LED Brake Lights

[Harpo]

Does this offer still stand? It is a few months old.

Originally Posted by spoke

Interesting. No problem opening up this foglight. It was a real bummer to not be able to open up the other foglight. I believe that one was bonded together.

Does this foglight have a gasket between the lens and the reflector?

So this is the 3rd different foglight design for the '69-'89 911 cars for which my LED brakes fit.

If you send me the foglight enclosures, I'll try to design a LED board to fit.

[spoke]

Originally Posted by David

Spoke, since this thread is 47 pages long, I might have missed it but have you considered making a taillaight housing designed around your LEDs? It could be much simpler than the original housing so it would be easier to make and lighter.

I haven't gotten into any fixture design. There is a company making fiberglass housings:

https://www.f-s-h.com/Tail-light-housings-for-911

I have a set from a 911 member who wanted LED boards for the fixture.

My rear turnsignal PCB fits in the turnsignal bucket. This housing doesn't have a socket for the sidemarker.

The brake PCB would need to be rounded as the mock up below shows. One issue with this housing is the brake socket is for a single filament bulb like 1156 but needs to be dual filament for running lights and brakes. The original socket is glued in so it wouldn't take much imagination to cut it out and glue in the proper socket.

The reverse light cavity is very small due to the thick webbing between the lights. The only LED solution for these reverse lights would be one of the generally available tower LED replacements.

[spoke]

Originally Posted by Harpo

Does this offer still stand? It is a few months old.

Sure if the housing comes apart. As much as I tried with the sealed lens/reflector, I couldn't get them apart. What type do you have on your car? Do you have a couple of pictures?

[Harpo]

Here you go.
Let me know if you want anything special

[spoke]

Originally Posted by Harpo

Here you go.
Let me know if you want anything special

That reflector looks identical to the '83-'89 fogs. It would be nice if the current PCB fits in this fixture. What years was this fog used?

If you want to send me one fixture, I'll see what I can do to put some LEDs in this. I only need one fixture but I need all the pieces to make sure the assembly fits with the board stuff inside.

[Harpo]

These came off my 74.

David

[spoke]

Got around to checking out the fit of the current LED foglight board in the below-the-bumper fixture from Harpo.

The reflector looks to be identical to the later foglights from the '84-'89 911's. I dropped a blank board into the glass lens and it looks like it fits.



However when I drop in a finished board, the dc/dc converter block interferes with the edge of the glass lens. This will be easy to mitigate by filing about 75-100 mil off the end of the board opposite of the converter. This is not a big deal as there are no traces at the end and the board itself is not much of a heat sink so thermal impedance is not affected.




Even so, the board does fit under the glass lens. I'm working on some spacers to mount the board. It looks like the board will sit on the raised edge of the reflector so it may require some sort of foam or rubber gasket.

[Harpo]

Looking good. Thanks for the update

David

[spoke]

I think I have the spacers for the early foglight fixtures done. After 7 iterations the existing board seems to fit nicely. The converter package does not hit the side of the glass lens and the board with its spacers fit snugly in the lens-reflector sandwich.

The foglight LED boards will come with the spacers already attached. Once the light bulb socket is popped off, the board just needs to be placed in the lens and reassemble. Should be an easy install.

[spoke]

Because of the lockdown of many industries, I'm unable to get some parts for the 911 LED foglight boards so 911 LED foglights are listed as "Out of stock" until the lockdown eases. Stay safe.

[Platypus]

Very nice. Interested.

[Rleog]

I received a set of LED fog light boards for my ‘87 Carrera and installed them today. It made for a cool ‘Stay At Home’ project. I followed the installation instructions from Spoke’s website. The spacer clips fit nicely. Jerry has posted pics of the boards and how they fit so no need for me to go there. Here’s a pic of the finished product. My original H5 low beam lights now beg for replacement!

Thanks very much, Jerry.

[Harpo]

Thanks again Jerry

[Iciclehead]

Originally Posted by spoke

Finally got around to finishing the first prototype of the '69-'73 front turn signal board. Last step is to apply RTV to the LEDs and bend them to the correct angle to point forward when the board is mounted in the fixture.



