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- 149
Some years ago I put together a full-custom taillight circuit assembly using about 30 Cree LEDs, and it was completely awesome but it was fairly impractical to build. I brought it down to either the 2014 SUNI or the TU event the year after, so some people may remember it.
More recently I did a bit of searching on the Interwebs and found circular chip-on-board (COB) LED rings, with an outer diameter of 50 mm and inner of 41 mm. As it happens, that is a close match for the perimeter of the light sockets that we have on our taillights. I machined up some mounting flanges that supported the ring on one side, and were sized to slide into the taillight recess on the other.
I used a couple of pieces of electrical tape to provide some friction and also to guarantee the wires would not short on the taillight housing. I had to drill a 3/8 inch hole in the housing to route the wires to the conveniently located hole in the body.
The lens gasket needs to be opened up about 1/8 inch around the perimeter.
When the lenses are installed the LED ring is basically invisible.
The wiring is straightforward - one side gets a 5/16 ring lug so it can attach to ground, and I made a male-female spade lug tee so that I could intercept the brake light connection at the bottom bulb.
It's just possible to access everything without removing the trunk trim panels. I taped the new wires to the existing harness so that the current limiting circuit would not jostle around. And yes, my Tiger was painted by someone that did not remove any of the rear wiring harness...
Testing... the pictures don't really do the effect justice but overall it looks pretty good considering the simplicity of the installation. The turn signal will flash through the inside of the top ring, and the taillight will still illuminate through the bottom ring.
In a future upgrade I can put in a two-step current regulator so that the rings can also be used at about 1/4 peak brightness for a taillight function. That would roughly match the brightness ratio of the standard 1157 bulb (8 and 23 watts for tail and brake lights respectively).
More recently I did a bit of searching on the Interwebs and found circular chip-on-board (COB) LED rings, with an outer diameter of 50 mm and inner of 41 mm. As it happens, that is a close match for the perimeter of the light sockets that we have on our taillights. I machined up some mounting flanges that supported the ring on one side, and were sized to slide into the taillight recess on the other.
I used a couple of pieces of electrical tape to provide some friction and also to guarantee the wires would not short on the taillight housing. I had to drill a 3/8 inch hole in the housing to route the wires to the conveniently located hole in the body.
The lens gasket needs to be opened up about 1/8 inch around the perimeter.
When the lenses are installed the LED ring is basically invisible.
The wiring is straightforward - one side gets a 5/16 ring lug so it can attach to ground, and I made a male-female spade lug tee so that I could intercept the brake light connection at the bottom bulb.
It's just possible to access everything without removing the trunk trim panels. I taped the new wires to the existing harness so that the current limiting circuit would not jostle around. And yes, my Tiger was painted by someone that did not remove any of the rear wiring harness...
Testing... the pictures don't really do the effect justice but overall it looks pretty good considering the simplicity of the installation. The turn signal will flash through the inside of the top ring, and the taillight will still illuminate through the bottom ring.
In a future upgrade I can put in a two-step current regulator so that the rings can also be used at about 1/4 peak brightness for a taillight function. That would roughly match the brightness ratio of the standard 1157 bulb (8 and 23 watts for tail and brake lights respectively).