LED's give off almost no heat. That is why they are so efficient and use so little power. So anything melting is not a problem to worry about.

As far as the whole wattage thing goes, I think it is based more on load/amps than wattage itself and if you wire them in series or parallel. When I made my own footwell lighting and underlighting I used PVC piping, that I cut in half vertically and drilled holes to mount them.

I bought these and used them for like 5 minutes a couple years ago. The gold resistors are made to withstand a large load on vehicles so they wont melt. The led bulbs have 15 amber leds and by themselves they would blink super fast without the resistors b/c they didnt put anywhere near the load required to tell the car that the bulb works. It would take way more LED's than you plan on using to put that much of a load on it.

#7440

 

Sort of... if you read my calculations, each group of leds would pull the same amount of power as a bulb.

i.e. the 5W draw of the tail lights on = 21 leds that pull 20mA each
12w draw of the brakes on = 50 leds that pull 20mA each

That's 17W being pulled when the brakes are applied and 3 banks of leds lighting up, 71 leds total on each side pulling 1.42A @ 12V, but I need to acutally get in there with a multimeter to get an actual voltage reading, since my car operates @ 14.5V running. If that's the case I'll need leds that draw ~17mA ea or just use less 20mA leds


a little update on my research:
light output increases as the angle increases

i.e. a 1200mcd led with a 120* angle puts out more lumens than a 12,000mcd led with an 8* angle.

cost of buying enough red leds for the brake lights = $27 + resistors, solder, wire, etc.

 

i understand u calculations...
sorry if im such a new too its pretty neat stuff if ulook at in a point of view...
so 20ma is a very good size and 70 viewing angle...

so how is going to work if when da brake is not on to were its on dont get that right now

wont u need a flasher for the l.e.d since dey blink so fast..so they can blink in a normal pace..dey sell dem on dis site i seen for any car...

 

You only need a flasher if the LEDs you put in don't pull enough load to be detected by the flasher. That why they blink so fast, because it thinks a bulb is out. When I get around to doing the signals, theyll probably be 30-50mA LEDs so you wont have to use as many to get the same load, and they'll be brighter which is good for signals lol.

Reverse lights will be the same, but a bit more expensive because they're white.

 

so down to the point using 70 led is how many u need for it to be ok on a 20ma 1100- 1500mcd 70*
or what depending on da car...i mean u dont really need many on da 94 since its on tail light not double right?

 

where did u get the voltage of every light on da car is it standard 12v or different for each thing i.e brake light signal reverse lights

 

Thats how many it would take to pull the correct load from the circuit, with each LED pulling 20mA of power at 12V.

The way I'm thinking of doing it is:

2x12 brake light
2x10 normal "on" light
2x12 brake light

the 2x10 would be on with teh headlights, and both 2x12s would light up with the brake pedal.

Thos number are just for the outside tails... the insides are a different story...

I need to take a look at teh wiring diagram and see if anything else is connected on that circuit, what the fuse is, how big the wires are so I can see how much moar current I can pull, because when think about it, 70 isn't all that much.

And you want a wider angle than 70*, the ones I looked at were 120* and with 70 of them the brake light will only throw out 300 lumens, when compared to a standard 60W light bulb, is only a quarter of the light. Also, small angle LEDs are going to look like dots in the light and wider ones will (hopefully) light the whole housing up.

Another option would be a small relay in the light and running a power wire from the fuse box to the back of the car. I really need to figure out how much light the stock bulbs put out and then go from there in terms of how many leds I need.

 

that is true da wide angel view...
yea ima keep searching too...


yea i want to try to put more but i gotta measurethe tail lights or buy a set of extra ones to find da correct way to do it..
but u can also custom make ur own light as long as the voltage is good right

this is all interesting

 

I have a set of tinted OEM lights for sale...

And I didn't understand the last part...

As long as what you put in matches what used to be in there, power wise, you'll be all good. And the voltage will stay the same either way, since all cars run a 12V system. Power draw is measured in amps or watts.

 

price and how far r u...lol pm if u like interested...

i mean like custom make a design in da tail lights...
that if u dont have a wide angle view it will look like spot to wear if it will look nice da whole light set will fill up

is there a way you can buy power amplifiers so u can put more power to it...?
like dis guy went nuts but wow...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmBoRJITnxk