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LED Tail Light Retrofit 2, Page Updated July 27, 2008

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Project Started In June, 2008

So, after I was ticketed for having white turn signals in the rear (my only ticket, for $50), I decided to make new tail lights. This time, I would not break the lenses in half and use Epoxy that would yellow everywhere. I would do a professional job this time. I wanted pretty much the same LED tails, but better-looking. So, I got me another pair of the leaky APC tail lights and started over.

Step 1 was to realize how I wanted to set up everything. I'm going to have red rings in each red light again as the parking light, but it will get brighter as the brake light, and the middle of the ring will light up with the brake light as well. For the turn signal, I'm going to put orange LEDs firing into the reflectors. The back up light will be white LEDs facing out where the light is normally. I'm going to leave the red circles/reflectors in place, but I'm not sure how I will have a red reflector on the side yet. I'll either do a circle in the middle or little horizontal strips of reflectors. Maybe I won't have any red on the side. I'm not sure how the red side light will work yet. Oh yeah, I'll also have red LED daytime running lights, kind of like rear fog lights in Europe. But, the design is still up in the air, because I'm not sure if I want chrome or black lights yet. If I left them chrome, I they would look like they do now in the first picture above, but I would paint the edges black like I did on my past lights.

Step 2 is to get the lens off. This was hard for me get started on, because I know how easy it is to break the lens, since I broke them in half last time and really screwed it up. In other words, do not use a hair dryer to heat up and soften the glue, but put them in the oven!

Ok, so I finally decided to go for it. Some lights cannot be baked open because they are plastic-welded shut, but this applies to stock lights in some cases. After market lights are probably going to have a bead of caulk-like glue around the lens to hold it in and keep the water out. It is gray. These lights have the glue, so you just heat it up, and the lens comes off. So, I put the lights on a baking tray and got my knife and glove ready for when I took the lights back out.

At first, I preheated the oven to 250 degrees and put the lights in the oven for 10 minutes. The glue was still too stiff, so I preheated the oven to 300 and put the lights in there for 20 minutes. Make sure to preheat the oven and turn it off before the lights go in. Once it warms up, turn off the oven and put the baking sheet in (make sure the lights do not touch any parts of the oven or they will melt). Unfortunately, 300 degrees was just too hot, because the chrome turned a little cloudy on one light, and the lens actually warped when I pulled it off later.

Once the lights are in the oven, just leave them there in the residual heat for MORE THAN 15 MINUTES. Basically, the heat has to penetrate all of the way through the glue to soften it up. Just heating the outside won't help.

OK, so I pulled the first light out after about 10 minutes. The metal on the light is very hot, and the plastic is, too. I used the knife/screwdriver to start pulling the light apart. But, the glue was not soft enough, and I broke the lens on the edges some. So, I have to paint the edges black anyway. So, I left the other light in there for a while longer, and when I took it out, the lens came right off! It was soooo easy. So, I recommend leaving the lights in there as long as possible. The longer they stay in there, the easier it will be and the less you'll break the lens.

But, you have to be careful while you take the lens off, because the gray glue becomes like chewed bubble gum or melted cheese. It is very stringy, and if it gets on anything (chrome or lens), it will NOT COME OFF. I made this mistake the first time, so just make sure to separate the strings one at a time so that they don't get on anything. You'll end up with the light and lens separated and perfect.

Here is everything separated. Unfortunately, when I was separating the first light, the screw driver broke through part of the lens and scraped the side of the light (it isn't easy to see in the picture). So, I guess I'll need new lights. Fortunately, the lens broke in a place where there are two layers of lenses, and it went through the layer underneath. So, I'd say I did a good job considering it was my first time using the oven. But, I could do it perfectly next time (muhaha). I'll get some new lights and try again.

I don't have many pictures of the baking process, so if you need more help, do a quick search on it. But, I recommend preheating the oven to 200-250 degrees, turning it off, and letting the lights sit in there for 15 to 20 minutes. HIDplanet.com is the place to go if you are interested in retrofitting LEDs or projectors or HID!

