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Wiring and electronics (Help me build something)
Cptn Pants
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Ok so I'm attempting to build myself a set of custom tail lights for my car.
I want them to function like my normal tail lights as in that they should blink, show that I'm braking and be my running lights at night.
Tail lights now:
So, they have 3 wires going to them and they are 1:Common ground, 2:Brakes/blinkers and 3: running lights. Running lights and blinkers all run at 12v and 2.7amps. The bulb in there seems to be a 2 stage bulb, one filament for breaking/blinkers and one filament for the running lights. The LED rings here are only blinkers/breaks, they do not lights up as running lights. I made these also, but I'm bored with them and I want them to match
Parts I'm gonna be using:
Resistors (gonna need your guys help on this one lol)
100mm angel eye LED rings (42 leds each)
130mm angel eye LED rings (44 leds each, i think)
and 6 ohm load resistors (to prevent hyper blink)
The process:
I'm just gonna bake a set of tail lights open, yank out the guts and throw those LED rings in there with a light defuser so you can't see the individual LEDs. Simple right?
What I need help with:
Those LED rings are single voltage, meaning they operate at 12v full power. I need to be able to make them dimmer for running lights, other wise you'd never be able to tell if i was breaking. I think my little blueprint here will help clear up how I think this will work. I think if I have the running lights running through a resistor then they should be dimmed a bit right? Can anyone come up with what kind of resistors i'd need to dim them or... another way to do this?
Short story I wanna make my car a set of Skyline R32 style tail lights but I want them to run right so I don't get a ticket. Help me wire them up.
Thanks for the help, if you need anymore details or anything let me know.
I want them to function like my normal tail lights as in that they should blink, show that I'm braking and be my running lights at night.
Tail lights now:
So, they have 3 wires going to them and they are 1:Common ground, 2:Brakes/blinkers and 3: running lights. Running lights and blinkers all run at 12v and 2.7amps. The bulb in there seems to be a 2 stage bulb, one filament for breaking/blinkers and one filament for the running lights. The LED rings here are only blinkers/breaks, they do not lights up as running lights. I made these also, but I'm bored with them and I want them to match
Parts I'm gonna be using:
Resistors (gonna need your guys help on this one lol)
100mm angel eye LED rings (42 leds each)
130mm angel eye LED rings (44 leds each, i think)
and 6 ohm load resistors (to prevent hyper blink)
The process:
I'm just gonna bake a set of tail lights open, yank out the guts and throw those LED rings in there with a light defuser so you can't see the individual LEDs. Simple right?
What I need help with:
Those LED rings are single voltage, meaning they operate at 12v full power. I need to be able to make them dimmer for running lights, other wise you'd never be able to tell if i was breaking. I think my little blueprint here will help clear up how I think this will work. I think if I have the running lights running through a resistor then they should be dimmed a bit right? Can anyone come up with what kind of resistors i'd need to dim them or... another way to do this?
Short story I wanna make my car a set of Skyline R32 style tail lights but I want them to run right so I don't get a ticket. Help me wire them up.
Thanks for the help, if you need anymore details or anything let me know.
Cptn Pants on
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Posts
Also, if you try and dim it like that, it might not work anyway as you might not have enough forward bias to light up the LEDs. The lights you are talking about have two lights on each side, right? Why not just use one for running and the other for braking/blinkers.
They light up fine on a lower voltage, I have a volt generator thing that i can adjust up to 24v and they light up just above 5v... i just have to mount them and stuff and then take them out at night and figure out how dim is too dim... then figure out some resistors or something lol.
I wanted all 4 lights to match, so when i hit the breaks all 4 light up or when I hit the left blinker the left 2 lights blink in unison.
Hurf dee durf. Looks like I forgot my schooling. Yes, voltage sources in parallel (like what you did) would increase the current, but the voltage would stay the same. It may work, but I'm a little unsure of connecting voltage sources of different sizes (which is effectively what you are trying to do). Maybe put some diodes on each line as well to prevent the voltages from messing with each other. Can't really draw you a diagram of what I'm thinking, but a diode should basically cut off the running line when the brakes are applied.
That said, LEDs are awesome. They sip power, are highly visible in a narrow range, and basically never wear out when properly installed. LED brakelights/indicators also come to life much more crisply than standard bulbs: this crispness actually triggers a much more urgent response from the brain, making your car actually safer.
I'm also fairly sure that the whole defuser thing shouldn't be an issue since I have a bunch of LEDs behind defusers in the inner lights and they are fine.
Now, what is a Diode and a PWM? I'm no expert here, just an over ambitious guy trying to zaz up his car.
I don't mind blowing a few bucks on parts, most of these things are dirt cheap and I got a set of spare tail lights from a junk yard for $20 so it's not like I need to build these in a day so I can have my car back.
Why can't science just be easy. Less power = less brightness, it should be simple lol.
