Thoughts on LED Tail Light Designs?
 

My neighbor picked up a 2010 (I think) TSX for his wife and was asking me about LED tail lights for the car. He's a woodworker and I sort of owe him since he's made a few things for me.

He hasn't really given me any direction except that he wants bright reverse lights. I'm thinking a few power LED's will take care of that and it would look stock behind the fluted lens. Does anyone know where to get replacement reverse lights? Several places carry the outer tail light/turn signal housing. The inner reverse light/reflector has been much more difficult to source. An aftermarket replacement is preferred to keep cost down.

For this LED conversion, the turn signals are the biggest problem. The shape of the reflector and the lens doesn't allow for many options. Maybe one PCB facing rearward and a smaller one facing out to the side? Then pack them full of tiny 1206 package LED's, or if heat doesn't become an issue, we can possibly use the larger and brighter PLCC-4 style.

The parking light and brake light will be pretty straight forward. A dual brightness circle or series of rings is about the only thing that looks correct for this car.

These are a few that I've animated to show the brake light function. The parking light would be a dim version of the same brake light design, OR the parking light can be completely different than the brake light. In other words, it can be a combination of any two.

http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/a...Animation3.gif

http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/a...Animation4.gif

This one is sequential. It's not something I've seen on the road before, which could be a bad thing if it draws unwanted attention. It would actually sequence a little faster than this example.
http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/a...Animation2.gif

That's what I've come up with so far. I'd like to hear the thoughts of other 2G TSX owners. :thumbsup:

Heres an enormous thread with information, pictures, animated gifs, and empty promises:

https://acurazine.com/forums/2g-tsx-2009-2014-143/custom-led-tails-09-10-a-806907/

preview:
Attachment 116035

there's been SO MUCH interest in LED tails...i know that i'd pay for some if it were to ever come to fruition. there's been at least 2 different times when someone said they would undertake a project for LED tails and that fizzled out quick. there are other mock ups of led designs...lemme try to dig them up for you. if you can make this happen, you'll be the forum hero for ages.

damn it...killerg ninja'd me...

everyone talks alot of shit so I think it might be faster for me to go back to college and become an electrician and do it myself

:shrug:

kinda like OP's 3rd design

I have pretty much no experience messing with electrical stuff in cars until now, and I've learned a lot about it in the past month or so. I can help you if you want to know the basics about wiring together LED's. There's only a couple rules to follow. I learned a lot by googling and reading articles.

After I finish my LED bumper reflectors, I might start messing with the tail lights. The reflectors are proving to be more work than I thought, dealing with what pattern to make the LEDs and how to seal back up the reflector. The taillights would be way more work having to dremel the housing open and containing everything in the taillight so it doesnt look like crap.

I would pay for any of those designs! I like all of them, please go through with this and dont flake out!

sidenote...good call mocking it up on a Vortex Blue TSX ;)

I've recently had to learn a whole bunch of electrician stuff for a project i got coming up...;)

Anyway, i'd dish out cash for LED tails either. What are the odds you'll make them for your neighbor AND a couple for a group buy?

Thanks for the offer, and,

yeah, ill reach out for help If i get a chance to tackle this project, my big limiting factor right now is time so I wouldnt get to try this till deep summer at best :tomato:

Theres alot of demand for this product though, especially with all our new members.

Even if someone takes the initiative and reaches out to some random vendors someone might take up this project. I know someone tried before, and the vendors fizzled out, but keep the fire going guys!

Thanks for the link. It's been a while since I posted on here but remember someone flaking a while back. I'll definitely finish one set of tails. There's no question about that, and this shouldn't be a difficult retro to complete. There's not much there since the reflectors are quite small.

Let me figure out what is required to sell things on this forum. I don't want to break any rules and a couple sets of tails per month isn't problem.

So you guys think just an outer ring is good enough? ...or an outer ring with a solid circle in the middle? That animated gif doesn't seem to be working for me.

