Upgrade inside high mount brake light to LED?

[holdenrules]

Greetings all,

Does anyone have any ideas to upgrade the inside high mount brake light to LED?

I have replaced so many globes and holders due to overheating / melting, perhaps I shouldn't use the brakes so much? :driving:

Mine is a VP, the inner reflector comes apart from the housing after you remove the two screws holding it in there. It is made by Hella, the inner reflector has a part number 953 852 and the red lens is 953 851. Are the later models lights (VT onwards) the same? They have the same shape and look the same ... :unsure:

Andy05 removed his and installed a bayonet type LED globe (see post #53):
http://forums.justcommodores.com.au/showthread.php?t=35370
He mentions that the VR / VS has LEDs, but not sure if that is correct becuase my VT has a globe :unsure:

What I'm after though is a LED bar or something that would fill the whole area, rather than just the middle and keep it looking "stock" from the outside.

Does anyone know if a kit exists that will just fit in there, or adapt an existing kit? I know I could probably make something on a breadboard but would need to work out number of LEDs, voltages, etc ... too much trouble and I'm being a bit slack ... :sleeping:

 

[ssute57l]

Have a look at,
www.lazer.com.au
they have led strips in different sizes and number of led's etc.

 

[garfa]

www.jaycar.com.au
they have flexable smd leds and also led bayonet bulbs.

 

[holdenrules]

Solved the problem: built one myself!

After not having any luck trying to find something that would fit, I finally got my act into gear and built one myself with only a handful of components.

The bayonet LED globes only give you a dot of light and the light from them wouldn't fill the whole area of the lens. Then there's the issue of the globe holder coming in from the bottom of the assembly rather than the back ...

Yes, it would have been much easier if I just bought a LED bar, but I don't like the aftermarket stuff and wanted to keep it looking original.

If I removed the stock light and put in a LED bar, I would leave behind a bracket on the parcel shelf and the demister element has a curve it in ...

Took me bloody ages to do the soldering, but it was worth it in the end.

What do you reckon? :thumbsup:

Now I never have to replace the globes again :w00t: :dance:

 

[CRCinAU]

Nice... Do you have a quick circuit diagram with resistor values & how you wired the LEDs?

 

[azzfox]

im not sure on his circuit diagram but if this is any help...
http://www.hebeiltd.com.cn/?p=zz.led.resistor.calculator

 

[Atreidae]

nice.. lets hope the solder joins hold up :FTW:

 

[HSV126]

the reason the VT had filament globes in them was so that when the globe blows, the light on the dash will indicate a blowout, i think installing LEDs will keep the warning light on because it cant detect the bulb. now im not sure if there are warning lights on any other VT besides the calais so i think u dont have that problem

 

[tsalad]

could you just have got an led globe?

Probably easier - but youve done a nice job

 

[holdenrules]

Thanks fellas,

Nice... Do you have a quick circuit diagram with resistor values & how you wired the LEDs?

I actually based the circuit on a brake LED bar I saw on a mate's car. Sorry, I didn't take any other pictures before I installed it ..

Basically, all it is, is four LEDs in series with the 200 ohm resistor across the positive side. This is then repeated ten times (to give 40 LEDs) and each group of four LEDS are then connected in parallel across the 12 volt supply.

Construction wise, there is a +ve and -ve tracks running right across the whole board, then each group of four LEDs and resistor connected between upper (+ve) and lower (-ve) tracks.

Then the -ve side also has a diode to protect the LEDs (bottom right corner), just in case the leads are connected the wrong way around.

If you need a diagram, let me know and I'll draw one up for you. :thumbsup:

nice.. lets hope the solder joins hold up :FTW:

You'll be waiting a while for the LEDs to stop working, ... I took my time building it for this very reason. I've seen a few spoiler clusters where a couple of LEDs are not working ... and I'll be buggered if I'm going to re-visit this again in the future after this effort!

the reason the VT had filament globes in them was so that when the globe blows, the light on the dash will indicate a blowout, i think installing LEDs will keep the warning light on because it cant detect the bulb. now im not sure if there are warning lights on any other VT besides the calais so i think u dont have that problem

I read somewhere about overcoming that dash light problem when using LED globes. It happens because the LED globes do not offer enough resistance like filament globes do, so the system thinks that the globe is burnt. By installing a resisitor with the LED globe, it puts a load on the circuit and the dash light goes off.

I installed this brake light in my VP, but I think you're right about the lamp out circuit being in a Calais models only. I think even a VP Calais has it. The missus VT brake light hasn't burnt out a million times yet for me to build one for it as well, but time will tell ...

could you just have got an led globe?

Probably easier - but youve done a nice job

Thanks for that! If I changed yet another brake light globe on the VP (after replacing the holder - again), I reckon that would be 8th time I've done it. Seriously. But now I can go and waste my time on something else ... :whistling