rear lights for my car project

[rain_man_ind]

Hey guys, i have a 1966 Austin Mini Cooper S. These cars are notorious for having dim tail lights, and that is concerning me. The car is already tiny, so i want to make those back lights nice and bright. I want to use some of the luxeon style leds for it, but i am not sure if there are any out there that will give me the kind of life expectancy that i want. also, just out of curiosity, are there any 12v led's that could put out enough brightness to be used as headlights.... hmmm

i can do all the machining and wire work myself, i basically need a few suggestions on what bulbs to use and such.

if i can i am looking to make a ton of led upgrades on the car, to kinda modernize the crappy old lighting used.

 

[Ken_McE]

Hey guys, i have a 1966 Austin Mini Cooper S.

Sweet!

These cars are notorious for having dim tail lights, and that is concerning me.

As indeed it should. No real CPFer puts up with such abuse.

The car is already tiny, so i want to make those back lights nice and bright. I want to use some of the luxeon style leds for it, but i am not sure if there are any out there that will give me the kind of life expectancy that i want.

3 and 5 mm are probably out. You'd need piles of them. Superflux or high power LEDs would do.

just out of curiosity, are there any 12v led's that could put out enough brightness to be used as headlights.... hmmm

No. Think HID, or Halogen.

if i can i am looking to make a ton of led upgrades on the car, to kinda modernize the crappy old lighting used.

Maybe some EL panels shaped like the Union Jack, some street glow neon here and there... Muahahahh...

 

[rain_man_ind]

yah, i knew the 3mm and 5mm were out, if i could get some web references with some superflux, high power, etc lamps that would be very awesome

 

[R33E8]

HIDplanet.com has a nice forum for upgrading headlights and LED tail lights. There is a ton of info there if you want to go custom. :thumbsup:

 

[Changchung]

Hi, you can try something like this...

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/186138

 

[R33E8]

Hi, you can try something like this...

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/186138

Aw what a pity.. A thread of one of the few(or only) retrofits using HBLED's is closed.. There could have been some nice info in that thread...:sigh:

 

[saabluster]

Take a look here and here.

 

[rain_man_ind]

if you guys could post some link on where to buy the actual led's that would be great. also, is there anyone that makes a single led bright enough to work as the driving lights (the always on red lights for driving at night). also i in one of those post that someone was able to buy 100 leds for like 60$ where the hell do you get that, i want some!!!!

 

[znomit]

if you guys could post some link on where to buy the actual led's that would be great.

A single LED is probably good for a mini.
High powered red LEDs

Here at cutter
http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut545

Or here at dealextreme
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1776

 

[romulus]

Check out a company called Command Electronics Inc. And checkout ledhot.com if you're looking to animate the lights.

 

[Ken_McE]

Maybe one or two of these "Fire & Ice" LED tailight bars:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/60-L...ryZ33713QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[VanIsleDSM]

I highly recommend getting genuine lumileds superflux LEDs for your tail lights.

The red/orange and amber are DOT certified colours for use on the road, and they are very high quality. 70mA each, you'd want about 15 per side minimum. 150mA versions are also available if you want to use less LEDs for styling reasons, these 150mA guys are called snap LEDs also from lumileds. These 2 LEDs are used almost exclusively buy high quality OEMs in the new cars (BMW, Merc, Lexus, ect..)

Still, if you want even fewer sources of light, yet brighter, go with rebel LEDs. Just make sure you use red/orange, and not regular red. Rebels though would need heatsinking, and they're more of a pain to work with being SMT.

The white superflux "style" (style because they aren't genuine, not made by lumileds, there are no lumiled white superflux LEDs) were from ebay, just search for '100mA 5chip' and you'll find a bunch. I don't recommend them though, unless you want to underdrive them, before sealing up those reverse lights I made I also completed a retrofit on a pond with these LEDs. Since the lights would be on for long periods of time, unlike reverse lights, I put a small aluminum heatsink on each LED ran at 90mA, and some still died after very few hours. I only think they'd be useful running at about 50mA. I won't be buying any more of them.