I checked Sylvania's bulb replacement guide and it looks like the TSX uses a 7443 dual brightness bulb. 38 lumen for the parking light and 440 lumen for the brake. With just an outer ring, we'll need mid or high power LED's to reach that kind of intensity. It's certainly doable though.

Dimming will be controlled with a PWM and will have the same flicker effect that OEM's have. Also, these tails will be fully regulated with constant voltage and constant current. So there's not fear of thermal runaway and burnt out LED's. Even in the hottest climate.

You have our blessings!

try clicking this link: https://i.imgur.com/wA2Nw.gif

Worry about selling and vending later B)


I like the sequential unit, but also a solid outer ring + circular innard wouldnt be bad either!

I like the idea of having a ring...then when you press the brake light the whole thing lights up like your first picture...just my two cents

Blazen Si, if you actually come through with this, FORUM HERO STATUS. You'll be almost as amazing as that girl in your avi looks!

The first gif would need a ton of LEDs. Wiring over 100 together like that would be a nightmare. Unless you want to be professional and print a custom circuit on the board, but that is wayyyyy too much work unless you wanted to mass produce a bunch.

As the resident spoilsport, I feel obligated to mention that the manufacture and sale of these would be in violation of Federal law carrying a penalty of $1500 for each unit - the Feds periodically go on a bender and go after vendors large and small - just look at the "recalls" section on the safercar.gov website and search for 2003 Honda Civic (or a 99 Lexus RX - or a multitude of other cars) to see the magnitude of the recalls.

In order to be able to legally sell these, you'll have to certify that your lighting unit complies with FMVSS 108 - and you don't have the resources for that.

FWIW, the second looks closest to OE and thus less aftermarket. The third, by definition, violates the regulation.

Cool, now that I'm on my home computer I can see the animated gif.

I'll be ordering the one tail light this week to open up and see what we're working with. Does anyone know where to get the reverse light/reflector housing?

In the mean time we can shoot some more ideas around and settle on a design or two.

That's a good point. I forgot to mention that the examples in the first post were just rough ideas and the LED's would need to be spaced a little further apart. The boards will be custom etched double sided PCB's to save room. The spacing between the LED's will depend on which one is chosen and how hard it is driven. I have a few LED's in mind which would make for a happy medium.

Yep, well aware of the risks.

*to conform with federal & state/local laws, tail lights are intended for show, competition, and off-road use only...

Lets not worry about the legality and whatnot, design :D

Go through that thread if you can theres alot more images there
Also, if you search for LED tail lights there are alot of russian designs you can look at that

aw yeah, fancy fancy!

Totally and absolutely incorrect. The law does not recognize the term "off road" "show" or "competition."

If a product can fit on a street legal car then it must comply with all regulations.

I live this crap every day and I've forgotten more about lighting regulations than this entire forum will ever know.

There is no legal aftermarket solution. That said, there are products out there that meet the luminosity and other requirements. However, most of them have some sort of pretty serious drawbacks - either construction quality, durability or color and all those need to be addressed to build a decent product if a project like this is to succeed.

Im ok with breaking the law if it makes my car look 1% cooler

Ive been thinking about taking my lights to the auto body shop and having them paintmatched grigio metallic for that clean look

You won't have to clear your corners if you get your headlights paintmatched as well :thumbsup:

One problem with lighting is that people don't understand the laws and - for example - don't know the history behind sidemarkers and many think that 'off road use' is an "out" for bypassing the laws.

In addition, people generally don't understand that these are Federal laws that the states cannot waive, but they can selectively enforce them, meaning that while you are required to have sidemarkers lights in every states, some states (PA for example) enforces the law during periodic inspection, while Others don't.

This is the reason why you need to know the law and your local enforcement thereof before you decide to break it. Just because a guy in Kansas has no problems with sidemarkers doesn't mean that it works in PARIS - it doesn't.

