DIY: 3W interior (trunk and dome) light creation/upgrade WAY BRIGHTER THAN YOU CANBUY

[tda1337]

ok for months ive talked about doing this, and i did it a few weeks ago and been driving around with it
the trunk is pushing over 95 Lumens from the led (white) and my dome light has an amazingly bright blue 35lumen 3Watt led!
ok so what do you need right?
lets start with the specs, if they are like mine youll need the same as mine
i had a 3W 700ma (or.7amp) led that ran @ 3.6Volts
now being that its only 2.4Ws actually they are still the correct lumen output, chinese knockoffs wat can u say

with that u need to drop the voltage from 13.2V (running) down to 3.6Vs
so you wil need
1x positive regulator 5Volts
2x 4.7 ohm resistors 1/2Watt
2x 14ohm 2Watt resistors
Perf board
3W led (remember the above are to my specs, ur led may be different)
a festoon bulb to destroy (or a wedge base for the trunk)
and a memory heat sink (ne computer nerd knows what these are lol)

Starting with the festoon bulb:
Start by taking the bestoon bulb and dremeling out the glass so u have the two metal ends seperate. Solder your leads onto this (use colord wire if you wish to remember)
next cut your perf board into a size no bigger than your thumb
solder according to the diagram LED.bmp
one lead from the metal should go straight into (in front of that will go your 2 2W leds so that the regulator does not overheat) the regulator, the middle lead goes out to the other metal base.
your led should also intersect your ground wire as well
put two resistors (1/2 watt) in front of the led in parallel

now for the festoon bulb you will have the room to put the ehat sink on the regulator, but not for the trunk

the trunk assembly should have the LED directly attached to the perf board but the Festoon bulb will have it floating on 2 wires (use RTV or silicone to cover any metal that can touch ne other metal, ESPECIALLY on the LED itself!)


it should take you no more than 15 mins per assembly to create
the pictures showing the led are of the trunk led not the dome light
the dome light will have the led with 2 wires floating away from the circuit board that will be shoved in the whole first, then the led, then plug the two ends into the dome light just like you would with a festoon bulb

EVERY LED IS DIFFERENT. make sure you calculate out wattage and the wattage droppage across ne component to make sure it doesnt over heat

i have a few pics, they are much brighter than any led product you can buy on the shelf... dead serious!

any questions post em in here and ill try to answer em
i have more pics, ill post on my UHA webpage or my CCSU page as my page is full now

pic 1 is 4 3W star leds
pic 2 is the rear of the trunk led with regulator and 2 1/2watt resistors
pic 3 is the dome light
pic 4 is the trunk light

LED.bmp is your wiring diagram

anything GND goes to one metal festoon end
anything input + goes to the other metal festoon end

use LOTS of solder to ensure tough solid joints, esp on the festoon bulb, as they are coated with sealants you will have to strip off

[tda1337]

use an NTE1951 from your local parts store for the 5volt regulator
OR go to allelectronics.com and pick up theirs (its a motorola one)

[tda1337]

bump.. since no one cares about 3 Watt leds i guess...

[ameuba10]

freggin awesome man. please more detailed pics of your circuit board. do you have a schematic that you drew up? whered you get these leds, and how much did you pay?

[tda1337]

got the leds from a guy named giovani on ebay, ill hit u up with the link in the AM
the schematic is the LED.bmp its attached as a thumbnail
ill have to take the set up outta the car to take more pics lol
there should be one pic of the trunk light

[ameuba10]

i cant get the attatched image to work. looks like some good stuff so far though. cat wait for the new pics

[preyx]

What about this? This one uses 6x 1W LEDs: eBay Motors: 1pc 168 194 W5W 6x 1W High Power LED (White) Wedge PCB (item 190214919377 end time Apr-21-08 21:37:58 PDT)

[tda1337]

while that may fit, (possibly, i dont know if it actually will) it wont put out the lumens that a 3W led will
simply cant do it
that MIGHT be pushing 40 lumens, but a 3 W led as stated is gonna be 80-120 lumens, or mine is 95 lumens (white again is brighter)
the bmp isnt working guys? cause im having no probs with it
also i can add nemore pics, it wont let me, filled up to capacity lol

[ameuba10]

hey you can set up a photobucket.com account and post from there or you can email it to me and ill post for you. and whats the link?

[tda1337]

eBay Store - Asia Engineer: 5mm LED, Health Beauty, 3mm LED

thats the guy i bought them from
hes really good about lost packages

ill set up an account when i get back from school today.. this class is driving me nuts... retarded teacher
neways

[JCool]

this is what the 6 led set up looks like, this is what i did.

[tda1337]

hehe still not as bright, output on that thing is about 40 lumens :-P
sorry jcool :-P

[ameuba10]

good job bro. im working on a circuit using one of these BestHongKong.com Cree XLamp 7090 XR-E LED Star and a 7w 15 ohm power resistor in series. 700mA and ~136-167 lm! talk about bright

[tda1337]

yea dude, cree's are way brighter, shoulda went with luxeon tho, i prefer them
i didnt have the cash to make that, and there was no spot to put that size resistor.. whered u get the resistor neways? also u should still consider a regulator cause of voltage fluctuation, the dimming function will still work!

[tda1337]

oh k, after some recalculations, me and ameuba10 have come up with a much better solution
the Prolight 5W led star, it runs at a higher voltage meaning less heat to dissipate!!!
the necessities are the same except for the amount of resistors :-P

even better white runs up to 192 lumens!!! blue 40-60 lumens :-P
so ill have a brighter light and less heat!!!

Also, for neone who may have money, there is a 50 W LED i found (50 bux a pop) that puts out 1700 lumens, thats hid range of light boys (low end of course)
so if someone is interested pm me and ill hook em up with the website and see if we can collaborate on some fog light projects :-P