I'm going to be converting every Incandescent light in my car over to LED (except for the headlights which have an HID retro). Doesn't matter what the bulb is or where it is I will be converting it to LED if possible.

Let's start with what I've already completed, which isn't much.
I did a quick and dirty LED conversion on my HVAC controls with some flexible LED strip. However depending on how Soundman's HVAC controls turn out I might change these over to Superflux.

LED strip glued in place.


Lit up without the knobs installed.


All back together.


I'm going to do my S2000 cluster but there's a company called Qube Engineering that makes new LED boards so it so I'm going the easy route and buying that.

I'm using all Lumileds with the exception of one tube of Nichia for my dome lights, license plate lights, trunk lights, glove box light and under dash lights.
Lumiled HPWT-DH00-G4000 H34 bin - 700 pieces
Lumiled HPWT-ML00-D4200 F24 bin - 1200 pieces
Nichia NSPWR60CSS-K1 C0 bin - 60 pieces

My Lumileds were bought from eBay as NOS items and my Nichia's came straight from Nichia Japan (via Nichia USA).

Here's the collection of LEDs and my copper clad board for etching my own boards.


I've progress out of the planning stages (with the exception of my center tail light) and I'm slowly moving forward in board design with Eagle PCB.
Interior lights don't really need to be discussed as they are pretty basic so I'll just talk about my exterior ones instead.
I'll start with my front turn signals and bumper lights. These will be marker and turn (bumper lights are marker only from the factory) and they will be Sequential via a micro controller.
Rear turn signals will be signal only and sequential too.
My brake lights will marker and turn plus I'm going to attempt to convert the center portion to LED so it lights up too, the center does not light up from the factory.

Here's both my left and right tail lights stripped down.


The center section is painted from the factory with an opaque silver paint (in the following photo you can see some of it is removed already).


I used my cheap home made soda blaster and cleaned it all out, I still need to work on it a bit more but it will work for testing purposes.


I'm also going to build an LED board to redo my light up name plate on the tails. Here's a little teaser of how it looks so much better then the LED strip that was in there.

I'm pretty much done school now so I've got some free time to devote to this now.
After seeing madme89's DRL project (http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?43690-Chrysler-300-LED-DRL-project); I decided to apply his plexiglass idea to the bottom of my center tail light.

Plexiglass cut with double sided tape applied, my Red-Orange Lumiled's are in the background.


Here's all the LEDs on the plexiglass.



Sitting in the tail light housing. I need to do some trimming so they'll sit lower of course.


All soldered and lit up.


Testing it with the lens on at marker brightness.


Brake brightness.



Here's the LED string itself.



Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrZo...o1LyGbKktLw&index=1&feature=plcp

They will be brighter on the car then in the video. The 12V regulator needs to see over 12V to do it's job correctly (14.5V would be perfect) but my power supply only puts out 12V.

I've got the rest of the lower boards cut and ready to be soldered, should be done with them today.

And here I thought getting some 360° led super brights would be good enough for me, but after restyling my harnesses and alarm wiring, I don't think I will want to be on the other end of a soldering iron for a but, maybe next year I'll do a more thorough job

I feel you there Andrew, between all my LED, HID and wiring stuff I should have a soldering iron attached to my hand.

Made some more progress.
I got the 2 other strips ready and soldered. I just need to solder the resistors on and power leads on one of them.


Here's to of the strips done and ready to go.


I also started working on my license plate lights. I cut open the lights so I have a flat surface to mount the board on.


Then I put my Nichias on and soldered them all in place.


Back of the board, ignore the boogery looking soldering job in the lower corner.


This is where it stopped though, for some reason only the last LED in both strings is lighting up. I'm at a loss as to why this is happening. I've checked them with my multimeter; there's voltage and continuity across the whole thing so what's wrong with it?!?

Maybe the LEDs themselves went poop?

That is going to be one well lit machine by the time you are done. You'll put that Audi super bowl ad to shame.

