New Lightweight 3D Printed Tail Light Housings

[ryanjboutin]

Originally Posted by spoke

If you do decide to go incandescent, keep in mind much of the light energy dissipated by the bulb goes in all directions. Thus you should think about putting chrome tape like this stuff on all the internal walls. Otherwise much of the light output will be wasted.

Correct.

I have a few kinds of metal tape that I use for various projects.
I'd probably use the gold heat tape in this application; for both heat and light insulation.
But the point seems moot, as there doesn't appear to be an incandescent solution here.

I found other, more expensive, printed housings online with incandescent sockets, but they don't always ship to the US.

[famoroso]

My '89 build is finally home from body, paint & upholstery. I'm shooting for ~2,550 pounds. These rear housings would help in that regard. I'm a big Spokeworks guy. It would be two great tastes that would go GREAT together (seeing as how Spoke's LED boards don't rely on reflectors). It doesn't look like that collab has happened yet?

[917_Langheck]

Originally Posted by famoroso

My '89 build is finally home from body, paint & upholstery.

Congratulations Frank, that was a long wait.

Are you going for the French tricolore look in your garage?

[famoroso]

Originally Posted by 917_Langheck

Congratulations Frank, that was a long wait.

Are you going for the French tricolore look in your garage?

Well, I do have a 2 in / 1 out Scart (French) muffler on Gemini now and will likely do a Scart 2 in / GT3 out on Vents.

However, it's all a matter of perspective...

Rot, Weiß und Blau. 🇺🇲

I also have this on the way...






Anywho, back to regularly scheduled thread topic and my interest in Spokeworks boards in these lightweight housings. How do we make that happen?

[spoke]

Originally Posted by famoroso

Well, I do have a 2 in / 1 out Scart (French) muffler on Gemini now and will likely do a Scart 2 in / GT3 out on Vents.

However, it's all a matter of perspective...

Rot, Weiß und Blau. 🇺🇲

I also have this on the way...






Anywho, back to regularly scheduled thread topic and my interest in Spokeworks boards in these lightweight housings. How do we make that happen?

If I can get my hands on one of the fixtures for about 2 months, I can design boards to fit. Usually what I do for folks who provide a fixture is design the boards and give them a set at no charge.

[famoroso]

Originally Posted by TopTuning

Oh, those!

I haven't tried to fit those LED boards yet. If you send me set, I can modify the design to fit them easily however. No additional charge for this.

Originally Posted by spoke

If I can get my hands on one of the fixtures for about 2 months, I can design boards to fit. Usually what I do for folks who provide a fixture is design the boards and give them a set at no charge.

Sooo... Which method is the most efficacious?

A) Top Tuning modifying his tail light housing design to fit Spokeworks existing LED boards, or...

B) Spokeworks designing LED boards for Top Tuning's existing tail light housings?

Regardless, I would like the design to incorporate the side markers.

I'm fine with either, but would obviously prefer a solution that both vendors diligence and collaborate on. That being said, I'm ready to acquire a set of housings and have them sent to Spokeworks.



Let's do this.


Also, I may have missed this in the thread, but what's the wiring situation? I assume I need to source some factory wiring pigtails to splice to the housing harnesses / LED boards?

[milnejk]

I am very interested in the taillight housing/LED combo. My housings are in bad shape and not worth saving thus the new housings by Toptuning would be the answer to my problems. The Spokes LEDs should be superior to what Toptuning is currently offering.

I will commit to purchasing a set of housings with LEDs.

For me timing is critical as my current taillights are basically inop.

John

[famoroso]

I've reached out to both Top and Spoke in an effort to make a love connection. Hopefully, I (we) will be back to you all in two and two.

[spoke]

Originally Posted by famoroso

I've reached out to both Top and Spoke in an effort to make a love connection. Hopefully, I (we) will be back to you all in two and two.

Looks like you and I are playing phone tag. I have an offer to have a set of fixtures sent to me from another owner. This is basically all I need right now to get started on the design. Looking at the pictures of the lightweight fixtures, it may just take some slight adjustment of the existing boards to get a suitable solution.

[jac1976]

Include me on the list of interested parties for this collaboration. And thanks to Frank for pushing for this.

Jac

[PeteKz]

Keep me on the list too. Mine are working okay now with LED bulbs, but I would consider swapping them out.