By the way, if water gets in your lights, it could be disastrous. See how all of the chrome in one of the lights is black? I have no idea how that happened, but I know that I was drying the water out of the light when it formed. I don't care, since I'll have LEDs over it, anyway, but just as a warning to all of you! Although this has never happened to any of my other lights before, including the first set I had just like these. Also, you can see how the lens on the driver's side light is warped on the bottom (notice how the lines in the light bend up and then back down).

This is as far as I've gotten so far. I tried the lights on the car without bulbs or anything (I just put the lens on a little to see how it would look). Here are some pictures just because.

Ignore the black spots where the bulbs go and the black reflectors. How do you think I should make the lights look???????

So, the next step is to start putting the LEDs together and to get a new set of lights (but I haven't found one yet).

I'm going to re-write all of this stuff ^^^^ when I get my next tail lights and take some new pics.

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OK, so even though I still don't have a good pair of tail lights yet, I started making the components for the lights. And, I've decided to make my tail lights look like this:

Some preliminary stuff, I've got most of the things I'll need, lots of LEDs, electrical parts, etc.

Here are the LEDs I'm using. The red Lego bin is red-orange LEDs (NOT red, the red ones aren't as bright), the yellow Lego bin is yellow LEDs, and the bag is white LEDs. The red-orange and yellow LEDs are genuine Lumiled Superflux LEDs. NOT the cheap Ebay imitations I've been using. The difference? The Ebay superflux are only 20 mA while the Lumiled superflux are 70 mA. So, the Lumileds are 3.5 times brighter! And, the Lumileds are much higher quality and can be found in many car's stock LED lights. I got them from Azdave on HIDplanet.com, so contact him if you want these LEDs. You can also find them on Ebay if you search for Lumileds. The yellow LEDs are the only bright ones I've found, the rest of the Ebay LEDs are pathetically dim. The white LEDs are not normal superflux, either, but they are the new 5-chip ones that run at 100 mA, so they are 5 times brighter than the old white superflux. I got them from the lvehk seller on Ebay, and these are well worth the money. They are very white with not much blue in them. So that takes care of the LEDs.

So, I bought some PCB DIY boards from this Ebay seller and they were very good quality. I decided to use real boards instead of cardboard like in the past for obvious reasons lol. To make them look nice, I covered the front side (not the side with the copper circles but with the white lines) with clear packing tape, and I sprayed the tape chrome. This way, all of the holes that I won't be using are covered up, and it is not the ugly brown color. Once the paint dried, I came up with the optimal arrangements of LEDs for each light.

The board on the top shows the LED array that I'll be using in the red circle lights. The outer most ring will be lit with the parking light (like in my first LED tail lights), and all of the LEDs will get bright for the brake light. There are 56 red LEDs in each circle, and each set of 4 LEDs will be wired in series, and all sets of 4 will be in parallel. I will not use any resistors on the boards, but after it is all wired up I will use 1 huge power resistor for each circuit (the resistance is less than 5 ohms in every case). The boards on the bottom are for the back up lights and turn signals.

Here are the red circle boards all ready to go.

For the back up lights, I have 6 parallel sets of 3 white LEDs in series. On the back of the board, you can see how easy it is to solder the LEDs together. You don't need any extra wire (like I did when I used cardboard). So, each LED takes 3.4 volts and 100 mA. Three of these in series is 10.2 volts and 100 mA. To calculate the resistance needed, go to this site: ledcalc.com. It is great! Once you are there, click on the parallel LEDs section, because we are going to calculate the resistance needed for the 6 groups of 3 LEDs. The supply voltage is 12 volts, the voltage drop across the LED is 10.6 (remember we have them in series), the desired LED current is 100 mA, and the number of LEDs connected is 6. This calculates a resistance of 3 ohms, which is nothing. But, I need 3 ohms or else. So, that is why I need huge power resistors that can handle all of the LEDs and only provide 3 ohms of resistance.

These are the turn signal components. They will sit in the light and fire to the sides, not out of the light like the back up lights. This way, the reflectors are utilized. I need to do this because the outer tail light lens has those ripples in it, which destroys the LED pattern if they face directly out of the lens. I wasn't concerned about the back up light since it is just that. So, according to the superflux data sheet pdf, these LEDs use 2.6 volts at 70 mA. So, 4 (not 3) of these in series is 10.4 volts at 70 mA. That is why I can use 4 of these in series because the total voltage does not exceed 12. So, you see 2 pairs of pieces in the picture. The larger ones shine facing towards the middle of the car, and the smaller ones face towards the outside. The larger ones have 7 rows of 4 LEDs, and the smaller ones have 5 rows or 4 LEDs. Therefore, I have 48 LEDs in each turn signal, so the resistance is 1.9 ohms.