Anywho, it looks like you are short circuiting the rest of the LEDs. You have pin 1 soldered to pin 2 on your top rail and 3 to 4 on your bottom rail. From the first picture, it looks like the slanted corner is the upper right of all the LEDs. When you flip that over, you are running a rail between all the pins on the one side, which is bypassing the LEDs completely. Only on the last pair do they only go into one pin and exit another without a jumper between the pins.

I'm assuming you have this wired as the two red wires are both meant to be +12v. So the LEDs are meant to be 3 in series, then those in parallel, finally in series with the ground resistor? If so, all you would have to do is snip the wire between the legs of the other two LEDs on the rail and they should all light up.

^Someone pointed that out on another forum and boy do I feel stupid now LOL. It's all fixed now.

Here's the license plates lights all done now.



Mounted into the housing. I still need to glue them in place.




The license plate LEDs are Nichia NSPWR60CSS-K1 C0 bin. They're wired in series parallel 3 per string with a 56ohm 1/4W resistor at the end of each brench, total of 2 brench so 6 per light. Current is 50mA. They will be voltage regulated at 12V with a Sharp VReg but I still need to set the Vreg up.

Here they are all lit up.



Moving back to the LED center section.
I got the boards finished. There's over 60 LumiLED Superflux HPWT-DH00 LEDs used in these strings. They are wired in series parallel, 4 LEDs per branch with a 27ohm 1/4W resistor at the end of each expect for 2 branches of 3 LEDs which have a 68ohm 1W resistor at the end.
Finished boards.



I had to cut out the center section so they can sit deeper. I will likely have to make it deeper and rebuild it all so they light it up correctly. I'm using Popsicle sticks so the center section retains it's shape while cut.


Here's the boards laid in place.
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v87/G2Rac/96%20Talon%20TSI%20AWD/LED%20Tails/IMGP2796.jpg[/img]

Lit up again, ignore the dead spot, this is why I need to make it deeper so the boards will sit correctly.
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v87/G2Rac/96%20Talon%20TSI%20AWD/LED%20Tails/IMGP2797.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v87/G2Rac/96%20Talon%20TSI%20AWD/LED%20Tails/IMGP2798.jpg[/img]

Once again, here's a video:
Talon LED Tail Light Center Section Test 2 - YouTube

AWESOME! Looks cool. i can't wait to LEDify my talon

Very inspirational

That's pretty cool, tons of work though...wow. Kudos to ya.

Thanks guys!

My old power supply decided to die after 4 years of faithful service. I had a spare that I modified again. This time I included a 3V and 5V and put jacks on top to make it easier to use.


I glued the license plate boards back into their housing and glued the backs of the boards to water proof them.


I also glued the boards for the dome lights into the dome light housing.



Then I made a small 6 LED board for my cargo lights.


Tonight I might make my foot well lights and glove box light.

And to think I'm just going to use SMD replacement bulbs

Your car is going to shine, literally.

LOL, thanks Andrew!

A sleek car driving very quickly with wooshing sounds at night with very bright lights....somehow I think there will be many people reporting UFO sightings in NL region in the near future

LOL! It's gonna be a while until the damn thing is running.

Look what showed up yesterday.
6 Cree XM-Ls and 4 heat sinks.


Mounted to the heat sink.


I got them off an eBay seller who had them on sale for the lowest I've ever seen so I bought a bunch. These are high powered LEDs and can output 1000 lumens.
2 of these will be be my reverse lights (maybe 4 if I can fit them but that's doubtful). I'm also thinking about using 1 each for DRLs but we'll see how that goes. I'm not sure there is enough space in the bucket nor the housing so we'll see.
I need to get some drivers so I can play around with these. I'm thinking I might just need some DX drivers to experiment with since they are cheap; however before this all goes into the car they will be replaced with something much better (Shark Buck from the Sandwich Shoppe most likely).

I also soldered up my glove box light. 3 Nichias, more then enough for the glove box light.


I've got exactly 5 Nichia left so I'm going to get some resistors tomorrow to make them into my foot well lights. I'll have 5 total per side.
That's it for now.

My first board for the tail lights is now drawn.



