Date:         Wed, 24 Sep 2003 08:35:49 -0700
Reply-To:     laurasdog@WEIRDSTUFFWEMAKE.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Steve Delanty <laurasdog@WEIRDSTUFFWEMAKE.COM>
Subject:      Tail light stuffing
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

The stock tail lights on the Westy kind of give me
the creeps... they just aren't very bright and when it's
foggy out I worry about getting rear ended by some fool
who's not paying good attention....

Higher wattage bulbs aren't a good answer, because I
don't wanna melt my lenses. There's an empty spot
spot at the bottom center of the tail light assembly
that's just a reflector area, and there's a hole in the
assembly behind it where a bulb *could* go if there
was a socket in it. I thought about adding a socket
and bulb in this spot behind the reflector, but I was still
afraid of putting too much heat into the plastic tail light
housing.

I needed to order a big pile of LED's for another project,
so I figured I'd buy an extra big bag of super bright red
ones and fool around with putting some in the tail light
housing to pump up the visibility a bit.

I took a dremel tool and carefully cut out the black
plastic (with the empty bulb hole) that was behind the
reflector area at the lower center. Then I built a little
circuit board that just fit the rectangular hole I'd just
opened up and I put 24 LED's on the board in a 4 x 6
grid along with the appropriate resistors to set the LED
current at about 22mA. I also added 2 diodes (1N4005)
and another resistor in series with the entire LED cluster.
When I was done, I had 3 wires from my LED assembly.
One goes to ground, one goes to the tail light circuit and
one goes to the brake light circuit.
Sorta like this in ASCII....


Tail power----|>|-----v^v^v^v------+
                                           |
Brake power----------------|>|----+----v^v^v^v------ LED' -+
                                          +-----v^v^v^v------ LED' -+
                                          +-----v^v^v^v------ LED' -+
                                                                          |
                                                                    Ground


When the tail lights are on, current flows through 2
resistors in series, so the LEDS only get about 5 mA
of current and they are on at reduced brightness.
When the brake lights are on, current is only limited by
one resistor and the LED's are much brighter.

I assembled my little LED circuit boards into the tail
light housings with a few dots of well placed epoxy,
and gave it a try... Yippee!  It works, and gives a little
more light out the ass end!

Here's a photo showing the "new" tail lights in 3 different
modes. Tail lights only, brake lights only, and both on.
<http://www.weirdstuffwemake.com/automotive/vanagon/pics/misc/NewBusTailLights.jpg>

Now I need to find a high center mounted 3rd brake light
that looks decent and works nice in a vanagon...
Has anyone installed one of these that they like?

Cheers,

Steve
EJ22 -> '86 Westy "Escape Pod"