Time for more LEDs!!!

Darthness · Post by **Darthness** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 3:15 pm

you've got to teach me how to do that

Wed Jan 25, 2006 3:26 pm

You'll need to know the specs of your LEDs, but once you have that here is a nice tool to help you.

http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz

A good place to go to learn about LED retros is HIDPlanet. They really go all out with their conversions.

Wed Jan 25, 2006 3:27 pm

ridr4lif wrote:Looks really good chris! What are you gonna use LED's for next...lighting up your home?

You saw my christmas lights right :)

my next thing I think i'm going to do is convert the DRL/Turn signals to LEDs. I think that would look pretty nice.

Wed Jan 25, 2006 3:29 pm

veggie-man wrote:my friend and i just took a LED and blew it up because we put 3 times the recommend voltage to it... how do you control the flow of power to the lights, they seem very sensitive especially having THAT many lights.

Looks REAL good man!

You have to use a resistor, see the led calculator I posted. It will help you determine the resistor needed, depending on the # of LEDs.

If you are going to use them as a tail/brake light, you'll also need to have a couple diodes to stop current from backfeeding.

Darthness · Post by **Darthness** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 3:49 pm

the only thing i majorly need help with is doing the circuit board.

Wed Jan 25, 2006 3:55 pm

I wish I would have taken some pics of the back.

I just soldered in little 'jumpers' using small pieces of stripped phone/networking wire. Just cut them really small and held them in place with tweezers then soldered it to one leg of one LED, then soldered it to the leg of the next LED.

It actually turned out pretty nice looking.

I cut the board to shape just using a pair of scissors.

Darthness · Post by **Darthness** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 4:04 pm

dont you have to mix some chemicals or something to make the board?

Wed Jan 25, 2006 5:57 pm

Darthness wrote:dont you have to mix some chemicals or something to make the board?

Oh if you really want to get fancy, you can etch your boards with traces. but that takes alot of planning and time.

But for this project I just used the preholed boards w/solder pads from radioshack.
If I were to start selling these, then I etching the boards might be a good idea, but just for me. The preholed, and wire jumpers were good enough.

smoker · Post by **smoker** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 6:10 pm

well i think its purty...

Darthness · Post by **Darthness** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 6:30 pm

Chris from Washington wrote:Oh if you really want to get fancy, you can etch your boards with traces. but that takes alot of planning and time.

But for this project I just used the preholed boards w/solder pads from radioshack.
If I were to start selling these, then I etching the boards might be a good idea, but just for me. The preholed, and wire jumpers were good enough.

I know someone from another forum that made all kinds of things with the etch boards.. he did several nice LED mods to his cars. i may have to try your way though, ie, i might want to do a green dome and trunk light or something. what kind of $$ do you pay to DIY a mod like that.