, but the camera wasnt going for it. it is too advanced for its own good, first it wanted a flash and if I told it no it wanted to do a 15sec exposure. then I moved onto full manual mode, couldnt get an accurate photo of how it really looked.

 

Damn Brian, you need to find a cheaper supplier!! Those look sick btw!!

Do those domes put out enough usable light?

 

they illuminate the cabin quite well. but Im not sure Id want to be reading a map at night with them.

 

Wow... intense. I guess I have an idea now what the 4 cluster Luxeon signals gonna turn out.

Of course... I'll be putting more juice! [grunts like Tim Taylor from Home Improvement]

I don't use emitters for dome light, but a single emitter is fine for trunk light. I can see everything fine at night. It's gotta nice white color the eyes appreciate.

My dome lights are fine too... but it's got a slight purplish tint to them when looked at directly.

 

yeah, in an effort to make them easy to install they had to be emmitors and not stars. and thus had to keep the juice down to 100mA.

for those that have parking lights, these put out an identical amount of light, same LEDs same resistors, different packaging. that might give you a better idea of output on them.

 

Alright, I feel dumb for asking...but what the hell kinda LED's are those to cost that much? I must be thinking of the wrong LED's because the ones I am thinking of you can get from Radio Shack for like 90 cents. A little help? Thanks.

 

http://www.luxeon.com

They take LEDs a step further by producing a larger die that can accept more current flow. The draw back is some heat, but the light output is awesome!

These Luxeons are strong enough to light up gauge clusters, and normal LEDs can barely light up a few numbers on the gauge face. If you have gauges that use a single incandescent light bulb, just solder in a Luxeon + resistor and the results are awesome!

Just visit the Hobbies section under "Pictures" on my webpage and you can see some stuff I've done with Luxeon.

-Phuong

 

As usual.......... Nice going Brian!

Man it's like, once you get started modding the lights on this car.... You don't want to stop!
I still really wish our cars had LED's for the rear tail lights like the G35's.

 

me too, and I would love to have something like them. but molding costs would be off the chart. not to mention the LEDs in it.

for those wondering whats up with the prices. these are made by the same people that make the LEDs in the G35 tail light, and other automotive LED lights. a taillight on a G35 is over 2grand for that reason.

you can check with lumileds who makes luxeon, the retail is 10.xx each. of course I order alot of LEDs so I dont pay that, but if you were try and make these yourself, youd only be saving a few dollars. I try to keep these reasonably priced for my work and the product, but the parts are just expensive.

Im trying to find a "knockoff" source in asia to offer a lower priced alternative, but have only found distributors thus far that are still over charging.

in general these are nothing like 5mmLEDs that you see in radioshack(I can get those for pennies, they arent even bright 5mm.) they put out 3 or 4000MCD over 15degrees or so. without getting too indepth the measure of light depends on area of output, 4000mcd at 15degrees equals 2000MCD at 30degrees. luxeons (at max) have about 60,000MCD(according to a independent website) at angles as high as 100degrees. I run them at about a third of max power for heat reasons.

 

Are these replacement turn signal clusters plug-n-play or do they require sodering and bumper removal?

They look great but the price is just a bit high for me. I'd buy them at $70 tho.

 

they are replacements, they come mounted to a 7440 base.

I'd love to make them for 70$, but they cost that much.

I found a place yesterday in austrailia, thats selling chinese leds. they are much more reasonably priced but we'll see how well they function. I ordered a few.

 

is there something from preventing a person from using an existing LED Third Brake Light from other cars, changing the LEDs to yellow, and installing them into the existing 350 lens? There are a ton of different lengths and thicknesses out there.

 

no... not sure I understand the point, where are you putting a strip of LEDs. to swap the LEDs though, all your using is the circuit strip?

 

I'm afraid I don't understand the difficulty in transforming 350Z rear turn signals from incandescent bulbs to amber LEDs. I was thinking the circuitry from another (cheaper) car's 3rd brake light could be used and the red LEDs could be exchanged with amber ones. I was thinking the existing Z turn signal housing could be used with the 'new' amber LED circuit. I've also seen amber motor cycle LEDs - could those be used?

 

theres easier ways to do what your talking about, but depending on the LED they are either expensive(which is the hitch in my design) or not bright enough.

not to mention, atleast for the Z, the high mount light assembly is over 100$.(ignoring you need to get more LEDs of the right color) so it doesnt save you any money...

 

are you familiar with Osram LEDs? Is there a reason the LINEARlight application can't be adapted?
http://www.osram-os.com/products/lam.../ma_line1.html

 

Im trying to keep things to a plug and play nature. to install a strip of LEDs would require the housing be opened, and then modified to hold and power the strip of LEDs. its possible, but I am not looking to take on that much liability of opening 200$ housings. much easier for everyone if its just a replaceable wedge bulb.

I have heard of osram though, but I have never found a site to purchase them from, or any reviews on them.