I tried a different method to space the LEDs off the board when soldering them. Seems to have worked out very well as they are very uniform in their final angle.



I hope I've chosen the correct angle as I only have the fixture, not a car to go with it. The boards fit nicely in the fixture with the lens attached.



And operation. I'm not impressed with the bulb sockets of this fixture. The fixtures are a 2 part system. The fixture is the casing of the socket and the contacts are on a separate piece which screws to the rear of the fixture.

The slots for the bulb base knobs do not have a bottom thus it's possible to insert the bulb base backwards and have turnsignals on when running lights should be on. Once the bulb is inserted backwards and too deep, the contacts get bent down and when inserted correctly, the contacts do not touch the bulb base and the bulb does not light up.

Oh yeah, with 72 LEDs this fixture is bright.

Hey there Spoke, just putting your -73 LED's in my housings, getting ready to check my mocked up wiring harness that is sitting on my pool table (man there is a lot of wires in an '89 harness).

I note that the socket arrangement sucks on these early lenses and housings and am thinking that the correct answer is to just connect the wires directly and dispense with the socket.

Probably most simplistically I would just trim the wires on both the housing and the LED board and use a good plug (e.g. a Molex or similar) and then run the wires through the hole to the LED board.

I don't see any issues other than I won't be able to put in an incandescent light bulb on the road should the LED's fail for some reason, but other than that, any issues that come to mind?

Your stuff has a good enough track record now that I feel that the LED reliability is likely far better than the original and heavens, there are many cars out there with a burned out bulb....

Dennis

[spoke]

Originally Posted by Iciclehead

Hey there Spoke, just putting your -73 LED's in my housings, getting ready to check my mocked up wiring harness that is sitting on my pool table (man there is a lot of wires in an '89 harness).

I note that the socket arrangement sucks on these early lenses and housings and am thinking that the correct answer is to just connect the wires directly and dispense with the socket.

Probably most simplistically I would just trim the wires on both the housing and the LED board and use a good plug (e.g. a Molex or similar) and then run the wires through the hole to the LED board.

I don't see any issues other than I won't be able to put in an incandescent light bulb on the road should the LED's fail for some reason, but other than that, any issues that come to mind?

Your stuff has a good enough track record now that I feel that the LED reliability is likely far better than the original and heavens, there are many cars out there with a burned out bulb....

Dennis

Dennis,

No issues on cutting off the bulb base and connecting otherwise. Just snip off the bulb base and apply your own connector.

For Triumph Spitfires and TR6 I provide the LED boards with spade connectors as shown below for the Spitfire brake LED boards.

For your boards, the brown wire is ground; black wire is running lights; and red wire is turnsignals.

[spoke]

I had a request for LED brake/rear turnsignals for 911R light fixtures so I designed a board to fit these fixtures:




I only found one site that sells these and it appears it's not our gracious host.

Here's the board I came up with. I was able to jam 48 LEDs onto a board about 1/2 the size of the standard 911 brake board. For the turnsignal/running light half of the LEDs will be amber and the other half red.

The only thing about this board is the bulb holder on the base needs to be removed. I'm not a fan of cutting and hacking away at the fixture but for this application it had to be done and the requestor is ok with doing this. We'll see how it turns out.

[joe payne]

I just installed these LED Fog light boards from Spokeworks. Very pleased.
They're paired with French yellow H1's with 80/100 bulbs.

[David]

Spoke, do the LED tail lights run cool enough to run in plastic 3D printed housings?

I've been playing around with a design to print. Of course I'd need to find someone to print them with the right material.

[PabloX]

David, the standoffs that Spoke includes are 3D printed, if that helps.

[spoke]

Thanks PabloX.

David, the LEDs will not be hot. There will be more heat coming from the engine and the environment.

Your fixture should have standoffs for the boards to clear components on the bottom of the boards. 0.25 inch would be sufficient. You could mold the standoffs in your fixture or add them with a screw and nut. The standoff locations would need to match the board being used.