I know many of us have beat this dead horse...

but,

I saw that autolumination has a 270 degree LED design that may alleviate the "directional" light problem with LED's in a non-LED designed tail light system. This design provides rear/side facing LED's to reflect light, other than forward facing, making the entire tail light to light up (theoretically, of course)--by relfecting off the shiny material inside the assembly.

http://autolumination.com/matrix.htm

Anyone tries these out?

JS

 

that site was just confusing i couldn't find anything......maybe it's too early in the morning....

would it look like for ex, a BMW 745 or a caddy does?....with each LED visible?....or would it "just light up the assembly and therefore emit light"......dunno...i'm confused.


i did however make a thread about this a few months ago, i wanted LEDs in the back too.

 

Shawn,

Basically, LED's are directional... so, what this guy did was setup some side-facing LED's so they'd reflect on the inside of the assembly--hopefully, lighting the whole thing up instead of having a few LED's pointing straight back.

I ordered some, so I'll shoot some pics when it's all done.

The only thing I'm concerned about--that I have heard--are having to put additional load components so that your "lamp-out" on the dashboard won't light up.

JS

 

one thing I've heard about these LED bulbs is that the light output is weak and not very visible during daytime. A "proper" LED tail conversion will require the entire housing to be stuffed with bright LEDs to make up for the brightness

 

Tatewaki--I've heard that same... however, hoping that 14-15 LED's vs. 8-9 will make a difference + the rear/side-facing LED's too.

 

I have both the 1156 12-LED and 1156 the 24-LED matrix from autolumination. During the day, you still need to be careful when changing lanes because the matrix bulb isn't bright enough. At night, the red LEDs are great because the red matches the brake light really well.

I guess my recommendation is, if you're driving around a lot in bumper-to-bumper traffic where you have to signal and the other driver has to see you and let you in, then stick with regular bulbs. If you just change lanes without heavy traffic and drive a lot at night, go with the LEDs. Just be aware that they aren't that bright even with the matrix ones.

Like Tatewaki said, if you want to do a real LED conversion - a la G35, 3rd Gen TL - you need to mod the housing and stick LEDs in and distribute them throughout the lens. This guy with a maxima did it, and it's amazing:

http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/212763

 

When you mean signal to let you in, do you mean conversion for the turn signals or just braking with tail lights, etc?

I live in Washington, DC metro area and in traffic a lot. Can I just change the brake lights or are they too dim too?

Thanks for the info!

 

yeah man, shoot some pics for us when you get them in....i'd be ALL FOR an LED mod to have them ALL POINTING out like we see on the cars. keep us posted. -shawn

 

Oh "signaling to let you in" is when I change lanes in traffic with the turn signals. I just sit there and turn on the blinker and inch over waiting for someone to let you in. Because the LEDs are dimmer, I sometimes I get honked at cuz other cars think I cut them off without signaling. So now I'm just more aggressive and cut over when I see spaces.

With any application, the LEDs are "too dim." The problem with LEDs are that they project their light in one direction. Stock incandescent bulbs produce fairly even light in all directions. The LEDs project light outward and don't project any light into the reflector - hence the light appears as a spot where the LED is sitting in the socket and the rest of the lens where the reflector is at has no light.

As for brake lights, I wouldn't recommend it cuz they're too dim. Most people change their turn signals because the 02-03 lens are clear. So you won't get that orange look from the reflector reflecting the orange bulb. Using red LEDs for the turn signals match the red taillights really well at night, but are dim during the day.

 

I guess, I was hoping that these 270 degree LED's would provide the rear-facing light toward the reflectors and light up more of the brake light housing--making up for the "forward-facing only" type LED's... make sense?

Hmm, well, I ordered them on Sunday, so I'll snap pictures. If they suck, maybe I'll try them in my wife's 04 Highlander...

 

I think his pictures are deceptivce. With the matrix bulb, there are 18 LEDs facing outward at 45 degrees. The remaining 6 side facing LEDs do face sideways but those are distributed so they face sideways 360 degrees so it's still not that many putting light into the reflector.

If you ordered them, just give em a try. I like them. I think the TL's rear turn signals are actually better at reflecting light into the reflector since they have those diffusers inside the lens.

Also be aware you need those "load equalizing" resistors. The stock turn signal pulls 25 watts, but the LEDs pull significantly less (I think less than 1 watt). To prevent the car from thinking the bulb is out (the turn signal will blink very fast - "hyperblinking), you need to install the load equalizer. Autolumination will send you something about that. Or you can go to Fry's or Radio Shack and make your own using the same 680-ohm/25-Watt resistor.

 

If you want your taillights to look anything like a G35, 3rd Gen TL, Caddy, etc, you need to do some custom work filling out the entire lamp, not just a simple plug in bulb. The guy in the link did a DAMN nice job in doing this.

 

Got this from autoillumination:

"More details on load equalizers can be found here:

http://autolumination.com/installation.html


Here are the bulbs for your vehicle (2k2 3.2 TL-S):

Rear turn signal
1156

Tail light
7443

Stop light
7443

High mount stop light
7440"