Here is a YouTube video of my LED rear lights.
http://youtu.be/LppDSimnl4s

Looks good. Do you have some info or thread on how you did them?

Did you have to change the blinker to run the LEDs in the back?

I didn't take pictures because I didn't think it was going to work. What I did was bought an old set of rear light housings and gutted them out. Then I mounted a piece of plastic in the light housings to attach the strip LED lights. I bought the LED strip lights on Ebay. You can buy them in just about any color and length. I chose all red, but I could have put yellow for the turn signal instead of red. I did the same thing to the front turn signal housings with yellow LED strip lights. I did have to buy a new flasher that can be used both for LED lights abd standard lights.

Impressive looking lights -- I particularly like the third brake light on the targa bar.

Could you shoot a picture of it during the day?

Check out the arrow indicators in the window! No one is going to miss the fact that you are turning!

I shot a video of my LED tail lights today, which pretty bright outside.
http://youtu.be/HVHsN-HgFHA

Phillip J. Haun
Oak Harbor, WA.

Nice Job Phillip...pretty darn cool!

How is the OP Spoke doing with his LED light progress?

I'm still moving forward. I'm looking for a more efficient amber LED. I got some samples of an OSRAM amber LED from Digikey but the damn things are red. We questioned Digikey if that was the right part and they claim the amber wavelength overlaps the red wavelength and some amber LED could look red.

All the LEDs will use the Polymer Optics lens. These will have to be glued onto the boards. The good thing about the lenses is they don't require holes and this will allow me to put circuitry behind the LEDs. Can't fit the power supplies on the same side of the LEDs so they will go on the bottom of the board.

I started designing the circuitry to provide the "back off" brake light where the brake light flashes quickly a couple of times when you hit the brake.

Also designing the turnsignal lights to be sequential. There are 6 columns of 4 turnsignal LEDs that I will turn on 2 at a time so they'll go: 2 - 4 - 6 ON.

All the flashing circuitry will be done in a CPLD.

Will there be an option to not have it be sequential? Not a huge fan of that.

Was just going to ask you about that. Awesome. I was behind an SUV (Kia maybe) yesterday with a flashing 3rd brake light. It was very effective.

Yeah, it is pretty simple; tie a pin high or low on the CPLD to disable.

Doing PCB123?

I was just thinking about doing this myself - but if you're almost done, count me in for a set!

I am really looking forward to seeing those.

Not a fan of sequential either. When I see a Mustang with those I can't help but think, "I get it. You're turning. "

But having it slightly dim on and dim off would be cool (basically emulating incandescent) for the turn signal. Fast on and fancy flash for brakes is great! Turn signals really are fine the way they are.

But regarless, really looking forward to this progress!

Spoke, how are you coming along with your LED Taillights?

I am not a fan of the flashing brake lights. I think if the brakes are being used the light should be on. I see the flashing brake lights on motorcycles a lot and sitting behind them at an intersection is annoying. Yes, I understand the point, I guess I'm a little old school these days and actually pay attention when I drive.

The latest craze,all in the spirit of safety.
There are some drivers out there who need a stimulating visual clue
when driving.The coolest seq sigs of the 60's,Thunderbirds,Cougars.
The cost to produce those die-castings was enormous.
A simple application of the high intensity LEDs makes a good
argument for 21st century tech. As a replacement for the obtrusive
sidemarkers they would meet the standards.A high visibility 914
makes it a safer ride and circumvents the defense of "I didn't see the car".
Shaving the sidemarkers has been done to other vehicles for years.
The average SUV pilot needs 400+ ft to stop from 55mph depending on if
they looking.A margin of error on the side of caution would be a worthwhile
effort.You know,like,all lit up like the 4th of July.
Up the front of the targa,across the top then down the 914 curve,
unmistakeable,or spelling out the Porsche logo on the rockers,or across
the rear fascia.Man,you could even do RacingStripes down the centre.
Click to view attachment
Fun With LEDs.

PJHaun Hello.
In your most recent post re the brake lights,it appears that the leds are flashing at the greatest rate on the initial push of the pedal,then slows to remain on.
I have seen a number of such flashing systems which display the opposite effect and give the viewer a proportional sense of deceleration.Flashing faster=>braking faster.
Would you consider it feasible to build a circuit that measured the brake pressure and/or g-force?

