I wanted to post some pictures of what took me the better part of this past weekend.

After having done the clearcorners.com LED headlight conversion myself, I really needed some LED side markers to go along with it. The clear housings with regular LED bulbs had a really bad 'hot spot' effect that I didn't care for at all.

I don't like the approach that many have taken in the past by drilling holes in the back of the lamp and just jamming LEDs in there, so I decided to open up the housings and insert my own custom circuit board. [At this point I should give a huge thanks to MorenoEnNYC for the information on how to open up the housings. Its as simple as prying with a knife, but I wasn't about to try that without someone telling me it could be done first!] In order to avoid the common directionality problems that are usually associated with LEDs, I went with 'high flux' or 'spider' LEDs. These LEDs are the same ones that I used on my clearance light conversion and because of the high viewable angle (70°) they really fill the lamp well.

I bought the LEDs from superbrightleds.com because of the great service I've gotten from them before. Once again, they failed to disappoint. I'm very happy with the color and brightness of these bulbs. Don't let the mcd rating fool you, having that high of an mcd with a 70° angle is quite impressive.

Enjoy!

[For higher quality pictures send me an email at dustinonthego at yahoo dot com. I didn't want to eat up all my bandwidth hosting these few images.]

 

Dustin,
Awesome work! Looks great.

 

How is the color match of those high flux LEDs vs the stock amber blinker?

I've been using the regular 5mm LEDs. I found the RL5-Y3545 to be the best match.

 

You Are Da Man!! Great Job and thanks for the shot out! I know the job was very tedius and it came out great! I really would like to see more pics of the clearance light, side markers etc. I just sent you a PM with my email address. Thanks Man

 

dustin,

looks good! btw are you in VA??

 

Afropuff:
I couldn't really tell you about the color match since I have already replaced the orange lenses in the headlights for clear ones, as per the following picture.

Moreno:
I'll send you pictures ASAP.

Pdjafari:
Yes, in the Virginia Beach area.

 

Would you consider selling these? After you create the LED board is it pretty much plug and play? I was thinking of making one with 3 larger sized LEDs lined up.

 

Here's a couple of daytime shots to show you what they look like with the lights off. I was going for the most factory look possible and I think I did a pretty decent job.

 

PeteNJ:
I might consider selling them on a VERY limited basis. My girlfriend was not too pleased at the amount of time that I spent on these. On the bright side though, the second one took less than half the time of the first one.

I'd shy away from using 3 large LEDs. They're still going to have the same hot spot problems as the single bulb.

The main problem that you run into doing this is the clearance near the front of the lens. Its pretty shallow in there. My original plan had four LEDs on the leading edge of the board firing forward to help illuminate that section, but they really didn't do a whole lot of good so I cut the off to a) simplify the design, and b) add another row of high flux LEDs.

 

How hard was it to remove the headlight, and did you have to open it up to replace the clearance strip - or could you work from the back?

 

This thread is really about my side markers, but I

I believe there is a DIY for removing the headlight somewhere on the site, but to briefly sum it up, you have to remove the liners from the insides of both of the fender wells, then remove a dozen or so bolts from the bottom of the bumper and 6 pop-snaps from the top of the bumper cover.

After you've removed the bumper, there are only four bolts holding the headlight in.

Yes, you have to open the headlights to get to the clearance strip.

 

I want mine done! Let me know if you decide to do these. My car will be in a very big magazine soon ...

 

The main reason I'm hesitant to do these for people is the time involved with making them.

If you look at the diagram here, http://superbrightleds.com/specs/hf-y2670.htm, you can see that the leads of the LEDs have a slight "cross" pattern to them. These little nubs on the side of the leads prevent them from being inserted into the circuit board. I had to cut off all of those nubs on every bulb to put these together. Let me break that down for you a little:

36 LEDs * 4 leads per LED * 2 nubs per lead * 2 turn signals = 576 annoying little nubs

Now, if you could find a source for high flux leds in a similar packaging without the little nubs, we can talk. Otherwise there's going to be a direct relationship between "cost" and "how much I want to endure the repercussions of spending all that time on a light and not paying attention to my girlfriend."

I've sent an email to someone who might be able to find something. If I hear anything back, I'll be sure to let you know. If you'd like to take matters into your own hands and start doing a search for some, feel free to PM me links to the spec sheet of the component and I'll let you know if it'll work.

 

Got your PM. Keep us updated

 

I heard back from the LED Guru, Craig Johnson of http://www.ledmuseum.org/, and he said he has not encountered a high flux LED that does not have these stoppers on the bottom.

I could possibly allow people to clip these off themselves and then send me the modified bulbs, but the problem is, if they're not clipped off well enough, then they don't fit into the circuit board and its much harder to clip it twice.

Let me think about ways that I might be able to produce these a little quicker and I'll get back to you. In the mean time, feel free to continue the hunt for a straight lead high flux LED.