LED lighting discussion

[19Cutlass94]

This topic of LED lighting has been split from its original post because it has taken on a life of its own.

 

p.s. he did EXACTLY what I was planning for my rear tail lights. Guess I will be looking for anothe style LED strip

 

I just gotta say, I was driving behind a car that had those small LED strips for brake lights, but they were down on the bumper, and I couldnt see his brake lights at all. Im glad your not going to do that because some asshole would prolly hit you because they are hard to see, especially in the daylight no matter how bright they may be.

 

That being said, for brakes lights on your car, use the rear light bar, use the middle for the reverse lights and use the inner as stop lights and the outer at turn signals. just an idea.

[SLAMDIT]

SLAMDIT where have you been? i knew you'd appreciate this. i thought of your car as soon as i saw it roll in

 

LOL, sorry man. I have been extremely busy with car shows on the weekend and work throughout the week that I haven't had time to get online. I can't believe I missed this thread for so long!

 

p.s. he did EXACTLY what I was planning for my rear tail lights. Guess I will be looking for anothe style LED strip

 

I just gotta say, I was driving behind a car that had those small LED strips for brake lights, but they were down on the bumper, and I couldnt see his brake lights at all. Im glad your not going to do that because some asshole would prolly hit you because they are hard to see, especially in the daylight no matter how bright they may be.

 

That being said, for brakes lights on your car, use the rear light bar, use the middle for the reverse lights and use the inner as stop lights and the outer at turn signals. just an idea.

 

I wasn't gonna run an LED bar that small and I was gonna run one that is also reflective so you can see it. Also, I am keeping my 3rd brake light because I am scared to death of someone not seeing my brakes and ass tagging me.

I am currently using my stock reverse light bar but it doesn't fit right with the tail light fillers we made. I am gonna run an led strip this winter and as far as the brightness on them, you get what you pay for. I am gonna buy a high dollar one that will light up like the new caddy lights.

 

Crazy K: We really thought about putting the lights in the olds emblem. We ended up just shaving them and running the light bar.

Now, not to give too much away here, but I have a tech article from "Truckin" magazine on converting your stock tail lights to REAL LED bulbs. I plan on doing this on my wife's cutlass this winter. They will look exactly like what you see on the new caddys and stuff, just housed in our stock tail light assembly.

 

see ya,

 

Sean

[GnatGoSplat]

i think that generally speaking people just throw in LED bulbs and expect everything to be great. the reason you can't see half of them is because they need an inline resistor to be used as brake lights or turn signals

 

Most of the time you can't see them because LED replacement bulbs are directional with all LED facing out and none facing the reflector, and there are not enough LEDs to produce the amount of lumens required to illuminate the entire fixture. What you end up with is a relatively dim circle of light not much bigger than 1" in diameter.

 

To get an LED lamp that's as bright as one with an incandescent bulb, you have to make an LED matrix that has at least an LED every square inch (superflux) or half inch (conventional).

 

[slick]

i think that generally speaking people just throw in LED bulbs and expect everything to be great. the reason you can't see half of them is because they need an inline resistor to be used as brake lights or turn signals

 

Most of the time you can't see them because LED replacement bulbs are directional with all LED facing out and none facing the reflector, and there are not enough LEDs to produce the amount of lumens required to illuminate the entire fixture. What you end up with is a relatively dim circle of light not much bigger than 1" in diameter.

 

To get an LED lamp that's as bright as one with an incandescent bulb, you have to make an LED matrix that has at least an LED every square inch (superflux) or half inch (conventional).

 

 

Gnat's correct, you should see some of the taillamps they had at the place I worked over the summer. The tail function was usually a matrix of LED's, spaced out exactly so that they would meet the correct lumen value at the correct photometric testpoint. Those LED replacement bulbs definately would not pass an SAE/ECE photometric test.

[Crazy K]

i think that generally speaking people just throw in LED bulbs and expect everything to be great. the reason you can't see half of them is because they need an inline resistor to be used as brake lights or turn signals

 

Most of the time you can't see them because LED replacement bulbs are directional with all LED facing out and none facing the reflector, and there are not enough LEDs to produce the amount of lumens required to illuminate the entire fixture. What you end up with is a relatively dim circle of light not much bigger than 1" in diameter.

 

To get an LED lamp that's as bright as one with an incandescent bulb, you have to make an LED matrix that has at least an LED every square inch (superflux) or half inch (conventional).

 

 

Gnat's correct, you should see some of the taillamps they had at the place I worked over the summer. The tail function was usually a matrix of LED's, spaced out exactly so that they would meet the correct lumen value at the correct photometric testpoint. Those LED replacement bulbs definately would not pass an SAE/ECE photometric test.

pics? got any?

