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Farewell Incandescent Lighting (96 Talon TSI AWD LED Conversion)

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Blurred Talon

15+ Year Contributor
2,307
43
Jan 2, 2004
Paradise, NL_Canada
I've been playing with doing this for a while now and finally got of my lazy arse and learn/do it.

I'll start buy saying I'm not doing anything super crazy like strobe effects or anything similar to what azdave has done on his Eclipse. I simply like the look of LEDs over regular bulbs plus they'll be brighter. I will have sequential turn signals though.

I currently have the Tarantula mod done to my center section.
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It's lit up with a 72 LED string. It looks ok but when you get close you can see I need to fix the lettering a bit plus the light shining through the key hole bugs me. Lastly the whole thing is coming apart. On my move across the country I stopped to eat at one point and found the center section holding on by a #### hair. The tabs that I cut hold the section in place, I guess with the summer heat the glue softened enough for it to start coming apart, I need to think of something to replace said tabs, silicone of some sort should do.
I'd also like the light output to be more even, to achieve this I think that an LED board/array is the only way to go. To do that I will likely have to space the LEDs further away from the lens but we'll see once I start playing around. Some day this week I'll get some perf board and play around with the LEDs I've got on hand. Lastly I'd like to light up the lower red part on the center section, either as running/marker lights or as running/marker and brake lights. However there are some MAJOR space issues down there so we'll see.

My driver side tail light had part of the trim broken so I decided it would be a good candidate for attempting to open the tails. Again all the tabs had to be cut and after an hour with a heat gun, a putty knife and exacto knife I got the lens off. The plastic is thin so you need to use low heat and work slow plus the glue is strong so if your not careful you WILL crack the lens, I did in one spot but I need to replace this light anyhow.
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Tails are all apart. I'm looking for a driver side housing since the one on my car is messed up.
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I used some sand paper and Easy Off Oven cleaner to strip the VHT Nite Shades off. I've never been too happy with how the Nite Shades looked. I'm looking around for a local shop that will be willing to try painting them for me, mid coat like a Candy color.
Before stripping:
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Oven cleaner on the lens:
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Stripped:
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Comparison between the 2 lenses, bottom is still tinted (not for long):
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I also started to order my LEDs. I ordered 8 tubes (60 per tube times 7 equals 480 so I'll have lots to play with) of Phillips LumiLED Red/Orange DH-00 bin code, you need Red/Orange with a red lens because red won't be bright enough and look odd.

I'm still trying to find Amber LEDs for the turn signals. I was going to use Cree P4s but everywhere is sold out. For LumiLED all I can find are 100* viewing angle which is too wide I think.

For my reverse lights I'm going to order 3 tubes (180) Nichia White LEDs (p/n NSPWR70CSS C0 color bin). I'll use 38 per reverse light (38 will equal 1200 lumins times 2 sides equals 2400 lumins, I'm sure people will see me back up). The remaining will be used for plate lights and to light up the Talon lettering in the center section.

I've got to order some perf board, sadly the only local place only carries small boards and I need something much bigger.

I still need to figure out my PWM, voltage regulation and Sequential circuit (for the turns).

I've got some white Cree P4s that I was going to use for another project, I'll use them for interior lighting now instead. However I decided to have some fun, they are running at 50mA so they aren't as bright as they could be.
Regular bulb.
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30 Cree P4 LEDs.
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LEDs outside of the housing.
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It might not look very bright but trust me it is, my camera is not the greatest so it has trouble capturing the difference plus red/orange needs to be used behind the red lens for proper light output and color with the white some light is blocked. Now imagine it at 70mA (brighter) with a lot more LEDs :D

I'm also playing with the idea of clear housings. VanIsleDSM did it with his but I haven't seen updates in ages. I've got a spare lens so I might try it to see what I think.
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Looks like you've got a big project on your hands, those LED builds always impress me because of the time and engineering thats put into them.

That last picture of VanIsleDSM's Talon tail light looks good, I'm just wondering how he cleared it like that.

:dsm:
 
nice work man!

When you get this completed please make a DIY thread with all the materials and where you bought them.
 
sorry sir but you FAIL because of your license plate frame
:nono:

ROFL
It's a local site (or rather was local till I moved) that I'm a member of. I'm not putting the frame up on the wall because I no longer want to promote said site. It's gone down hill imo.

Looks like you've got a big project on your hands, those LED builds always impress me because of the time and engineering thats put into them.

That last picture of VanIsleDSM's Talon tail light looks good, I'm just wondering how he cleared it like that.

:dsm:

It's a bunch of work but shouldn't be too bad once I get everything I need.

The tails are cleared with a lot of sanding and polishing. I'm going to go get some sand paper to start doing my spare (broken) tail light tomorrow to see what I think of it.
He made a custom 'circuit board' by using thin plexi glass and gluing mirrored mylar (the shiney stuff) to it then drilled the holes for the LEDs. The issue with this is all the mylar is conductive so all 4 legs of the LEDs need heat shrink on them to prevent them from energizing the board. It's a lot of work. I could just settle for simple silver painted perf boards I think.


Thanks.

nice work man!

When you get this completed please make a DIY thread with all the materials and where you bought them.

Eh, it's hard to make a DIY because there is so much to take into account when doing this. All LEDs are different and the ones I'm using are Philips Lumiled DH-00 red/orange for behind the red lens, you use red/orange because of the color wave lengths so you get the most light through the lens, that's why the white LEDs look odd. So if you use different LEDs you need different resistors depending on how many mA you are running the LEDs at.