[shoooo32]

Update - I had my SC up on the lift for winter maintenance and was able to inspect the light boxes from the back side/underneath. Given how hard I thrashed the car on gravel roads last year, I expected some sort of damage to the printed plastic housings. Nope! They looked as good as they did when I installed them.

[pampadori]

I have the TopTuning assemblies and would love to find something that is dramatically brighter when brake pedal is depressed. The LED bulbs I have now do get brighter but these cars could benefit by something dramatic considering how small the actual brake lamp area is within the light assembly.
To clarify, the housings are just fantastic but I'm chasing the additional safety of hard-to-miss brake lights

[TopTuning]

Originally Posted by pampadori

I have the TopTuning assemblies and would love to find something that is dramatically brighter when brake pedal is depressed. The LED bulbs I have now do get brighter but these cars could benefit by something dramatic considering how small the actual brake lamp area is within the light assembly.
To clarify, the housings are just fantastic but I'm chasing the additional safety of hard-to-miss brake lights

I haven't yet found a dual brightness bulb that fits and is brighter under braking yet.

They are 3157 sockets, so there should be some options available you'd think.

Aside from very expensive options like this:
https://www.headlightrevolution.com/brightest-3157-turn-signal-bulbs?quantity=1

[Gillies]

Those housings look awesome !

[SiracHaile]

I would also like a TopTuning Spoke collaboration tail light set. Another suggestion would be a black housings since the LEDs won’t need a reflective housing.

[spoke]

Looking forward to getting a lightweight fixture and designing some LEDs for it.

Without a sidemarker, it will be interesting to light up red rear turnsignals gently as running lights. Is it wrong to assume the turnsignal socket is 3156 (single filament)? Hopefully the turnsignal socket is 3157 so the red turnsignal can be lit gently at night to greatly increase the vehicle running light footprint. This will also provide some lighting to the side to act as a sidemarker.

Rear amber turnsignals cannot be lit gently as running lights. DOT regulations prohibit amber running lights at the rear of vehicles. Amber running lights are only allowed at the front of the vehicle as running lights.

Here's a 911 with the rear red turnsignals lit gently to double as running lights.

[spoke]

OK confirmed a lightweight fixture is in the mail to me. Once I get it I can see if there are differences between the OEM fixture and the LW fixture as far as light cavity sizes. Hopefully I will only need to do some minor adjustments on the current LED boards to fit the LW fixture.

The T25 3156 and 3157 sockets are new to me. Up to now I've only used the BAY15D, BA15S, and BA9 empty bulb bases to connect to OEM fixtures. These I can buy cheaply by the 1000's and stuff them with 3d printed plastic inserts and solder pigtail wires directly to the bases.

As far as empty T25 3156/3157 male plugs, I found these at Autolumination:



Inexpensive enough but I believe the contacts of the wedge base are solid wires while the pigtail wires to the boards has to be stranded so there are some solid-stranded wire interfacing to be done there.

Also found some ready-made T25 pigtails like these:



The wires about 2 inches shorter than what I use and not traditional Porsche colors. I won't know if these will work until I get them in my hands and attach to a board to see if there's enough slack to plug into the socket with the board hanging free.

[spoke]

Received a LW fixture from Paul. Looks to be very nicely made; very ridged.

The sockets for the 3 lights plug-ins so can be changed out if desired.

Brake: 3157 (dual filament)
Reverse: 3156 (single filament)
Turnsignal: 3156 (single filament)

If the turnsignal socket is changed to 3157, the turnsignal board can be designed to gently light the turnsignal if red and if amber, I can light the last row of LEDs to act as sidemarkers with red LEDs. One could assume that if a Govt DOT agency are real sticklers that if a vehicle had an OEM rear sidemarker as standard equipment that it should have a sidemarker when doing modifications.

[spoke]

Here's the brake board for the OEM fixture. The LW fixture is about 1/3 inch shorter and bit less wider. Shouldn't be an issue shrinking the board to fit.



The connector may be an issue though because the socket encroaches into the cavity and the connector + pigtail is quite long. I may have to make my own connectors using empty connectors like this one. Not looking forward to making connectors as it requires 2 different types of wires: solid wire for the connector and stranded wire for the pigtail. I have a couple of ready-made connector+pigtail units ordered.

Also the 3157 connector is not polarized like the 1157. Thus I may need a full bridge rectifier instead of the simple steering diode used on other LED boards.