Gonna print this up so I can mess around with the lay out today. Hopefully I'll get it all drawn over the weekend.

Think I've got the boards finalized/laid out for the tails now; only part that is an issue is where the tails curve down at the end (you'll see in the pictures).

I printed the boards out so I could figure out the layout and everything. I'm pretty happy with it; they came out perfect and everything is the right size and lines up.


I meant to pick up some Bristol board so I could cut some templates but forgot too. I then saw the Popsicle sticks I had kick around and had an idea.


Since the paper wouldn't flop around now, I laid out the board into the housing.



Here's the corner I'm talking about. I'm going to have to draw this in CAD and work with it in there.


I should have all the boards drawn by the end of the weekend! Cannot wait!

That's just crazy how big the heat sink is compared to the LED. I would never imagine an LED gets that hot!

Heat is a huge issue with high power LEDs like the XM-L. 3W doesn't see like a lot but when it's coming from something the size of your finger nail, it is.

All the XM-Ls will have fans mounted to there heat sinks.

Alright, it's official the boards are all drawn.

I'll get some boring number out of the way first thing.
The tails lights will have 138 LEDs per side for brake/marker lights, 66 LEDs per side for turn signals and 147 LEDs for the center section.
The tail lights will pull 2.8A and the center section pulls 3.43A. Everything is voltage regulated to 9V.

I've spent hours and hours on the AutoCAD drawings for the boards. A lot of times I'd print something, cut it out and test fit it. I'd not any changes needed make them and try again. Here's a picture of this process:



The center section and bumper markers where by FAR the hardest for me to draw.


I called a local Industrial supply place this week and found out they had 1mm drill bits in stock so I went and got a bunch. Check out how small these things are!


I also picked up a Dremel Work Station which will function as a drill press.


I need to order more PCB boards, resistors, etching supplies, etc.
I'm also trying to contact the person I originally bought my PWMs from as I'm doing something different and can't use them now. If I can't get a hold of them I'll have to design my own.
I'm also working on the details for my sequencers (all my turn signals will be sequential) from another HIDP member.

That's it for now!

Got my el cheapo LED driver in from China this week. I finally got to play with it tonight.


I then hooked it up to the Cree XM-L to see if it worked right.


I then hooked my Multimeter up in line to check the current flow.
Here we are just starting off at 300mA.


Then 700mA (wow is this bright!).


Then I cranked it to 1300mA (OW my eyes!)


I wish my camera was better because man are these things bright! My camera can't quite catch it.

Here's some video of me messing around with it.


Order the parts needed for my PWMs this week. I've got the rest of the stuff on the way for etching my boards on the way.

Youza is that bright! I think I'll be able to spot you breaking in NFLD from Ontario

Some bright there!

I'm after knowing where your accent is gone?

Yes b'y!

I never had much of an accent. I grew up in Ontario so not too much of an accent.

Last pieces of the puzzle have arrived today.
20 sheets of Press N Peel Blue from Dipmicro. The Kester 60/40 .031 solder and flux pen are from the local Electronic place.


Another 10 6x4 single sided and 2 big (I forget the dimensions off hand) double sided copper clad boards. The big ones will become my PWMs and power supplies.


Huge order from Digikey. Paste flux (in the silver cooler bag), PWM parts, SMD resistors, etc.


ABS Plastic sheet, I'll be cutting with down to enclose my center section again once I figure out how deep I need to make it.


My etch tank (Rubbermaid Cereal bin), Hydrogen Peroxide and Muratic Acid.


I printed off all my boards so I could test them out in there housings to make sure everything is perfect before I start soldering them. I'm going to start with the tail lights first. Only thing I think is going to be a pain is the sides of the center housing; the lower curved board. This is such a weird shape, I'm going to trim the paper and see what happens.



w00t!


I didn't screw it up too much, had to make some touch ups with a Shrapie. Most of my issues were caused by my printer not wanting to feed the PNP so I just taped it to a piece of regular paper and it worked perfect!

I started drilling some holes too. This is a tedious task; I'm going to get both main tail light boards done tomorrow and into the etch bath.


