led's

joeyc · Post by **joeyc** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 6:54 pm

gonna try it out with some of my little tests i have been doing. I'm planning on doing some plexi grills on my carbon fibers, they look to damn cool to cover them up, and I'm going to light them up with some led's. wanting to see if i can use some of these brighter ones yet cause the light to spread a little wider.

Darthness · Post by **Darthness** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 8:21 pm

i ordered my stuff from oznium. do i just use the 12v wire already going to my dome light, and then ground it to a peice of metal? where..do you get these boards?

Sun Apr 23, 2006 5:13 am

ya you can use the wires already up at the dome light, What bulb type is your dome light? is it this type?

Then you can just make a board, that snaps in between the connectors. I made one once that way.

Here was the test one I made,

You can get those boards at radio shack, I think they were a 1.99. You'll want one with the solder pads.

Justin from Detroit1 · Sun Apr 23, 2006 6:11 am

If you use a 12v source, make sure you wire in a resistor. 12v directly to the LEDs will shorten their lifespan considerably.

joeyc · Post by **joeyc** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 1:43 pm

i tried filing one of the leds last night. just scuffed it gently till the plastic turned white. all around the tip before it straightens out. made a huge difference in the viewing angle, yet did not seem to affect the brightness at all. where it was scuffed was glowing like the diode was right there. anyway, thought yall might want to know. now i have all kinds of ideas for leds, if yall have any good ideas for led application, post them!!

Darthness · Post by **Darthness** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:04 pm

hopefully my LEDs will be here by thursday so i can start... i want to paint the dome light green... i'll buy board and a new soldering iron this week too. should be fun :)

joeyc · Post by **joeyc** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:11 pm

sounds fun darth

Post by **GlassWolf** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 5:11 pm

most LED packages will list the dispersion angle so you can see how wide the light is or at what angle it can be viewed.
just find wide angle dispersion LEDs

mA ratings don't really have as much bearing on brightness as the material the LED is made of by the way. Pay more attention to the Mcd ratings instead.

Darthness · Post by **Darthness** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 5:14 pm

Radio shack was selling like 20Mcd green LEDs for like $1.29..c-r-a-p. i ordered 5000Mcd green LEDs from oznium and paid 1/4ish of the price (practically)

joeyc · Post by **joeyc** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 5:42 pm

yeah radio shack is freakin expensive, but we all new that. it is handy though when you need something right away. I got a buttload of led's on the way, all kinds. Anyone have any experience with the uv's? I had a cool idea, install a board like darth is doing into my dome light with the uv leds(black light). that may be cool, no?