After azdave did the led's on his eclipse, I was waiting to see someone do their talon. Looking toward to seeing it completed.

I always loved azdave's old Eclipse. I wanted to have something similar with my Talon but never meant to go this far; of course look at it now.

I'm starting to work on my controllers now.

Then new boards are looking really good!

Thanks Corey.

I made a mistake when loading LEDs into my center housing boards so it turns out I DO NOT need to redesign and etch them again. They are soldered and ready to go.

I am plugging at my sequencer design, so far I have changed the driver since I don't need constant current, that will save me some money too.
I also have bunch of other things on the way including a bluetooth module so I can change sequencing functions from my Android.

Decided to use the sequencers I have now to get my headlights 'done' and on the car. I also wanted to finish up the bumper markers. When I get my new sequencers designed and what not I can simply swap them out.

To even start messing with this I needed a new pair of strippers to strip wire smaller then 22AWG. I also needed bent nose pliers to install my push points that my boards will mount to.


I used some Easy Off Oven Cleaner to strip the chrome on the bumper markers. I then hit them with some gloss black paint.


Ribbon cable for the sequencers soldered on and the boards installed in the housings. Then lenses are just laid there, I need to get some JB Weld to seal them up.


Here you can see the push pins stuck into the headlight housing.


Sequencer board placed in.


LED board.


Lastly the lens on (the other side but you get the idea), looks OEM


Here's a couple videos too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_kLYZR9GTA&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oQHgjEBeQ0&feature=youtu.be

Wow great work!! That is so cool!!

That is too cool! You got some talent man!

The only thing i noticed is that the headlight blinkers start from the front and roll toward the back, and the side markers start from the back and roll toward the front.

I will likely switch that around so both sides match.

I'm curious, with your boards and power supply circuitry, did you implement any supply/circuit protection? Reverse, load dump, transients, etc. Something to handle spikes in excess of 60V, major transients, and horrid load dumps from the battery/alternator charging circuitry.

I'm thinking of putting together a power supply that would accomplish all that, and my system would be plugged into that for its source for both microcontrollers and lights. Probably need some beefy inductors and caps, but with the power requirements for 182 series strings of 3 LEDs, I see that being drained fairly quick.

The supply would be based off of either a bunch of Linear Technology LTC4365 or, much simpler but not as effective, some ST RBO40.

..just some ideas for a fellow LED light'er

My power supplies are only very simple Sharp LDO Voltage regulators with some capacitors on the inputs and outputs.
I've thought of adding some fuses for extra protection before they pass into the V-Reg but other then that I've given it little though.

Do share your ideas though, I'm all for improving my designs.

Same general design as mine, but I'm thinking of adding more advanced voltage protection because the arduino microcontroller I was using last year went on me. Being a chinese drop shipper item, it might just be quality, but it could have also been something else. After testing amperage on both sides, I fitted a couple quick blow fuses (one for each side), and a 500mA 16V polyfuse on the main for the the rest of the circuitry.

At 10 bucks, I'm not in the mood to care that much about replacement costs for the Uno (I have a couple), but it would suck if it took out a Sharp vreg, just because replacement would not be easy.
All the power would be filtered through before it got to the controller/LED power supply board.

I'll keep you posted.

I was hoping you being unemployed would give you some time to work on this project finally. Looking good Anthony!

sordid said:

Same general design as mine, but I'm thinking of adding more advanced voltage protection because the arduino microcontroller I was using last year went on me. Being a chinese drop shipper item, it might just be quality, but it could have also been something else. After testing amperage on both sides, I fitted a couple quick blow fuses (one for each side), and a 500mA 16V polyfuse on the main for the the rest of the circuitry.

At 10 bucks, I'm not in the mood to care that much about replacement costs for the Uno (I have a couple), but it would suck if it took out a Sharp vreg, just because replacement would not be easy.
All the power would be filtered through before it got to the controller/LED power supply board.

I'll keep you posted.

Click to expand...

My microcontroller and Voltage regulators are separate items. The microcontroller provides ground switching from the OEM lighting inputs and the voltage regulator provides power right to the LED boards themselves. I haven't decided if the Voltage Regulators will have some form of dedicated power brought from the fuse box or not yet.
Both of them will have caps and diodes but that is as far as I've thought in terms of protection. I look forward to what you come up with.

Eckzavier said:

I was hoping you being unemployed would give you some time to work on this project finally. Looking good Anthony!

Click to expand...

Hah, thanks.
Sadly the free time I had for this has just about dried up.