Then there's voltage regulation, all my arrays will be regulated to 12V (remember a car is 14.5V when running). There's really only 1 way to do voltage regulation and that's some sort of LDO (low drop out) Vreg like the Sharp (part number PQ12RD21J00H).

Then there is Pulse Width Modulation. This thread explains it best, Pulse Width Modulator PWM visual helper

There's lots of good links in these two threads on HIDPlanet (you don't need to be a member to view them).
LED Basic Technical Information
LED Advanced Technical Information

I'll include as much info as possible in this post.
 
Thats awesome. Good luck with the project. Write up your procedures so us lazy folk with electronics experience can get an idea :p
 
Picked up some sand paper and a sanding block today.
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Frack my life this is going to take quite some time to sand these pillow blocks down. This after maybe 10 minutes with 40 grit, still a long way to go.
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I'm going to hit the hardware store to see if I can find something to mount in my drill to make quicker work of knocking down these pillow blocks. Once I get them down I can start hand sanding and working up through the grits.

As always my helper Pug was wondering what the hell all the noise was.
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Did some more sanding, my hand is sore. This is only 40 minutes worth of sanding, so much more to do all for something I might not even like.
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Oven cleaner on the lens:
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Stripped:
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Which oven cleaner did you use and how did you come up with this? It looks like it worked really well.
 
Sanding the lense is a bi***! I know! I've done a few Eclipse center sections. Honestly from what I know now, I think using some sort of Circular motion sander with small discs for the larger area's and sand paper/dremel for the hard to reach area's is your best bet for getting shit done at a better pace. Then you can use like 2 different polish'es. I'd start out with a Mag Polish since its lower grit... Then plastic polish to get the final swirls out. However I'd honestly use one of the headlight restoration setups for the end result.
 
Sanding the lense is a bi***! I know! I've done a few Eclipse center sections. Honestly from what I know now, I think using some sort of Circular motion sander with small discs for the larger area's and sand paper/dremel for the hard to reach area's is your best bet for getting shit done at a better pace. Then you can use like 2 different polish'es. I'd start out with a Mag Polish since its lower grit... Then plastic polish to get the final swirls out. However I'd honestly use one of the headlight restoration setups for the end result.

It's a lot of work and I'm still not sure if I'm going to bother finishing it to be honest. There's so little room around the reverse light that I don't think I'll be able to sand it with anything and imo it will look like crap if one part is left with the pillow blocks.

That is slick. Looking forward to seeing the outcome of this.

Thanks!

damn, looks like you have alot of sanding to go threw, but i love the idea. cant wait to see the finished project.

Tons of sanding for something I might not even like :|

looks good cant wait to see it finished

Thanks.

i was kinda curious 2 see how it looked finished u know LOL

Look up the user azdave, he's got LED tails on his Eclipse.

Nice job man!

Thanks!
 
I have a friend who did this on his car (not a DSM) and I always thought it looked sick. I've always been too lazy to attempt something like it, but if yours turns out well, maybe I'll keep an eye out for some spare tail lights at a junk yard to attempt this with.
 
I decided I will not be sanding the pillow blocks down to have clear lenses, it's just rather to much work.

Finally got my Orange Red Lumileds (Thanks to a few HIDP member) 480 total, should be more then enough for this project.
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I tossed 30 of them on a bread board with 68ohm resistors (running them at 70mA).
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I'm seeing red!!!
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Today I finished disassembling the tail lights. I've now removed the bulbs, wiring, gaskets, reflectors, etc.
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Gasket and wiring removed.
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This little gray thing around the reverse light section just pulls out.
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Then remove the screws for the metal reflector.
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The plastic reflector on the side just pulls out.
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Same with this metal reflector on the top above the turn signal hole.
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Both housing stripped.
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I made up some quick templates from some box board. These will serve as a rough template when I'm cutting the perf board. I have to figure out where to end the board for the curves in the lens/housing so it looks proper.
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I also wired up a quick 3 LED mini board to test light the bottom of the center section. I had to trim some of the center section to get the board to fit.
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The bad news though is the LEDs are too close to the lens so you can see the individual LEDs (sort of), this is what I want to avoid.
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With the lens out about a 1/4" more it looks more uniform.
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I'm thinking I'll have to cut the housing and move it back 1/4" to get the look I want. However, I still need to remove the silver paint from the inside of the center section. I want to have that done before I do any cutting.
 
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^^ second on the updates ^^

I know how to modify lights for LEDs, but now I'm doing 18 months of ASE certification and learning all the cuircuit related stuff and will be able to do tghem the way I've been planning for a long time, but still need updates on these ;D. They look good though so far.
 
^^ second on the updates ^^

I know how to modify lights for LEDs, but now I'm doing 18 months of ASE certification and learning all the cuircuit related stuff and will be able to do tghem the way I've been planning for a long time, but still need updates on these ;D. They look good though so far.

That's only half of it. You also need to design PCBs for the LEDs to be soldered too.

I haven't touched this in a long while. I've got to start drawing/designing the PCBs in Eagle but I'm just lacking the motivation. Plus I had to give up the center section I had all nice and prepped for this when I cracked a friend's while tinting his tails.

Who wants to motivate me to work on it?
 
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