LED Upgrade to Rear Rectangular Lights

[trularin]

I work with LEDs all day and I am not going to follow behind Pat or some of you others.

Who has a rear light switch? What is that?

[strictlypersonl]

I'm intrigued. I'm thinking about using the top half of the rectangular light for the brake and parking light, and the bottom half (with amber LEDs) for the signal. That way, I could eliminate the tail-light relay. It's mostly a matter of being able to easily see both the brake and signal lights simultaneously.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by trularin

Who has a rear light switch? What is that?

I think that was from my post. What I meant was that I can turn my headlight toggle switch on to the first click and that just turns on my tail lights. If somebody is riding your tail in traffic, it will appear kind of like brake lights and they will ease off a bit.

[Excaliber]

I thought most all of us had a light switch like that? First click is tail/running lights, second click is that plus the headlights.

For a minute there I thought we were talking about a switch to kill the brake lights, for whatever reason a guy might need to kill the brake lights... Gumball Rally maybe?

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by Excaliber

I thought most all of us had a light switch like that?

Yes, I think just about all of us do. But that moron RodKnock has never turned on his headlight switch, so when I made the post he responded with something like "Huh, how do you do that?."

[Bobcat]

Ernie ... you asked why anyone would like to kill their brake lights ? I never did this , of course , however some of my friends that were involved with distributing alcohol ( running shine ) where I grew, up had their cars set up like that . Kinda confused the Feds during a chase .

Bob

[patrickt]

Ron's third brake light got me to thinking.... I have an extra license plate light fixture around here somewhere, I may just try drilling six holes through the front of it and then mounting six clear LEDs, in series, through those holes. Those LEDs would be RED and the superbright type. With a source voltage of 14.6v, and each diode having a diode forward voltage of 2.2v and a forward current of 20mA, an 80 ohm resistor would be all I needed and just feed it directly off the brake light switch. It would be hardly noticable when not lit, and would look something like this when you were on your brakes (although obviously much brighter):

[RodKnock]

Originally Posted by patrickt

Ron's third brake light got me to thinking.... I have an extra license plate light fixture around here somewhere, I may just try drilling six holes through the front of it and then mounting six clear LEDs, in series, through those holes. Those LEDs would be RED and the superbright type. With a source voltage of 14.6v, and each diode having a diode forward voltage of 2.2v and a forward current of 20mA, an 80 ohm resistor would be all I needed and just feed it directly off the brake light switch. It would be hardly noticable when not lit, and would look something like this when you were on your brakes (although obviously much brighter):

Yep, that outta look good. Your next project should be side marker lights and turn signal indicators in the side view mirrors to match your Cadillac Escalade.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by RodKnock

Yep, that outta look good. Your next project should be side marker lights and turn signal indicators in the side view mirrors to match your Cadillac Escalade.

Now don't make fun.... If properly done they would be virtually undetectable except when you were on your brakes. I might give it a shot over the winter. Although something like that requires a deft touch, so it will probably end up in the trash.

[patrickt]

OK, look at this. The size of the 5mm LEDs with either the clear or red plastic cover over them is almost exactly the size of those little white punchouts for three ring paper. Now imagine that they are either red, or clear, as per the lens pic below. Now seriously, what do you think?



This would be even better. These 5mm High Flux Piranha LEDs have a clear bulb that only peek out 2mm.

[dcdoug]

Safer? Yes. Probably unattractive? That too.

You could always wrap some Xmas lights around the rollbars and wire those up to your brake lights too. That's not likely to be missed by the guy behind you.

I think LED brake lights are enough for me.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by dcdoug

Safer? Yes. Probably unattractive? That too.

But I think I can make them invisible to the eye when you are not touching your brakes -- maybe by even dropping down to the 3mm. Would you still they were unattractive if you could not see them when they were not lit?


EDIT -- now mind you that each of those little clear domes would be only 3mm in diameter and peek out less that 1mm!!

[RodKnock]

I think making them (the lights) sequential like the old T-birds would be even better. Absent that, stringing Christmas lights around both roll bars would work too.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by RodKnock

I think making them (the lights) sequential like the old T-birds would be even better. Absent that, stringing Christmas lights around both roll bars would work too.

Well let me just take a crack at it and if it looks like crap I'll just toss it in the trash. I have the extra trunk light fixture, and the LEDs are only $2, so it's not that big of a deal. Sheeesh, you guys are awful hard....

[dcdoug]

Originally Posted by patrickt

But I think I can make them invisible to the eye when you are not touching your brakes -- maybe by even dropping down to the 3mm. Would you still they were unattractive if you could not see them when they were not lit?


EDIT -- now mind you that each of those little clear domes would be only 3mm in diameter and peek out less that 1mm!!

If you can't see it, then it would look fine when not lit, and probably odd, but safer when you hit the brakes. Possibly it could look cool when you hit the brakes, but I'm skeptical. Happy for you to show us though!

It would give RodKnock another reason to use his raceramps.

[patrickt]

I've been kind of paying attention to the middle light of the cars in front of me. It seems a lot of them now have LEDs in a short row. The other day, and I think it was something like an Audi, SAAB, or the like, seemed to have six or seven LEDs in a line and it looked pretty good. So I thought to myself, "Self, that might look really good if properly embedded in your plate light on the Cobra." I'm sure if done properly it could be absolutely undetectable and look good when it came on to boot. It's just a question of whether I can do it or not. If I screw up this one extra light fixture that I have I'm not buying a second.

[RodKnock]

I think research has shown that the 3rd brake light located that low won't be effective, or at least as much as if it were mounted in a higher location.

Personally, I think your time would be better spent driving around, stopping every 10 minutes, and opening your radiator's petcock to drain the old radiator anti-freeze, while pouring in new stuff each stop.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by RodKnock

I think research has shown that the 3rd brake light located that low won't be effective.

You know that's BS -- the original CMBL studies found that *any* third brake light significantly improved driver awareness.

[RodKnock]

Originally Posted by patrickt

You know that's BS -- the original CMBL studies found that *any* third brake light significantly improved driver awareness.

Significantly? Oh come on. Then why are they all mounted high on new or newer cars? If it's too low, then who can see as well as one near the top of the trunk line. Drivers can be morons, did the research include morons? Seriously, who will notice those 6 little tiny holes? If you do it, then cut out a nice rectangular swath and install something really big.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by RodKnock

Significantly? Oh come on. The why are they all mounted high on new or newer cars? If it's too low, then who can see as well as one near the top of the trunk line. Drivers can be morons, did the research include morons? Seriously, who will notice those 6 little tiny holes? If you do it, then cut out a nice rectangular swath and install something really big.

Significantly? Absolutely. The original tests were performed on fleet taxi cabs in New York and used both high mounted center lights and other, lower, third lights. The result was a reduction of rear enders by over a third. BUT, the statistical reductions consistently declined after the adoption of the regulations requiring the third lights! It has now dropped to under five percent reduction. How could this be? The answer is that the original reduction was not caused by the location of the light itself, but rather by the novelty. The fact that there was an unusual third light is what caused the significant decline. After people became used to seeing a third light in the back window it lost a large amount of its effectiveness. Having an unusual third light is now more effective than a CHMSL.

Trust me, I'm absolutely right on this.