I need to do something with the front of the PCB, either paint it or some chrome vinyl.


Also added some text which is backwards, not sure how to mirror it in CAD.
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v87/G2Rac/96%20Talon%20TSI%20AWD/LED%20Tails/IMGP3008.jpg[/img]

Found this Anthony: http://wiki.bk.tudelft.nl/toi-pedia/AutoCAD_Modify_Tools#Mirror

All looks good, I am very interested to see the end product.

Thanks Bryan. I figured out the text thing this morning.

I should start populating boards tomorrow. Need to etch them first.

Does anyone else get the impression he does all this in a underground lair like all mad scientists?

LOL.
It's an unfinished room in my basement.

Anthony you can't do that to me, I got so exicted cause I saw you posted here thinking it was an update. How are things coming along?

Very very slow Bryan, sorry.

I'm working away from home so updates are coming along very slow; like the rest of my car. I'm hoping to get some stuff done over this weekend but I also need to do some work on my DD (sway bar links are broken).

I can't really work on this stuff away from home sadly or I would have brought it with me.

Been a while since an update; bout a month. Progress is slow because I'm working out of town and only home on the weekends. I don't always have time on the weekend to do anything with the boards. I did manage to get a few more boards drilled this weekend though.

Printing the designs to the PNP Blue.


Ready to be transferred to the copper clad.


Toner transferred and ready to be drilled.



All the boards drilled so far. This is all very time consuming but on the upside I haven't broken 1 of the drill bits yet.


I spent a LOT of time hunched over the drill press. The Dremel work station is a very nice piece for the price though.


The thin board I bought is really nice, I can easily cut it with a pair of scissors so getting it to conform to the curves of the tails shouldn't be a problem.
Here's the headlight turn signal board cut out.


Test fitted into the headlight.


That's it for now. Not sure when I'll get more work done on them.

Slow but sure will still get the job done. I'm always excited to see an update though; I find this sh!t pretty awesome

I think we are all impressed with your work, looks really good!

Thanks guys.
I hoped to get something done this weekend but that didn't happen.

I started etching boards this weekend. I used a 2:1 mixture of Hydrogen Peroxide and Muratic Acid, worked great.



After etching the boards went into a water bath.


Once I was done etching the boards I neutralized the acid with baking soda. I'll be deposing of this at the local dump's Hazardous Waste Unit next weekend.


Here's all the boards I etched. I still need to make more and I need to buy more copper clad.





All the boards are labelled so they are easy to identify.

They also fit where they are supposed to, some needed a bit of trimming and a couple will need to be redone.
Front Turns.



TALON Name Plate.



Brake lights.


Turns signals (the first board needs to be redone).



Center section. At fist I was going to put the boards in from the front.


However with the lens and the complex curves I decided to put them in from the back. Of course I still need to populate them and then enclose them.


I then decided to start working on populating one of the LED brake/marker boards.
I started by wrapping the board with chrome vinyl.

Then I got out the SMD resistors.


These suckers are small, thank god for sticky paste flux and my mag lamp!



I then put the first couple LEDs in and soldered them.


Then laid out more resistors.


Paste flux and more soldering.


All the resistors soldered in place.


All the LEDs in place and ready to be soldered.


1 board complete! Many to go The leads are only temporary.

I then threw the board into a tail light to see what they looked like. The board is only powered at 5 volts here.


I then switched the board to 12V (will not be running this high in the end) to simulate brake lights.


Here's what the board looks like just sitting in the housing.


Over all I'm very happy with how it all came out. You can't see the individual LEDs which is exactly what I want.
I've got lots of work to do now getting all the brake/marker boards soldered and ready to go. I also need to figure out how to properly get my Vregs working and then design my power supplies.

I agree; it just looks like one big square bulb!

It's really beginning to all come together

Looks good! Very impressed with the work!

Thanks guys.

Hope to get a few more boards done this weekend.

tedious indeed! very impressed with your knowledge and skill. I recall a few years back, some guy did a complete led tail light conversion and posted it on youtube. Really cool looking modification IMO.

found the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6sZg3iL5EY

That's azdave's old Eclipse, he's since sold it.
He did an awesome job on his tails, much more involved then mine.

