Homemade custom LED lights

[Galaxie500]

Hello all,

This may interest some/one/all of you so thought I'd share  

When converting for the UK regs most Mustang owners put the rear indicators into the reverse light housing on the lower rear valence. I was never happy with this and wanted to incorporate the indicators into the tail/brake light housing. So I decided to try my hand at designing some LED tail lights.

Here are my original prototypes made from pre-drilled circuit board. 120 LEDs per board - many many hours of soldering were involved!

Homemade custom LED lights

Indicators are now positioned within the outer section on the lens - like so:

Homemade custom LED lights

I have since redesigned the lights and came up with the idea of putting in a programable flash sequence. I went the whole hog this time, got hold of some free software, designed the circuit and had proper PCBs made. Another 240 LEDs and many hours later........I had these.

Homemade custom LED lights

The indicators are now a part of each three sections and can be controlled independantly to give what ever flash sequence I can think of. I have not managed to get them working with the flasher-can yet, I think some rewiring of the cars circuit may be required but I've not done this as the car is in pieces!

http://s151.photobucket.com/albums/s156/InlineUK/Lights/?action=view&current=AllSeqIndoors.mp4

Some flash rates are timed poorly, but you get the idea. My favourite is the first chase sequence  

This is what the tail/brake lights look like.

Homemade custom LED lights

I should add that I'm not an electonics design engineer.....I'm was purely making it up as I went along  

Nathan

[Galaxie500]

I have also recently finished these side lights for a guy in Australia. These are front and rear side markers for a 69 Pro Street Mustang he's building. He wanted to incorporate indicators into the side markers. He also wanted the side markers to switch off when the indicators are on which was achieved with a tiny relay in the circuit. Again I designed and had made PCBs.

Homemade custom LED lights

Homemade custom LED lights

http://s151.photobucket.com/albums/s156/InlineUK/Lights/?action=view&current=SideIndicator.mp4

Nathan

[Galaxie500]

Same Aussie also wants to put indicators into his side mirrors. I came up with a few ideas, but we settled on this design. These are off-the-shelf clear plastic lenses suitable for a standard 5mm LED. This is just an old mirror he posted me to drill and see what it looks like. I'll be supplying him with some pre-wired LEDs and the lenses and he'll be drilling holes in his brand new mirrors! (glad I didn't have to do that part of the job!)

Homemade custom LED lights

Homemade custom LED lights

Nathan

[Al]

how long? how much patience?
nice lights and blend in well new with old nice
al

[Galaxie500]

how long? how much patience?
nice lights and blend in well new with old nice
al

I'm quite a patient person 
The original ones took a long time to solder as I was working it out as I went and had to make the circuit with jumper leads all over the place. The proper PCBs took less time to actually solder, as it was just a case of sticking in the components and soldering, but it did take a while to design the circuit on the software in the first place.

[Manky Monkey]

You're not a design engineer? I struggle to wire a plug!
Very impressive Nathan. Nice new school touch to an old school car. How did your friend in Oz find you? Online owner's club? Ain't technology amazing. 
I presume PCBs are Printed Circuit Boards? Where do you get something like that made to order?

[Galaxie500]

I did a little design at uni, but that was 12 years ago. I just cobbled all this together with the aid of friends and the web!

The Aussie saw my tail lights on a forum and asked if i could make the sidelights for him. He had enquired at various companies, but they all quoted him ridiculous prices, as I do it just as a small hobby its costing him half what it would.

Yes pcb is a printed curcuit board. There are various companies who will produce them, but if i only want 1 or 2 boards its quite expensive. Tooling costs are the pricey bit so for example, the side markers would have cost about £65 for 4, i ordered 10 at a cost of 75, so i have some spares.
PCB Train in newbury is where they were made. The tail light boards were made at a different company which were slightly cheaper for the bigger board.

[57gmc]

Cool

[Cabman77]

I should add that I'm not an electonics design engineer.....I'm was purely making it up as I went along  

Nathan

WHAT?? I make things up as I go along and at my age I forget what I was thinking about in the first place. Some talent you`ve got there geezer 

[Galaxie500]

WHAT?? I make things up as I go along and at my age I forget what I was thinking about in the first place. Some talent you`ve got there geezer 

Thanks 
Its just like doing a dot to dot - stick the LEDs where you want them and then join them up with resistors and wires 

If anybody wanted to have a go at making some for their car/trike/project I'm happy to try and help (or i could make them for you).

Nathan

[Cabman77]

so, technically speaking of course, I could make up a brake light saying "F**k Off You W***er" or "B****x" or anything!!!! I want??? This idea has a certain appeal to me i think 

[Galaxie500]

so, technically speaking of course, I could make up a brake light saying "F**k Off You W***er" or "B****x" or anything!!!! I want??? This idea has a certain appeal to me i think 

Yes you could  Thats the beauty of LEDs you can arrange them in any shape you wanted. It would be fairly simple to layout.

[Manky Monkey]

I think that's what they call Mis-use of technology Cabby!

[Cabman77]

Hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! interesting 

[spanners]

my nephew work,s with electronics (harry hotrod) he also use,s led,s   so i ,nabded, some of him last night ,,

gonna have a play .

could end upwith a dash board panel for my trike