Click to view attachment

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/led-veh...lacement-bulbs/

I ordered a shit-ton of LEDs off of eBay a few weeks ago. I'm planning on building custom tail lights that are patterned a lot like the new Audi tail lights. It'll be worth an experiment anyway.

Spoke/Jerry- I am looking forward to this project hitting the classifieds so I can update the rear lighting of my Six without changing the look of the car.

Considering how much light new cars with LED's have in the rear these days, I believe that should be the goal. I want people to see the car and see it is stopping so they don't pile into it.

Aside from the LED taillight project I still plan to have a hi-mount 3rd brake light fitted into the roll bar chrome trim that is about 12-18" long.

What LEDs did you order? Do you have a part number? I tried many different LEDs and found a great deal of difference in the output.

I've been swamped at work and haven't had time to finish this up.

The last I worked on this I was looking for an efficient high output amber LED.

I got a couple from Digikey but they turned out to be more red than amber.

I'm not sure my design will be very marketable. They will be very expensive to build.

The high output LEDs that I've found cost $1.5 to $2 each. Plus each LED needs a lense to focus the light rearward. The lenses are about $1 each.

So with 20 LED for the brake, 30 LED for the turnsignal, 8 LED for the backup light, there are about 60 LED per side or 120 for both sides. Considering only the LED and lense costs, I would up to $360 not including circuitry, PCB, and assembly.

Aren't all white LEDs cheaper? Colors might be nice, but we have white bulbs in there now...

White LEDs are not always less expensive. Also they tend to have higher ON voltages (3.4V vs 2.4V for red).

I started with white LEDs and someone pointed out that red LEDs pass through red lenses more efficiently than white.

High power LEDs are generally more expensive and one issue I have is that I don't want to make this fixture and find out that the LEDs are not bright enough. I'd rather tend to have too bright than not bright enough.

As strongly as I feel about our cars needing more light in the rear, I am willing to pay for the LED's and work as I believe these will make a big difference in accident prevention.

LEDs are CHEAP no matter what. I just bought 1,000 Red, 500 White, and 500 Amber on eBay for $60 shipped.

Red: http://r.ebay.com/NEVFr3

Amber: http://r.ebay.com/bRYrcs

White: http://r.ebay.com/6XMI1E

This is the layout I was thinking of doing.

It's a rough idea, and I'll have to play with it, but this is what I'm thinking right now.

I was also going to make my own lenses out of 1/4" 50% smoked plexiglass.

::: sorry for the hijack :::

Another thing for me to copy you on Douglas....NOT making my own lenses though...

Oh I'm quite sure it'll end up quite different than what I'm planning right now, and it won't be anywhere NEAR as nice as what Spoke is working on.

I'm going to have a lot of hot-glue, resistors, wire, solder, and drill holes in mine! As long as it's presentable from the outside, and I can hide it in the tail-light housings, I'll be in good shape.

Cap'n
a newfangled compound for custom lens making.

Click to view attachment

http://www.masterbond.com/sites/default/files/mb-slogan.png

If this project comes to fruition, I will definitely want a set.

Yep, LEDs are still spendy. Visibility on the road is priceless.

Same here

DAvid

Pricing sounds about right for a quality component. I was just looking at adding a STACK remote fuel pressure gauge to my car and it's $220 for the setup. So $350 for awesome tail lights isn't a stretch.

Not an apples to apples comparison, but Harley-Davidson sells LED conversion headlight kits. The kit for the headlight only is $400, and the kit for a pair of passing lights (the 2 lights that flank the headlight) is an additional $400. I am guessing even at these prices, they have some takers.

"White" is a bit misleading when it comes to LEDs; they are actually blue LEDs with a secondary phosphorescent emitter.

There's more than you care to read about here:

http://www.olympusmicro.com/primer/lightan...urcesintro.html

This nifty little graphic is only approximate, but it might help:

Click to view attachment

The important part is that there's not very much red in the the output of a "white" LED.

There are some pretty nice, cheap COB (chip-on-board) LED modules available in the right colours these days, if you want to make something more complicated than the direct bulb replacements that are everywhere.

