LED brake light upgrade.

by **cruisn** » Thu May 31, 2012 7:54 pm

Something Ive been meaning to do for a while, upgrade my rear high mount brakelight to LED.

Plug in LED's in place of the oem bulbs dont cut it due to not enough light spread and it looks shit.

Custom FTW.

PCB (printed circuit board), 20 super bright red LEDS and a little electronic know how. :wink:

Im running them in 4 banks of 5 LED's in parrallel (5 LEDS left to fit, Jaycar ran out), each LED needs 2.1V for optimum output. 5 x 2.1 = 10.5V. Average car ouput when running is 13.8V. To take care of the extra 3.3V, a 110 Ohm resistor on the end of each bank is fitted in series so they run at optimum level and maximum life.

Theyre bright.

OEM 4 bulb setup...

New LED setup... (one bank left to solder in)

Mounted with test leads...

Yep, theyre bright....

by **SegR** » Thu May 31, 2012 8:12 pm

Mark, you are a master of practicality and awesome.

What the bloody hell kind of bench power supply do you have yourself there?!

by **Smithyy** » Thu May 31, 2012 8:19 pm

Looks great!

by **cruisn** » Thu May 31, 2012 8:21 pm

Cheers guys.

Test bench is at work.....

3 phase 415V plus variable AC and DC supplies.

by **zch91** » Thu May 31, 2012 8:22 pm

Epic amounts of awesomeness.

by **rooby** » Thu May 31, 2012 8:28 pm

That's awesome.
Shame about the end with no lights though.
Editing out retardedness

by **zch91** » Thu May 31, 2012 8:31 pm

I was thinking the same thing for a second there Rooby!

Don't fret Mark would never do something like that

Im running them in 4 banks of 5 LED's in parrallel (5 LEDS left to fit, Jaycar ran out),

by **cruisn** » Thu May 31, 2012 8:32 pm

rooby wrote:That's awesome.
Shame about the end with no lights though.

Shame about Jaycar not having 20 LED's on stock.....

Finished on Tuesday "alledgedly" when LED's arrive....

by **Ric** » Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:35 am

cruisn wrote: To take care of the extra 3.3V, a 110 Ohm resistor on the end of each bank is fitted in series so they run at optimum level and maximum life.

You really should be looking at current rather than voltage.

It looks like you've set it up to run 30mA at 13.8V.

This 37 cent chip and one resistor can give you a regulated 30mA for all voltages down to 11.9V (i.e. 1.4V above your expected LED voltage)
http://au.element14.com/infineon/bcr402 ... dp/1791063

by **LOWLIB** » Sun Jun 03, 2012 5:29 pm

mark once again a great set up..

do you reckon you will be producing any of these for other members to purchase??

because if you do i shot gun the first set.

by **cruisn** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 3:52 pm

Ric wrote:It looks like you've set it up to run 30mA at 13.8V.

Yes I have. Works nicely and theres hardly any discernable light output drop with a voltage down to 12V. Not that it is a concern as brake lights are generally required when the car is running which will always be around the 13.8V mark. :wink:

LOWLIB wrote:mark once again a great set up..

do you reckon you will be producing any of these for other members to purchase??

because if you do i shot gun the first set.

Ahh, no. Another person has asked me for the schematic which I will do if you want a copy.

by **Ric** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 4:40 pm

If there was enough interest, I could get it made up as a professional PCB pretty easily.
Would the same board be usable across a few different models, or are they all different?

by **cruisn** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 5:34 pm

I really dont know. I made this to fit inside the Gen2 brake light surround. Depends on the shape of the other models high mount brake light.

by **Ric** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 5:44 pm

Could you sketch up the dimensions of yours, so some people with later models can compare?

by **SH30RB** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 5:45 pm

i always thought the high mount brake lights on the wagon were LED's

unless they are a small enought globe they dont have a long process to light up