This was also the reason for suggesting the second version - if something appears stock then it is less likely to garner attention and be questioned.

would that include clearing out the ambers in your headlights? you pussied out last time...

but it was a blessing in disguise as the accident would've rendered that service completely useless...i should thank you. but i refuse

I Agree ceb, they should look stock and would ideally fit in well with the car as if they were sold as an OEM option, as far as legality goes, yes, everyone here should be familiar with their states own laws, ive looked up mine I know :thumbsup:

@blazin, Ive seen some DIYs before, but it sounds like you know what you are doing, so let me know if you need any links to some of the DIYs ive stumbled upon

+1 To that....looking for a stock look, not aftermarkety...(Ya i just made that word up) Look forward to seeing what you do

I kinda agree with CEB on this one, as i almost rear ended someone yesterday in the rain because their shitty eBay taillights on their "pimped out" tahoe were not strong enough to let there be a noticeble difference in their BRAKE light and their TAILLIGHT. not so well in the rain.

So, SI, if you do this, make it quality and make sure they're HELLA bright! :thumbsup:

Y'all know ive traditionally been against blacking out tail lights.

On the bright side, if you hit the guy with blacked out tails, it would have likely been his fault because of that stupidity on his part. Seen a thread like it on driveanaccord.net, lulz were had

But it would be an uphill battle. Once you prevailed, it is most likely that his insurance company would deny coverage for his portion of the clam and he would end up paying to repair his own damage - another unintended consequence of a "cool" mod that wasn't properly thought through.

I found LED tails are nice for aesthetics but don't produce enough light, even if clustered together to be viable. I did however find reverse LED lights to work perfectly, especially when lighting the scene for the backup camera.

Do you have a federal or state statute to back this up? I'm curious because off-road lightning is 100% illegal on a vehicle but only if turned on, so how is a police officer or NHTSA suppose to know the difference?

Matt

matt, they're talking about completely replacing the inside of the taillight with LEDs not just replacing the bulb. I think the reason for you thinking it doesn't produce enough light is cuz if you replace the stock bulb with an LED bulb, it doesn't have as much light output as a reg bulb cuz the housing is made for halogen bulbs. if you completely gut the tail light and create an entire matrix of your own LED bulbs soldered into a circuit board, it's going to be way brighter than halogen. Like how the Infiniti G37/M series tails look...those are LEDs and they're bright.

After reading through that old thread once again I put together some more examples. It sounds like most had agreed on having an outer ring with the LED's spaced a little further apart which would function as the parking light. Then the middle would be more solid and act as the brake light.

This first one has the inner circle and outer ring together functioning as the parking light. When the brakes are applied, only the inner circle becomes brighter (dual brightness).

http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/a...Animation5.gif

In this second example only the outer ring is the parking light and only the inner circle is the brake light.

http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/a...Animation6.gif

Thanks. I already have the finalized circuit drawn up and tested, and it's been in my tail lights for the past several months. It's most likely the one I'd use on the TSX. If you know of another reliable circuit, I'm willing to try it out.

Will do. :)

I wasn't thinking of an LED bulb, but a custom setup. However i'm interested to see how this turns out, i'd be down if it works well.

Matt

What do you propose to use as taillights and what happens to the existing blinkers?

are you going to do anything for the turn signals also then? and i believe there's another smaller sidemarker bulb in the tails. off the side of the signal no? yea i just checked...it's a 168 bulb for the rear sidemarker.

my mistake then. i just remember people saying that when they replaced the brake bulbs with LED's it wasn't as visible. :thumbsup:

One other brake/tail design that I didn't have time to animate was to make both the outer ring and inner circle dual brightness.

I won't know what to do with the turn signals until I have one of the tail lights opened up. Same with the corner lights. It's hard to tell what's in there from the outside. I'll place an order tomorrow and hopefully the tail light will arrive next week.

one light at a time guys!

I think option 2 is best, center lighting up only with brake light

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...MG_1264-P2.jpg

^ +1 on option 2