= Mike

check this out. >>>>>>.

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/led-veh...rsche---/49---/

they even have the relay for the led lights. I'm thinking...

I did a test with the white LEDs through the red 914 lens and the light output was not impressive. I did not have individual lenses on the LEDs which make a significant contribution to directing the LED light.

The red LEDs also have a much lower on voltage; like 2.4V vs 3.3V for white LEDs. This makes a difference when 10 LEDs are stacked together.

I've finally settled on a switching converter for the brake and turnsignals. Been looking at many different converters to find the best one for this application.

I will do a test board with just the brake/running lights, converter, and CPLD to make sure everything works together before laying out the entire assembly.

I've got the red and white LEDs chosen; just have to find some good amber LEDs for the turnsignals. I got some high power amber LEDs from Digikey but they were quite red. I've also bailed on the sequential turnsignal idea mainly for simplicity and since the turnsignal light size was not large enough to adequately discern the sequencing.

Here's the brake taillight board top and bottom views.

This board will fit inside the existing taillight frame and will get brake and taillight power from the bulb socket. Not sure how I will get power but should not be too hard.

Also need to work on securing the board. This could be as simple as silicon caulk.

I removed all leading edge flashing from the brake light for simplicity.

The big gray looking structures on the top are the LED lenses, not the LEDs. The lenses are 9x9mm.

I'll use this board as a test fixture for now but it could remain in the car for the long term.

The LED current will be 300mA for brakes and 50mA for taillights. I want to make sure these are bright. I can turn them down if needed. By using a switching converter to provide the power, the efficiency of this circuit should be in the high 80s low 90s percent.

Great to hear of your progress.

Excellent work. Nice to see this project coming together.

I see you are going to use orange LED's for the turn signals, if by chance I wanted to stay with the US taillight configuration could they all be red? Is there a way to make the turn signal dual colors (switchable) if one wanted to go from euro to US and back? I know….but I thought I would ask.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Those are what I have in mine right now. I also have a FLAPS third brake light mounted so that you wont notice it until its on. Although I dont have all my resistors in place yet, the turn signals still flash I just don't get the flashing green light on my dash. Just my $.02

The high power LEDs I am using are from Cree and come in white, amber, red, red-orange, and blue. Red LEDs can be substituted for amber.

Switchable usually have 2 or more LEDs mounted in a single package with either 2 or 3 connections. Not planning to do any switching at this point.

I made about 100 changes to the PCB over the weekend. The plan now is to order the boards for the brake/taillights next week. All the parts are available on Digikey but I'm going to go through my contact at Arrow for better pricing.

Still trying to figure out how to connect to the existing brake light socket. I want something like a bulb base with wires going to the PCB to plug into the existing taillight fixture. If I have to I will cannibalize a couple of bulbs and add wires to them to connect the PCB.

I want to make as little modifications to the taillight fixture as possible and be able to return to the bulb if I need to work on the PCB. (Don't want to take the 914 out of service because of the PCB).

Looks awesome! Digikey charges sales tax and I found them to be a tad more expensive. Check out mouser.

You may be better off using yellow for amber. Certainly, I've tried red LEDs in amber tinted housings and been less than happy with the results. The yellow LEDs are pretty shockingly yellow, but they are very attention-getting...

If you want a spare set of taillight housings, just ask.

Thanks Mark, I think I'm good now. I will use my 914 as the test bed for these units.

Mounting holes were added for #6 screws and the corners trimmed to fit deeper in the housing.

Click to view attachment

Still trying to figure out how to power this unit with minimally invasive techniques. This is just the guts of an 1157 bulb with wires soldered to the filament leads. Solder the wires to the board and plug the base into the socket for power.

Click to view attachment

You can get bayonet to wire adapters from the usual suspects, but honestly the bayonets are one of the weakest points in the original design. The wires from the back housing have spade connectors on them - better to solder lugs to the back of the PCB, or use flying leads if you are retaining the reflectors and just snake out through the fittings.

In my case, at least, the unsupported wires are fraying off the riveted crimps, so an option to refurb and solder direct to the brass crimps might also be worthwhile.

Glad to see more progress on this project. Keep up the good work.

Thanks

David