[slick]

i think that generally speaking people just throw in LED bulbs and expect everything to be great. the reason you can't see half of them is because they need an inline resistor to be used as brake lights or turn signals

 

Most of the time you can't see them because LED replacement bulbs are directional with all LED facing out and none facing the reflector, and there are not enough LEDs to produce the amount of lumens required to illuminate the entire fixture. What you end up with is a relatively dim circle of light not much bigger than 1" in diameter.

 

To get an LED lamp that's as bright as one with an incandescent bulb, you have to make an LED matrix that has at least an LED every square inch (superflux) or half inch (conventional).

 

 

Gnat's correct, you should see some of the taillamps they had at the place I worked over the summer. The tail function was usually a matrix of LED's, spaced out exactly so that they would meet the correct lumen value at the correct photometric testpoint. Those LED replacement bulbs definately would not pass an SAE/ECE photometric test.

pics? got any?

 

Ken, what kinda pics are you after?

[Crazy K]

pics of the led grids and types etc...

[slick]

pics of the led grids and types etc...

 

Oh, unfortunately I don't have any. Camera's werent allowed in there, unless we were taking pictures for our own use. All of those lamps were still in the test and design stage

 

I'll look around the internet though. Maybe I'll find something.

 

Most of the LED's used though were either Luxeon III LED's or Luxeon K2 LED's. Very expensive, but they have a very high lumen output for an LED.

[GnatGoSplat]

Yeah, Luxeons are very expensive!!! For a few years now, every now and then I'll price Luxeons and they're still sky high! Nice thing though, is their light output is high enough that you don't need nearly as many.

 

The 2000-05 Devilles used SnapLEDs, also made by LumiLEDs. Here's a drawing:

http://www.maddoxcomputersystems.com/lowscola/auto/auto_pics/deville_LED.jpg

 

There are 72 in each Deville taillight.

They are just SuperFlux LEDs in a snap-in package, similar to the SuperFlux LEDs you'd find in some 3rd brake lights and signal mirrors.

I happened to pick up 1200 SuperFlux LEDs for future projects.

 

[slick]

Yeah, Luxeons are very expensive!!! For a few years now, every now and then I'll price Luxeons and they're still sky high! Nice thing though, is their light output is high enough that you don't need nearly as many.

 

The 2000-05 Devilles used SnapLEDs, also made by LumiLEDs. Here's a drawing:

http://www.maddoxcomputersystems.com/lowscola/auto/auto_pics/deville_LED.jpg

 

There are 72 in each Deville taillight.

They are just SuperFlux LEDs in a snap-in package, similar to the SuperFlux LEDs you'd find in some 3rd brake lights and signal mirrors.

I happened to pick up 1200 SuperFlux LEDs for future projects.

 

 

 

Nice!

 

The company I worked for actually started to stray away from the Lux III LED's, and started using the K2 LED's. When I did a test comparing the K2's and the Lux III's, the K2's had a higher lumen output, and didn't require much more power, making them the better choice.

[GnatGoSplat]

The company I worked for actually started to stray away from the Lux III LED's, and started using the K2 LED's. When I did a test comparing the K2's and the Lux III's, the K2's had a higher lumen output, and didn't require much more power, making them the better choice.

 

Damn, those K2's put out over 10x more lumens than the SuperFlux ones I have!!! They aren't much bigger either!

That makes me wonder if it would actually be possible to make a real replacement LED bulb using K2's.

I once actually tried one of these LED Tower bulbs. They really do illuminate the entire reflector almost as well as a real bulb would have, with only one drawback - brightness. They were too dim. The bright "filament" was only as bright as an incandescent bulb's park "filament". Now take the same design and replace the SuperFlux LEDs with K2's. It might actually work!

 

[slick]

The company I worked for actually started to stray away from the Lux III LED's, and started using the K2 LED's. When I did a test comparing the K2's and the Lux III's, the K2's had a higher lumen output, and didn't require much more power, making them the better choice.

 

Damn, those K2's put out over 10x more lumens than the SuperFlux ones I have!!! They aren't much bigger either!

That makes me wonder if it would actually be possible to make a real replacement LED bulb using K2's.

I once actually tried one of these LED Tower bulbs. They really do illuminate the entire reflector almost as well as a real bulb would have, with only one drawback - brightness. They were too dim. The bright "filament" was only as bright as an incandescent bulb's park "filament". Now take the same design and replace the SuperFlux LEDs with K2's. It might actually work!

 

 

Well, it may work, but not in a matricis(sp?). There are different versions of these LED's as well. Usually as wide or narrow angle, and then you also have side emitting LED's as well. Now, the reason they are placed in a matrix, they are all surrounded by many different reflecting surfaces. Each one of those surfaces is particular to that LED. Meaning, the one that may be to the side of it or below it will most likely have a different reflecting surface design. The reason for this is to have the light emit in the proper position.

