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Custom-made R33 rear LED lights

4K views 4 replies 5 participants last post by  G-Zilla 
#1 · (Edited)
I’ve been thinking of making my own LED lights for the rear of my R33.

I went on many forums and started reading about modern LED automotive lighting etc.

Having had already a pair of LED lights since 2008 from MattJ, I wanted something different and I wanted to use all the latest technology used on modern automotive LED lighting.

I wanted my design to be better than any aftermarket kit available for the R33 and also brighter than the original lights. They had to include LED indicators and LED fog lights.

Modern rear LED lights use LED chips from manufacturers like Cree, Philips Lumileds or Nichia. Their brightness for brake light / tail light functions is controlled by PWM (Pulse Width Modulation). With PWM, the LED's brightness is adjusted by switching the LED on and off at full brightness several times per second instead of using a resistor. The advantage is that the LED works at full power and retains its colour characteristics.

Perhaps you would have noticed that the rear LED lights on modern cars “flicker” especially when you catch them with the corner of your eyes. The lower the PWM frequency, the more noticeable it is…

Anyway, I started by disassembling a stock cluster, taking measurements, designing the patterns, calculating power requirements, resistor values and drew up the round PCB’s that will hold the red LED’s for the tail/brake lights. I had the PCB’s manufactured:



These are the PWM modules which also include a voltage regulator. This is another important bit. Most aftermarket LED lights don’t use voltage regulators and since the alternator's output voltage is not stable some LEDs can burn instantly or over a period of time. With a voltage regulator, the output always stays the same. Example, the Sharp regulator I use will take between 12.5V up to 20V but will always output 12V stable… The regulator in the PWM unit can take up to 2 Amps so I’ll be using an additional voltage regulator which will tap on the original PWM unit to get the timing. The idea is to have 2 tail/brake PCB’s per voltage regulator in order to be on the safe side:



All LED’s used are from Philips Lumileds.
I designed the “rings” to have 40 LED’s each.
Each LED outputs approximately 5 Lumens at full brightness.
That’s 40x5=200 Lumens, not bad at all considering the original 21W incandescent bulb outputs the same or less. I’ve seen some aftermarket lights for the R33 on ebay that only have 12 LED’s (probably not even Philips ones) so that’s 12x5=60 Lumens max. That’s seriously not enough brightness for a brake light compared to a normal bulb it’s a downgrade, and a dangerous one!

YouTube video of the finished "product":

Nissan Skyline R33 LED Rear Lights - Custom Made - YouTube

I hope you like them :)
 
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