Got almost all of the boards for one tail light done. I still need to redesign the final board that goes right in the corner.


Here they are in the tail light. The boards are not mounted so it looks a little off.


With the lens on running at 5 volts. On the corner of the light I need something to defuse the LEDs but I'm not sure what. Again the boards aren't mounted so they look a bit off.



With 12V on them to get an idea of full brightness.


I got one of the lower center section boards done. I still have another to do and 1 more that I might redo completely. The board in the pictures needs 2 more LEDs but I don't have the right SMD resistor on hand.



Here's all the center section boards behind the center section to get an idea of what it will look like. These are run at 9V via my Vregs.


I also did a bit of testing to see how hot things are getting and left the lower center section board on the 9V Vreg for about 15-20 minutes. The temp never rose from what's on the gun.


I've still have a lot left to do, I haven't even started working on my power supplies or PWMs yet, I need to protype them first on the bread board. I need to drill more boards so I can populate them with LEDs and resistors for the other tail light. I also need to sit down and play with some of the amber LEDs on the bread board to see what mA to run them at for the name plate LEDs, I'm thinking around 50-60mA will be good. I want them bright but not brighter then the brakes or turns, close to the same brightness as the markers is fine though.
I also need to buy more copper clad board and PNP Blue.

Well some minor updates.
First here's a video of what the Front turns will look like. I of course have to rebuild this board because it needs more LEDs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69U2a99x-4s&feature=youtu.be

Here's the new brick of Red-Amber LEDs I picked up. G13 bin, I think I've got the right resistors but I need to run my math again.


I picked up more PCB material from ABCFab on eBay, Bill is awesome and his stuff is top notch! FR-4 .030 thick black backed 1/2 oz (if memory serves me right) copper.


I also built the back to my center section out of plastic recently. I need to fit the tail lights on to the car to get the spacing correct.


I did try to fit the back piece to my friend's car but I found out that there were 2 stand offs on the tail lights that stopped it from sitting as deep as I wanted. In the pic below you'll see the right one has this stand off and the left one has been removed.


Both removed.


I also bought some Dynamask 5000 from Octamex in Germany. This stuff is a UV exposure dry solder mask film. I'll have to build myself a UV light box but it will really allow me to step up the quality of my boards.
I've also got some Pusler White TRF so I can make a silk screen of my own too. I really want my home made boards to look as professional as possible.

I've completed redrawing my boards to house more LEDs and also have plug and play connectors, no more jumpers.

I'm also researching microcontrollers so I can do some more interesting things with my tail lights.

Been awhile since I've updated this so...

I redrew ALL of my LED boards again. This time I crammed as many LEDs in as possible, allow me to break it all down for you.
- 264 LEDs per tail light
- 147 LEDs for the center brake tail
- That's 675 LEDs just for the brake lights!
- TALON Name Plate has 176 LEDs.
- Rear Turn Signals have 138 LEDs per side, 276 total!
- Front Headlight Turn Signals/Markers have 32 LEDs per side, 64 total!
- Front Bumper Turn Signals/Markers have 52 LEDs per side, 104 total!
- 1031 LEDs in total, that's 4124 holes I have to drill in total for soldering these things to the boards, FML!

Printing the designs to the PNP Blue.


Since my boards have sat for a while I had to clean them, bit of time with some steel wool and they are ready for the designs to be transferred.



I picked up a GBC H220 Laminator a while back and modified it to run slower. It works so much nicer then my old iron for transferring the PNP blue to the boards.


Etched and ready for drilling.


2316 holes later, yawn! My back is shot btw.
I cleaned the toner off the boards with some paint thinner, hit them with steel wool again and lastly some Isopytpol Alcohol. Then it I soaked them in MG Chemicals Liquid Tin. This stuff is the cat's ass, tins the board in about 3-5 minutes and will protect the copper from oxidizing.