Here are the pieces so far sitting in the light for clarification. The back up light faces out, but the turn signal LEDs face into the reflectors. I should probably make another LED board to sit in the dark spot to fire out and light it up more evenly.

You might have noticed that I was using only 12 volts as the supply voltage. But, car voltage is usually around 13-14 volts, but it can be a lot more or less. I needed some way to make sure that my LEDs always got 12 volts (so they wouldn't burn out like before).

So, I made some voltage regulators! I got all of the pieces from Azdave again. They are Sharp 12 volt regulators, heat sinks with thermal compound and screws, 3 amp diodes, and 0.33 capacitors. You can see how I wired them together. The electricity goes in through the diode, into the first leg of the regulator, and then the 12 volt signal goes out of the second leg. The capacitor connects the first and third (ground) legs to make it more accurate. The diode prevents negative/reverse current so that the electricity only flows one way through the LEDs. Reverse current happens when they turn on and off and it kills LEDs. Now, my LEDs will receive only 12 volts reliably, so they should work forever. I made 15 of these so I can protect all of my LEDs in the future.

This nifty device is called a Power Wave Modulator (PWM). Designed by Azdave (again), it is used to dim LEDs. It also serves as a voltage regulator, as you can see the 3 amp diodes and the voltage regulators (the capacitors are under the heat sinks). I'll use this on my red parking light rings so that they are dim until they get bright with the brakes. This thing dims the LEDs by flickering them. So, the high speed flicker causes the LEDs to appear dim when they really aren't. They are just on, off, on, off REALLY fast. The little blue rectangle in the middle with the knob/screw on the top adjusts the rate of flicker, so the more they flicker, the dimmer they are. I have another one of these controlling my front turn signals and side mirrors for the same effect. Unfortunately, Azdave stopped making these due to a low demand.

At this point, I'm waiting for the rest of my red-orange LEDs to come in so I can make the 4 circles. And, I need the tail lights lol. I'm also going to get the red tint/film for the upper half, and I still need to device some sort of red side light. But I'm getting there. I'm also going to put the red/orange LEDs in my spoiler brake light.

Stay tuned!

Quick Links

HIDplanet.com
White 5-chip LEDs (only the best)
ledcalc.com
Genuine Superflux data sheet PDF

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Don't forget that if you have any help, advice, comments, criticisms, or questions about my car and future mods, please sign my Guest book!

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Table of Contents

My Corolla Today
Page 1: Current Exterior
Page 2: Current Interior
Page 3: Current Engine
Page 4: Current Audio

Corolla Time Lines
Page 5: Phase Time Line
Page 6: Detailed Time Line

Other Stuff
Page 7: Photoshop
Page 8: Look at this page before you buy replacement LED bulbs
Page 9: Details on my current and future mods
Page 10: For Sale!

DIYs and Project Write-ups
Page 11: Bumper light LED retrofit 1
Page 12: Third Brake light LED retrofit
Page 13: Diablo Mirror LED replacement
Page 14: Taillight LED Retrofit 1
Page 15: High Beam DRL Mod
Page 16: Bumper Light LED Retrofit 2, PLUS detailed description of how I do LED mods
Page 17: Painting preparation (details on my fenders, grille, trunk, and Bondo)
Page 18: Side marker LED retrofit and installation
Page 19: HID fog lights and headlights
Page 20: Interior painting, modifications, and exterior trim painting
Page 21: Installing Halo/LED/Projector headlights
Page 22: Mirror cover LED replacement
Page 23: Installing a new stereo and speakers
Page 24: Body kit installation, front end conversion, and other body work for round 2
Page 25: Retrofitting LEDs into my third mirrors and front turn signals
Page 26: Putting interior LEDs behind the dash and in all the buttons and all over the interior
Page 27: LED tail light retrofit 2 and baking your lights in the oven to remove the lens