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Led rear lights.


Kendo11
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Quick warning, picture quality is awful as my phone is on the way out.

 

Thanks for all the comments of encouragement so far guys.

 

Basically I was inspired to have a go at these partly after seeing Casheye's thread, some of Hecklers work, and a couple of others that have had a go on here and other forums over the past few months.

 

My car is still off the road as I'm awaiting a good few bits to finish it (and money to buy said bits!) so I have had the time to have a play with these.

 

So...I bought myself a cheap set of pre face-lift lights, my thinking was that at £40-£50 a set I could afford for these to go wrong more so than with a £100+ set of face-lifts.

 

First off I split the lights, usual in the oven for a few moments/check/repeat etc and then pulled them apart. Next up it's just a case of removing the innards, pretty straightforward.

 

Next up I bought a couple of acrylic sheets from a local craft shop to make the backing pieces. I had offers locally to make these up using a 3D printer and what not but I thought no, if I'm going to do this I'm going to do it myself. So I popped the lenses out, cut the nibs off and filed them down and traced around the acrylic sheets to make some backing discs.

 

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Around the same time I also decided to spray the silver lens mount sections. This was to avoid any major reflection and because I wanted the 'ring' effect to remain a 'ring' effect.

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=205874&stc=1&d=1445283153

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Ok so here comes the punchline....

 

I had two types of LED rings bookmarked on my computer, one after Casheye's thread stating they were no good and prone to fire, and one that I thought would be much better quality.

 

So I deleted one set off my bookmarks and ordered the other set.......you might be able to guess which set I ordered.

 

Anyway, LEDs received my next task was to work out how to mount them, which ended up being a high strength Araldite type adhesive and then just ensuring they sat correctly and in the right place. This one was prior to sitting it correctly but you get the idea.

 

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I also weighed them down overnight using random household objects to make sure they sat nicely.

 

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On these pictures you will see for the reverse rings (yellow ones oddly enough) I had to add some self adhesive pads to raise them up as they weren't sitting right.

 

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Next up - I have some more LED rings coming as a couple of them are faulty and I'm also going to add some smaller ones to some of the sections.

 

Ultimately I don't want to over complicate them as I fully expect them to fail at some point over the life of the car so I need to be able to replace the rings if that happens.

 

I also have some dark black tinting film on the way, I'll explain what I'm using that for in the next set of pictures.

 

I have tested one (as per the very first picture) and it works perfectly for now, needs a few alterations and tweaks to be made suitable to go on the road though.

 

I have a friendly local MOT tester who should be able to wangle the fog light question for me also, obviously at some point I'll get one attached to somewhere on the back of the car.

 

About halfway through so far I'd say.

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These look good. Two Questions:

 

Are the rings from 48-hour-express ?

What Size rings are you using ?

Thanks all they're getting there.

 

Matt they are from an eBay seller called 'yoopar', I used 80mm for the main larger ones and 60mm for the smaller internal ones so far.

 

The 80s are a snug fit but I wouldn't want to go any smaller personally.

 

In terms of quality they aren't brilliant, but they'll do for now as I see this more like an experiment at the moment.

 

Out of 12 I ordered in total I had 2 that were faulty in terms of manufacture but they're replacing them foc this week.

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Oh dude, when you say faulty what exactly do you mean?

 

That's the dude who sold me the firelighters. Great to hear you're getting a swap so quickly. You know how long it took me to deal with them.

 

I got sucked into the promise of quick delivery, but the best (better) quality ones come from 48hourexpress.

 

The lights are looking good though. how are you going to hold them in place?

Edited by CASHEYE (see edit history)
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Oh dude, when you say faulty what exactly do you mean?

 

That's the dude who sold me the firelighters. Great to hear you're getting a swap so quickly. You know how long it took me to deal with them.

 

I got sucked into the promise of quick delivery, but the best (better) quality ones come from 48hourexpress.

 

The lights are looking good though. how are you going to hold them in place?

 

Where the cables are soldered onto the rings on two of them the cables have basically just fallen away, poor soldering at manufacture I think and as I don't have the tools necessary they've gone in the bin. You get what you pay for but I've got another message this morning telling me the free replacements will be here by the end of the week so we'll see.

 

I think if I do another set providing this little experiment works then I'll go with 48hourexpress or similar to be honest, with the headlights we were discussing on PM that's definitely the route I'll take.

 

I've basically stuck them into the housings with superglue for now but I've cut the rings in such a way that they're held behind the lens locator nibs anyway so they shouldn't move.

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