 

If you were just wanting to make a cluster of LED's, what I would suggest is having 3-4 narrow angle bright led's in the center. Then, surrounding that, have side emitting LED's to fill the rest of the reflector. But, I would suggest having some sort of small wall in-between the two, as the lights may cancel each other out.

[Schudini]

Direct replacement luxeon-based bulbs are now on the market. http://autolumination.com/3157_3156.htm and scroll down a little (Eagle Eye 2). I was going to get some, but a $22 each, it's a little too steep. The LED's themselves are around $5 each.

[GnatGoSplat]

Well, I wasn't thinking about using K2's in a matrix (too expensive for that), but in a LED tower type arrangement (better pics of those LED towers at Schudini's link). Although at $2.57/each, and those light towers have 20-LEDs, that would be over $50 per bulb! Ouch.

 

I don't think that Eagle Eye 2 will have enough light since it's forward facing, there will be no light reflected off the reflector.

 

[Schudini]

I think the eagle eye 2 is more of a direct view LED and shouldn't require a reflector.

 

Pelican makes an LED flashlight that uses "recoil" technology. Fancy word for pointing the LED toward the reflector instead of out the front. You might want to look into that.

[Schudini]

Thanks for moving my post over

 

 

If you really want a matrix of led's, try the Lamina light engines.

 

The singles put out 120 lumens (white), the 7 cavity produce 348 lumen (red), and the 39 cavity put out 1938 lumens of blinding red light (overkill).

 

The singles and 7's go for about $20 each, but you have to buy/make the driving electronics and buy a heatsink. Heat is the major problem with these things.

 

 

Available at Digikey and mouser electronics.

[slick]

Heat is the major problem with these things.

 

Hell yes it is! I couldn't believe how hot my light block was getting when I was testing the K2's and the Lux III's.

[slick]

Another place you can consider for 12v LED applications is http://www.oznium.com. Although most of the stuff people do on there is for show, they sell there LED's fairly cheap, and they are for 12v stuff.

[GnatGoSplat]

Very cool, I never heard of Lamina light engines before. That seems like a fairly reasonable price. I'll have to look into it!

I've been thinking about putting LED light matrices in my tails and front turn signals.

 

Yeah, those K2's would probably get too hot for any kind of tower arrangement.

I'll probably stick to the matrix of superflux LEDs. They don't get that hot.

 

[slick]

Very cool, I never heard of Lamina light engines before. That seems like a fairly reasonable price. I'll have to look into it!

I've been thinking about putting LED light matrices in my tails and front turn signals.

 

Yeah, those K2's would probably get too hot for any kind of tower arrangement.

I'll probably stick to the matrix of superflux LEDs. They don't get that hot.

 

 

I've always wanted a light matrix before as well. IMO, the GP's with the checkered tails would look perfect with a light matrix behind them. Wouldn't be too awful hard to make. Probably a circuit board and lots of LED's.

[GnatGoSplat]

I don't think a matrix would be that hard to make, just time consuming.

 

One thing I don't care for on my Cutlass is the combination stop/tail/turn taillights. I discovered something kind of cool, and that's the wavelength of LEDs is so narrow that amber LEDs actually show up amber through the red lens. I'd like to put an amber LED matrix behind my red lenses so when the blinkers are blinking, they blink amber but look red when off.

 

[slick]

I don't think a matrix would be that hard to make, just time consuming.

 

One thing I don't care for on my Cutlass is the combination stop/tail/turn taillights. I discovered something kind of cool, and that's the wavelength of LEDs is so narrow that amber LEDs actually show up amber through the red lens. I'd like to put an amber LED matrix behind my red lenses so when the blinkers are blinking, they blink amber but look red when off.

 

 

Woah, really? Now thats pretty cool!

[Schudini]

I've always wanted a light matrix before as well. IMO, the GP's with the checkered tails would look perfect with a light matrix behind them. Wouldn't be too awful hard to make. Probably a circuit board and lots of LED's.

 

I thought that too, but wiring those would be a pain. Especially if it was two led's per opening.

 

Would look totally awesome though.

[Schudini]

Another place you can consider for 12v LED applications is http://www.oznium.com. Although most of the stuff people do on there is for show, they sell there LED's fairly cheap, and they are for 12v stuff.

 

Cool site. Good prices on the cold cathodes.

[slick]

I've always wanted a light matrix before as well. IMO, the GP's with the checkered tails would look perfect with a light matrix behind them. Wouldn't be too awful hard to make. Probably a circuit board and lots of LED's.

 

I thought that too, but wiring those would be a pain. Especially if it was two led's per opening.

 

Would look totally awesome though.

 

Yeah, could be one PITA when it comes to wiring.

 

Another place you can consider for 12v LED applications is http://www.oznium.com. Although most of the stuff people do on there is for show, they sell there LED's fairly cheap, and they are for 12v stuff.

 

Cool site. Good prices on the cold cathodes.

 

Yep!