From top to bottom, name plate boards, Brake light boards, headlight turn signals/markers and bumper turn signals/markers. This should keep me busy for a little bit.


I'm going to start soldering up all those boards tomorrow, I'm waiting on a shipment of resistors from Digikey.

I've finally started learning more about my MSP430 finally so I can start building my controllers for each housing.
The rear tail light controller will be interesting, it will control normal parking and brake lights plus do some sequencing for when parked. I'm think I will have a bluetooth module in it to control the 'Show' functions via my Android and maybe a display of some sort up front so I know what's going on back there.

Stay tuned!

Nice work Anthony!!
When you start working with the MSP430 would love to hear all the details, did a little research and it looks pretty interesting!

I'll share as muc as I can Bryan.
Right now I'm just reading through the quick start guide and tutorials.

Love this project of yours! Can't wait to see it all finished.

Looks awesome man. Excited for an update on this.

Thanks guys!

I've now finished a bunch of the amber boards.
Etched the center section and rear turn signal boards yesterday and started drilling them.

Hope to finish them off over the weekend.

Got an order from Digikey last week - SMD resistors and Sharp 12V VRegs (just to have more on hand since they are discontinued). The bad thing is I can't count and didn't order enough resistors so I've got another order placed now.


I did another rough design of my last tail light board, still not 100% happy with it though. I'm going to get all the other boards populated and then get them dry mounted into the housing and try this again.


Transferred my turn signal boards and trimmed/test fit them. My first board had to be left a bit bigger but other then that, no issues.


Soldering lots and lots of tiny SMD resistors. I also had to locally source some new SMD resistors for my bumper markers/turns because the ones from Digikey were too big. With these new resistors I had a small issue, they get soldered to the board vertically instead of horizontally; of course I noticed this after they were all soldered, D'OH!


Many hours later almost all the turn signals on the car are finished.



I also played around with my reverse lights. These are high power Cree XM-L LEDs powered by LuxDrive Buck Blocks at 2100mA. These will need a 20K Pot to adjust brightness as I will likely blind someone with them LOL. I'll likely mount the pot in the center console so I can adjust it if need be when backing up.


Just sitting there for now. I will figure out mounting later.


These are crazy bright, I was thinking two of them per tail light but that may be overkill. I want to test them on the car before I make any final decisions.


[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...AWD/LED%20Tails/100_0662_zps15bb5e6c.jpg[/img]

That's it for now. As I said I've got the last bunch of resistors on the way to finish the brake light boards. I also need some more PnP Blue to finish etching the last remaining brake light boards and make another one of the tail light turn signals as I mess it up when trimming.
Should have all the boards done by the end of next week.

I also have some dummy bulbs so my dome lights and rear cargo light can be simple plug and play.

Stay tuned!

Your tail light work has made me want to do the mustang sequential turn signals like in the video below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwz71eXZiJQ

^ I have one of those. There are kits you can buy just for that. The one I bought went out of business. I'm sure there are others though.

I originally wanted sequential turn signals but now I've gone off the deep end.

Finished soldering up my brake light boards. I can now temporarily mount them and draft up the 5th and final board for the tail lights.


Here's a back of the boards.


Here's a comparison to the previous version of the boards, you can see there are a lot more LEDs in the new version.



I also started working on the dome lights again, I want to run a voltage regulator to save my LEDs.
First was installing some glazing points to mount the boards too (ala azdave).


Couple seconds with my MAP torch to heat these bad boys up and then push them into the plastic.




I picked up some of the dummy bulbs off of eBay to plug into the factory bulb holder so it will be plug and play.


I still need to dye/paint the dome light housing seen in the pictures.
I also brought the center section boards back to the drawing board once again! I messed them up and had the LEDs facing the wrong way so they wouldn't light. Of course I noticed this AFTER I transferred and etched the boards, sigh.
I've also finally posted about the MSP430/TLC5940NT combo sequencer over on 43oh!

Decided to use the sequencers I have now to get my headlights 'done' and on the car. I also wanted to finish up the bumper markers. When I get my new sequencers designed and what not I can simply swap them out.

