Date:         Mon, 22 Dec 2003 07:14:28 -0800
Reply-To:     laurasdog@WEIRDSTUFFWEMAKE.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Steve Delanty <laurasdog@WEIRDSTUFFWEMAKE.COM>
Subject:      LED tail lights (was Skylight Arm)
In-Reply-To:  <3FE6E92E.6000701@fyi.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 04:53 AM 12/22/2003, Eric wrote:
>What's the deal with these?
>http://www.weirdstuffwemake.com/automotive/vanagon/pics/misc/NewBusTailLights.jpg
>  What/where did you get these?



Errrrr... those?
Actually, they are a hack job I performed one boring afternoon.
I stuffed about 2 dozen bright red LED's into each housing to
help brighten things up a bit. It does, too...

Here's the original post I made to the group when I did it:
Steve

----------------------
>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"