Blurred Talon said:

My microcontroller and Voltage regulators are separate items. The microcontroller provides ground switching from the OEM lighting inputs and the voltage regulator provides power right to the LED boards themselves. I haven't decided if the Voltage Regulators will have some form of dedicated power brought from the fuse box or not yet.
Both of them will have caps and diodes but that is as far as I've thought in terms of protection. I look forward to what you come up with.

Click to expand...

Yeah, mine too except I use positive side switching as it's a direct shot from the PCA9685 through a 220ohm to pin4 on the vreg, with a 10k pulldown to ground from there.

Just as a simple idea, I use a quad diode array to a quad optocoupler switching a regulated +5v to "isolate" the four inputs (brake,running,both turns) though that's kinda moot since it all shares the same ground. But I found that overvoltage on those lines still are protecting the uC inputs, and the quad opto is easily swappable since it's DIP. Beyond that, the diodes protect against reverse. A zener from ground to input in reverse would help to shunt overvoltage, as extra protection but I haven't done that.
I have no protection on the separate +12v to each side's array of regulators though.

So many choices.. I suppose we could just use one of those 1 farad audio capacitors, eh? I wonder what their specs are.

I think the diodes are a good protection. However I'd like some sort of fuse on board, I'll have to take a look one day when I get a chance.

Funny bit is a couple quickblow barrel type fuses are generally rated at 250v, so I used a a 500mA@250v and ran one taillight off it. I've never seen a barrel fuse glow like that without popping.. it just wouldn't give up haha. I think I was at ~6A. Obviously since the voltage is much lower, the pop threshold is higher.

At the very least, an inline holder is good insurance. Don't want to blow LEDs on those beautiful boards you did

I love watching this build come along!! Awesome job man!

i wish i had this type of ambition, your LED mods get me pumped up. keep at it

Thanks guys.
I've taken a job out of town so I'm away from home for 2 weeks at a time so this will progress slowly from here on out .
I fly out on Wednesday of this week, I'm going to try and get the final tail light baords etched and the center section ones too. Then everything is done minus the sequencer which I am working on, right now I'm looking at having the VRegs on the sequencer board so it's all on nice unit.

A mildly boring update.

I had bought a paper cutter (Guillotine) to cut my boards. However it wasn't sharp enough so it pulled the boards further under the blade thus messing up cuts. So now I need to print the lower center section boards again. However since I fly for work tomorrow I'm not going through the process to print, etch, drill and populate another board; I will do that when I come back.

I picked up 5M of 40 way ribbon cable, I split it into 20 way and cut off multiple lengths. This will provide the ground from the 59116F LED driver on my sequencer board.


Here's the ribbon cable soldered to the tail light boards.


And the name plate boards.


The ribbon cable will plug into the sequencer boards making everything plug and play. I've also decided to place my Voltage regulators for the LEDs on the sequencer board, this way everything will be in one unit. I can then get a housing machined for the sequencer unit.

I also picked up some accelerometers (G sensor) for the sequencer. I want to measure how many Gs the car pulls under a panic brake situation. From this I can feed the info into the program so when the accelerometers sees that G force then the brakes will strobe to get the attention of other drivers.


I also picked up an HC-06 bluetooth adapter (small chip) and Blue Pak Booster pack (mounts on the MSP430 Launch Pad). I'm unsure if I will use the booster pack at all. I will make a plug and play board for the HC-06 to mount to and plug into the sequencer. This will allow me to control the extra sequencing functions via an app on my phone.


I'm working on drawing up my sequencer. When I get back home from work I will finish the center section brake light boards, hopefully I will have made some progress with the sequencer too.

I've gone ahead and ordered some sequencers from Ghozt Lighting, while they don't offer everything I want (Bluetooth, multiple show sequences, etc) but it will allow me to finish this project.
https://www.ghoztlighting.com/product/ledsequencer/

Once I get it here, I'll start experimenting with it and post some updates.

I've been frigging around in EagleCAD for the past couple days to finish up my power supply boards once and for all. I'm happy to say that they are finally done and sent off for manufacturing through OSHPark.
Turn Signal and Name plate boards (2 Vregs on each).
Top


Bottom


Brake Light power supplies (5 power supplies on 2 separate boards).
Top


Bottom


I've got everything I need to fab the power supplies up minus the screw clamps for the inputs/outputs so I will order up those and a couple things I need for the Ghozt sequencers.
For now I'm in a holding pattern, gotta love the waiting game.