To even start messing with this I needed a new pair of strippers to strip wire smaller then 22AWG. I also needed bent nose pliers to install my push points that my boards will mount to.


I used some Easy Off Oven Cleaner to strip the chrome on the bumper markers. I then hit them with some gloss black paint.


Ribbon cable for the sequencers soldered on and the boards installed in the housings. Then lenses are just laid there, I need to get some JB Weld to seal them up.


Here you can see the push pins stuck into the headlight housing.


Sequencer board placed in.

LED board.


Lastly the lens on (the other side but you get the idea), looks OEM


Here's a couple videos too.

That's crazy bright, good work!

Cool beans!

It's getting CLOSER!!

I cannot wait for this car to be on the road. The attention to detail is inspiring

Thanks guys!

Seriously impressive.

Thanks!

A mildly boring update.

I had bought a paper cutter (Guillotine) to cut my boards. However it wasn't sharp enough so it pulled the boards further under the blade thus messing up cuts. So now I need to print the lower center section boards again. However since I fly for work tomorrow I'm not going through the process to print, etch, drill and populate another board; I will do that when I come back.

I picked up 5M of 40 way ribbon cable, I split it into 20 way and cut off multiple lengths. This will provide the ground from the 59116F LED driver on my sequencer board.


Here's the ribbon cable soldered to the tail light boards.


And the name plate boards.


The ribbon cable will plug into the sequencer boards making everything plug and play. I've also decided to place my Voltage regulators for the LEDs on the sequencer board, this way everything will be in one unit. I can then get a housing machined for the sequencer unit.

I also picked up some accelerometers (G sensor) for the sequencer. I want to measure how many Gs the car pulls under a panic brake situation. From this I can feed the info into the program so when the accelerometers sees that G force then the brakes will strobe to get the attention of other drivers.


I also picked up an HC-06 bluetooth adapter (small chip) and Blue Pak Booster pack (mounts on the MSP430 Launch Pad). I'm unsure if I will use the booster pack at all. I will make a plug and play board for the HC-06 to mount to and plug into the sequencer. This will allow me to control the extra sequencing functions via an app on my phone.


I'm working on drawing up my sequencer. When I get back home from work I will finish the center section brake light boards, hopefully I will have made some progress with the sequencer too.

Till next time.

Not a ton of updates but some good ones.
I had to modiify the tail light housings so the boards would sit further back in them and the output wouldn't be all hot spotty. I then put Glazing point in for the boards to mount on.


I then dry mounted the boards, some of them had to be sanded down a bit. I can now FINALLY draw my last board.



I also found out the ribbon cable I bought was a complete different/odd pitch so I couldn't source connectors for it. That's what I get for buying off eBay so I had to desolder everything.


I had new stuff bought but things have changed a bit.
As some people may or may not know I've been working on, rather unsuccessfully I might add, a microcontroller based controller/sequencer for my lights. It's based of Texas Instruments MSP430 uC and TLC59116F LED driver; however this is uncharted territory for me and designing and programming them is prove to be a steep learning curve. Also remember, this is me - you know I want all the cool stuff: Bluetooth control, multiple show sequences, G sensor for panic breaking, etc etc. All of which only further complicates this build.
So I've decided to abandon it for now.












































































I did stumble across these: ghoztlighting.com/product/ledsequencer/
Doesn't have all the features I want but should control all my LEDs for now. I've pulled the trigger and purchased a pair, this will allow me to control one tail light so I'll go ahead and experiment with them and see what happens. I'll post updates once I get a tail light up and running.

I've been frigging around in EagleCAD for the past couple days to finish up my power supply boards once and for all. I'm happy to say that they are finally done and sent off for manufacturing through OSHPark.
Turn Signal and Name plate boards (2 Vregs on each).
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Brake Light power supplies (5 power supplies on 2 separate boards).
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I've got everything I need to fab the power supplies up minus the screw clamps for the inputs/outputs so I will order up those and a couple things I need for the Ghozt sequencers.
For now I'm in a holding pattern, gotta love the waiting game.