I have been looking at replacng the lighting in my racecar with LED's all around and stumbled accross your fabulor forums in my research. Let me set the scene a bit.
I have an older Audi [early 90's model] which is used exclusively as a race car. It is trailered everywhere and is no longer road reg'd so there are no legality isues to be considered. I just need to make sure I'm not blinding anyone in their mirrors.
Given the age [and usage] of the car I don't have any complicated fault warning systems to worry about. I am looking to completely redesign the lightling package around the use of LED's so this includes head, tail, brake and turn lighting. The original enclosures will be used howver I can [and for headlights, will] relocate the location of the LED's for the factory location within the enclosure.
Headlights - I want to sticker over the headlights with sponsor signage so I would like relocate the headlight bulb to the bottom inside corner of the factory enclosure so I would like to change it to a projector type of light so it can project through a smaller area left clear in the signage.
Brake/Turn/Tail Lighting- I imagine the simplest solution would be to get something to fit the OEM sockets e.g. from ebay.
High Intensity Rain lighting - I would like to replace the current high mount brake light with a high intensity rain light along the lines of what we see in F1 cars. Given how wet it has been lately and how impossible it is to see through the spray I'd like to assist other competitors to NOT run up my arse. The solution would still need to be in the form of a single or double row of LED's as I don't want to have it projecting down into my line of vision through the rear view mirror.
Being a complete numbie with LED's I am probably going to be asking some stupid questions so please be patient as it might take me a couople of goes to understand what I need to do. Anyway on to the project sections;
Headlights
Given I would like to limit the opening through which the headlight can shine I was thinking that some kind of projector style of beam would be the go but is this possible for a headlight not originally designed for it? Would the front of the OEM enclosure [which is glass] defuse the beam too much? Is there any other things I need to consider? If not, then I can see 2 approaches;
1/ Is there an off the shelf bulb which I could use and fabricate a holder to locate it in the new location within the OEM enclosure.
2/ Fabricate a cluster of LED's on a bread board or other substrate which is then fitted to the OEM enclosure in the new location.
High Intensity Rain light
The car currently has a high mount brake light enclosure located at the top centre of the rear windscreen, it conatins a single row of [not very bright] LED's. I would like to change the function of this unit to a High Intensity Rain light which flashes when it is activated from the switch panel in the dash. I think I can reuse the circiut board from the OEM high mount brake lights as it is easily accessable when I remove the enclosure so if I can retrofit the new suggested RED LED's that will make fitting it back into the OEM location.I think there are currently 10 LED's in the board but I don't know their spec's so I will just used the bioard and wire in the required combination of LED's and resistors/capacitors etc.
General
I am not sure about the power conditioning requirements for the power supply, if there are driver requirements are for this type of lighting and any other thing people thing I need to consider.
I have an older Audi [early 90's model] which is used exclusively as a race car. It is trailered everywhere and is no longer road reg'd so there are no legality isues to be considered. I just need to make sure I'm not blinding anyone in their mirrors.
Given the age [and usage] of the car I don't have any complicated fault warning systems to worry about. I am looking to completely redesign the lightling package around the use of LED's so this includes head, tail, brake and turn lighting. The original enclosures will be used howver I can [and for headlights, will] relocate the location of the LED's for the factory location within the enclosure.
Headlights - I want to sticker over the headlights with sponsor signage so I would like relocate the headlight bulb to the bottom inside corner of the factory enclosure so I would like to change it to a projector type of light so it can project through a smaller area left clear in the signage.
Brake/Turn/Tail Lighting- I imagine the simplest solution would be to get something to fit the OEM sockets e.g. from ebay.
High Intensity Rain lighting - I would like to replace the current high mount brake light with a high intensity rain light along the lines of what we see in F1 cars. Given how wet it has been lately and how impossible it is to see through the spray I'd like to assist other competitors to NOT run up my arse. The solution would still need to be in the form of a single or double row of LED's as I don't want to have it projecting down into my line of vision through the rear view mirror.
Being a complete numbie with LED's I am probably going to be asking some stupid questions so please be patient as it might take me a couople of goes to understand what I need to do. Anyway on to the project sections;
Headlights
Given I would like to limit the opening through which the headlight can shine I was thinking that some kind of projector style of beam would be the go but is this possible for a headlight not originally designed for it? Would the front of the OEM enclosure [which is glass] defuse the beam too much? Is there any other things I need to consider? If not, then I can see 2 approaches;
1/ Is there an off the shelf bulb which I could use and fabricate a holder to locate it in the new location within the OEM enclosure.
2/ Fabricate a cluster of LED's on a bread board or other substrate which is then fitted to the OEM enclosure in the new location.
High Intensity Rain light
The car currently has a high mount brake light enclosure located at the top centre of the rear windscreen, it conatins a single row of [not very bright] LED's. I would like to change the function of this unit to a High Intensity Rain light which flashes when it is activated from the switch panel in the dash. I think I can reuse the circiut board from the OEM high mount brake lights as it is easily accessable when I remove the enclosure so if I can retrofit the new suggested RED LED's that will make fitting it back into the OEM location.I think there are currently 10 LED's in the board but I don't know their spec's so I will just used the bioard and wire in the required combination of LED's and resistors/capacitors etc.
General
I am not sure about the power conditioning requirements for the power supply, if there are driver requirements are for this type of lighting and any other thing people thing I need to consider.