Are you serious? That's so scientific it's practically magic. How does that even work? Like, would I be able to use this in my application
So after a little google magic I found that, which seems to be close to what you are talking about. It's some kinda PWM... I think I could just mount this to the underside of my trunk lid and run the running light circuit through this, then I won't have to worry about a resistor or anything (other then the load resistor for the hyper blink correction). I could just hid this in a few layers of sound dampening material once I get it calibrated... that it unless you know of any safety issues you care to share. Another concern of mine is, will this SUPER fast blinking cause any issues with the LEDs in the long term?
I don't really see the problem with dimming by putting less voltage. Less voltage, less power.
You have a link to these LED rings so I can look at the specs for it?
These are they, well one set at least. The outer ones I haven't ordered yet because I still need to measure the inner diameter of the tail lights.
100mm LED ring
120mm LED ring
I don't either, I've done it before for other projects but they always on kinda things. Not stuff that's gonna go from dim to bright... so yea, not 100% sure what's gonna happen once I get all these parts together. I like the idea of that dimmer knob thing because it gives me the flexibility to install the lights and just turn a knob to get them right, this way i won't have to pull them out and solder a new resistor.
You are kinda making me want to play around with this stuff on my motorcycle now.
Yea I have no idea what that is lol, but I'm gonna pick up that PWM for my tail lights. Speaking of which, how many PWM's would I need? Kinda seems like 1 should be enough since they are all going to be running at the same time, and I don't need to have them be separated for any reason... at least none that I can think of.
You're likely to spend the same amount of money on your home-built lights and they still not work right.
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
Honestly, I've looked on eBay and they are ok looking... not exactly what I want and I hear they are terrible quality. Besides, it's more fun to build something that you can be proud of then buy something like everyone else. Besides, for the same amount of money I end up with the same basic project as well as hours of entertainment while I build them.
Other than maybe ease of running wires, one should be fine. I'm assuming you have two seperate bundles of wires, one going to each set of lights, instead of daisy chained together. With one PWM, you'd just have to place it near one set and run extra wires to the other set.
As far as the diode is concerned, go to your local Radio Shack or Fry's or anywhere that sells individual components and look for something like this. You are looking for a rectifier diode with similar stats to that one. As long as the reverse voltage is sufficiently higher than 12v (not ridiculously higher, but high enough to cover any possible variation in voltage) and the forward current is high enough (in this case, anything more than 2-3A should do), you should be fine. Let's see if I can give you a ghetto ASCII of how this should look wired up...
(Stop / Turn +) --\
--- (TAIL+) --- (in) PWM (out) --- Diode (line on this side)
Light +
--- (TAIL- )--- (in) PWM (out)
Light -
(Stop / Turn -) --/
Confusing enough? Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Looks pretty easy to me, the very last question I think i have is can I split the wires after the PWM and the Diode or should I split it then use 2 Diodes, one for each set of lights? Other then that little bit of info I think I'm ready to do this thing... once all the parts get here I mean :P
So I'm doing a little bit of pre-wiring and I came up with a bit of an issue. The grounds are all common so it'd look like this
(Stop / Turn +) --\
(TAIL+) --- (in) PWM (out) --- Diode (line on this side)
Light +
_____/
(TAIL- )--- (in) PWM (out)
Light -
`````\
(Stop / Turn -) --/
Now is that gonna cause a problem with the grounding? I mean, do I need another resistor for the grounds or something? Thanks for all your help strebalicious.
(Stop / Turn +) --\
(TAIL+) --- (in) PWM (out) --- Diode (line on this side)
Light +
_____/
(TAIL- )--- (in) PWM (out)
Light -
`````\
(Diode?)
(Stop / Turn -) --/
OR
(Stop / Turn +) --\
(TAIL+) --- (in) PWM (out) --- Diode (line on this side)
Light +
_____/
(TAIL- )--- (in) PWM (out)
Light -
`````\
(Stop / Turn -) --/ <---- Don't need this?
Since the ground/negative are all common, then you should be able to get away without that extra negative line. So...
(Stop / Turn +) --\
(TAIL+) --- (in) PWM (out) --- Diode (line on this side)
Light +
(TAIL- ) --- (in) PWM (out)
Light -
Of course, I don't know how it would act with the PWM in the way. Somebody probably knows better, but it shouldn't kill anything, so you could always try and see if you get any funky reactions.
(Stop / Turn +) --\
(TAIL+) --- (in) PWM (out) --- Diode (line on this side)
Light +
(TAIL- ) --- (in) PWM (out)
Light -
It's still dim when the blinker/break come on. If i keep it wired like that, but then use a separate ground cable they brighten... which is no good because I only have one ground and there isn't anyway to switch between them. Got any ideas?
Edit, I don't have a diode but im not sure its gonna make a difference.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Nope, never crossed my mind. I figure if I fail inspection next month then I'll take them off (if i finish these), if they let me pass then I guess they arent that bad lol