When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
About 2 years ago the LED's on the parking/brake lights of my EZ Koncepts LED tails started to burn out so they were like 3-4 in each ring that were out, eventually the lower ring started to flicker and would go completely dim at times. I was about to hand over the car to my 16 year old son and figured for safety reasons I would put back the stock tails on the car..Of course he was not happy as he loved the look them.
So after a year of my son bugging me to fixing the burnt out LED's on the Ruby Red LED tails I finally decided to take on the task so figured I would do I small write up for those of you out there that have the same problems with burnt out LEDs and with no New replacements available as I think EZ Koncepts have gone out of business or are no longer making them and the ones selling on Ebay are over priced.
Not knowing what type of LED they used I dissembled them to see and then did a search on my preferred websites Digikey and Mouser..I was able to find a similar foot print LED that I thought would meet the specs from Digikey and ordered some, they are .32c per LED, I decided to order 100 as each tail assembly uses 30 LED's (22 for the Brake lights and 8 for Turn signals) in case I decided to replace them all which I ended up doing as the ones I ordered were slightly brighter than the factory ones.
Step 1. Bake Tail lights to loosen up the adhesive on the lens. I decided to use the Temperature Chamber at work instead of the Oven at home (my wife would have killed me) plus I have heard all sorts of stories of temperature flare up with the heating elements in the oven causing headlights/tail lights to melt. I set the Temp Chamber to 100 C (212 F), once it got up to temp I placed the tail light in for 15mins but the adhesive was not loose enough so put them back in for another 15 mins, so I think 30 mins would be the perfect amount of time.
Step 2. Using a metal spatula carefully pry open the lens.
Step 3. On the back side of the tail lights you will see I think 4-5 globs of grey silicone adhesive, this is covering up the screws that you will need to remove to separate the back half from the actually light assembly. I used a xacto knife to pick away at the adhesive while it was still soft but a small flat head will also do the job.
Step 4. I then connected the light assembly to a DC power supply to verify which LED's were burnt out. but ended up replacing all 22 on the Brake Lights as the new LED's were a bit brighter as mentioned above. I did not change any of the Turn Signals. **Caution the LED's are very bright and protective IR glasses should be worn when looking at the LED's***
The Tails run off 12V and draw ~600mA. As to not burn my eyes I lowered the supply voltage down to about 7-8V so I could view them directly to see which were completely burnt out and the ones that were dim
Step 5. They are 3 screws holding each of the 2 Brake Light LED circuit rings to the housing. Remove these to get access for replacement of the LED's. Not to worry as there is a notch on each of the rings so you wont make a mistake when placing the rings back.
Step 6. The easiest way to remove the old LED's is to cut the legs from the existing LED and then use the soldering iron to heat up and remove the left over legs in the circuit board, then using solder sucker and soldering iron to heat up the pads and remove any existing solder so that the hole is now open.
Step 7. Insert the new LED remembering the polarity of the old LED you removed, the LED's have a notch indicating the polarity and so does the circuit board, but I did them one by one just to be careful and not make a mistake. Solder each LED.
Step 8. Connect the LED Ring assembly to the power supply and verify all are working.
Step 9. Connected the assembly back into the housing and re-assembled.
Step 10. Place the Lens cover back in place and with some clamps holding it, place the entire assembly back in the oven at the same 100C (212F) for 30 mins. I did not remove any of the old adhesive, just re heated and then removed and let it cool and harden again.
So far the have been back on the car for about a month and with the rain and humidity of South Florida there have been no issues with leaking or condensation build up in the tails. The Left side is the tail I replaced LED's and right side is with the Original LEDs
07-19-2019, 10:32 AM
