LED Tail Light How-To
LED Tail Light How-To
Helpful Links:
HiDPlanet.com - Forum with all kinds of information
Don Klipstein's LED Main Page - General information on LED's
LED center - Series/Parallel wizard, among other things
Easy PCB Fabrication - How to make your own printed circuit boards
ExpressPCB - Easy PCB design software
SuperFlux Data Sheet - SuperFlux LED specs
Outer Tail Light Template
Inner Tail Light Template (Correction: the 4.5" on the upper inner should be 5.5")
How-to:
1) First you need to design a template for the size of your circuit boards. You can open up your tail lights by using a heat gun or baking them in the oven. To bake them pre-heat your oven to 300*, turn it off, and put your lights in on a cookie sheet or piece of cardboard for 10 minutes. I am not responsible if you ruin your tails or burn your house down. You should be able to pry the lens off the housing. Be careful not to make a mess and/or brake the lens. If you have a '97-'99 Maxima and need to keep your tail lights on your car while you work on this project I uploaded my templates to Photobucket (see links). Keep in mind they are how i wanted the boards to fit, you may desire something different.
2) If you do not have fairly good electrical knowledge (amps, volts, ohms, series/parallel, etc.) now would be the time to do some studying.
3) Decide exactly which LED's (I recommend Lumileds SuperFlux) you are going to use and whether or not you are going to regulate the voltage. If you are going to use the car's voltage unregulated, it is usually around 13.6v.
4) Design your array. I used the series/parallel wizard (see links) and LED spec sheet to help with this.
5) Decide what type of circuit board you are going to use. You can use standard circuit board or you can make your own printed circuit board (or PCB, see links). If you want to make your own PCB there are a few free design programs on the web. I chose to use ExpressPCB (see links). I am now using PCB Artist but I still recommend ExpressPCB for the beginner.
6) Design your board and assemble your board. Make sure to pay attention to the polarity of the components.
7) Now you must mount your boards. I chose to mount them by trimming the stock reflector and using clear RTV silicone.
(8) Install into the housing and seal her back up. I used a heat gun to reheat the OEM sealant but you could use the oven or add more probably.
HiDPlanet.com - Forum with all kinds of information
Don Klipstein's LED Main Page - General information on LED's
LED center - Series/Parallel wizard, among other things
Easy PCB Fabrication - How to make your own printed circuit boards
ExpressPCB - Easy PCB design software
SuperFlux Data Sheet - SuperFlux LED specs
Outer Tail Light Template
Inner Tail Light Template (Correction: the 4.5" on the upper inner should be 5.5")
How-to:
1) First you need to design a template for the size of your circuit boards. You can open up your tail lights by using a heat gun or baking them in the oven. To bake them pre-heat your oven to 300*, turn it off, and put your lights in on a cookie sheet or piece of cardboard for 10 minutes. I am not responsible if you ruin your tails or burn your house down. You should be able to pry the lens off the housing. Be careful not to make a mess and/or brake the lens. If you have a '97-'99 Maxima and need to keep your tail lights on your car while you work on this project I uploaded my templates to Photobucket (see links). Keep in mind they are how i wanted the boards to fit, you may desire something different.
2) If you do not have fairly good electrical knowledge (amps, volts, ohms, series/parallel, etc.) now would be the time to do some studying.
3) Decide exactly which LED's (I recommend Lumileds SuperFlux) you are going to use and whether or not you are going to regulate the voltage. If you are going to use the car's voltage unregulated, it is usually around 13.6v.
4) Design your array. I used the series/parallel wizard (see links) and LED spec sheet to help with this.
5) Decide what type of circuit board you are going to use. You can use standard circuit board or you can make your own printed circuit board (or PCB, see links). If you want to make your own PCB there are a few free design programs on the web. I chose to use ExpressPCB (see links). I am now using PCB Artist but I still recommend ExpressPCB for the beginner.
6) Design your board and assemble your board. Make sure to pay attention to the polarity of the components.
7) Now you must mount your boards. I chose to mount them by trimming the stock reflector and using clear RTV silicone.
(8) Install into the housing and seal her back up. I used a heat gun to reheat the OEM sealant but you could use the oven or add more probably.
Last edited by BLACKonBLACK98; Feb 6, 2008 at 10:49 AM.
they will definitely be for sale, i am just logging my build a little for the guys who prefer to do their own. i will be assembling the boards this upcoming week. after that, i will just be waiting for the a32 specific voltage regulator/pwm to be finished up and i'll be taking orders. maybe someday i'll be a big seller, but for now i'm just a little guy.
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