Paul Laing Posted October 19, 2003 Share Posted October 19, 2003 Noticed tonight that my LED rear brake light doesn't work! Anyone know what might be wrong? Loose wire? Any help would be great! cheers Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovatt Posted October 19, 2003 Share Posted October 19, 2003 mine is wired as my fog light, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Ayling Posted October 19, 2003 Share Posted October 19, 2003 Originally posted by Paul Laing Noticed tonight that my LED rear brake light doesn't work! Anyone know what might be wrong? Loose wire? Any help would be great! cheers Paul I've heard of a couple of UK's where it wasn't wired up (from the factory). Can't remember whether the LED's are in there or not, but you'd basically have to wire it up to the same connection as the other brake lights I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jez sutherland Posted October 20, 2003 Share Posted October 20, 2003 Yep, It sounds like you have a 'dummy' UK light. Don't know why toyota did this - but they did! The ligh is a give away as it has no leds or wire comming from it. Even if you get a propper one, the plug is plugs into is not attached to the loom (why??????) and still needs to be hooked up somewhere (this is where I gave up - will try again next summer!). Let me know if you get this sorted as I'd love to know where the HL brake light hooks up top the rest of the loom. Pictures for 'idiots' appreciated! Good luck, Jeremy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Laing Posted October 21, 2003 Author Share Posted October 21, 2003 Gonna have a look this weekend with my dad so i'll let you know the outcome! Anyone else got this problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesG Posted October 21, 2003 Share Posted October 21, 2003 If it's any help, I've just uploaded some pictures of my LED brakelight. Some of the LEDs were really dim and some stopped working, so I decided to replace them all. I did, rather stupidly, snap the main lens but it superglued together fine. It took 44 LEDs from Maplins. They were 1cd red LEDs and I changed the resistor values so they weren't too bright. http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~jamesg/gallery/led James. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ajb Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 I checked my LED light last night , i have a few not working (looks really crap) How do you get the light out ? is there a writen procedure anywhere ? Do you know the spec of the LEDs ? I'd like to do this myself asap , as it looks really naff with only half the LEDs working. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesG Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 The LED light is not hard to get out. Remove the trim from the inside of the tailgate. It just pulls off. Then, if you look from the inside, you can see the nuts at the end of a long screw. You'll need a deep socket to undo them. It fits over the screw. I think it's a 10mm one. Once you've removed the nuts, you can pull out the LED light assembly from the outside. To get to the LEDs, you'll need a stanley knife as it's glued together. You can desolder the LEDs but it's time consuming as there are 44 of them. They are in 11 groups in parallel, with 4 in series in each group. I tried to replace just the ones that were faulty but it's almost impossible to match the brightness, so I replaced all of them. The really important thing is to get the height of each LED the same. If you don't then you'll have a wobbly line of LEDs! I just made sure that the base of each LED was touching the board. This is okay, but the LEDs are a little bit too far back. If I was doing it again, I would find something to raise up the LEDs to the correct height. You may need to change the resistor values if the new LEDs are too bright. The correct value is just trial and error. Mine are probably a little dim now as I didn't want to dazzle people. Hope that helps James. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MGB Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 Had the same problem with mine (93 UK Manual) as in dummy LED brake light! I was told that the reason that they are dummys that LED brake lights were not legal in the UK untill 94 or 95! First of all a new LED brake light unit from Toyota is appox £115 plus VAT. Then you have to figure the wiring out i spent endless hours trying to trace the wire i even asked at Toyota all they said was it should work in the end i wired it to the brake lights! The wire goes up through the boot lid to the top of the roof lining and then forwards as to where your guess is as good as mine best of British! Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ajb Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 Cheers James , Will try this at weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 Originally posted by JamesG If it's any help, I've just uploaded some pictures of my LED brakelight. Some of the LEDs were really dim and some stopped working, so I decided to replace them all. I did, rather stupidly, snap the main lens but it superglued together fine. It took 44 LEDs from Maplins. They were 1cd red LEDs and I changed the resistor values so they weren't too bright. http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~jamesg/gallery/led James. I need to do this. 1cd ? What's that mean? How to change the resistor values ? (and what to?) Thanks a lot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesG Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 1cd is 1 candela (or 1000mcd) and is used to measure brightness. Replacing the resistors is just a case of desoldering them (there are 11 of them) and putting in new ones. If you get some new LEDs then you can calculate the appropriate resistance by doing some complicated maths I don't have a clue about, or by sticking the values into a calculator like I did http://www.csgnetwork.com/ledresistancecalc2.html There's loads of others if you search on google. Ultimately, I just bought a load of different values and tried them out. It seems that you can reduce the current to quite a small proportion of that required for full brightness, and it will make hardly any difference to the light output. I ended up using a much higher resistance than I expected. James. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Posted October 22, 2003 Share Posted October 22, 2003 Originally posted by JamesG Replacing the resistors is just a case of desoldering them (there are 11 of them) and putting in new ones. If you get some new LEDs then you can calculate the appropriate resistance by doing some complicated maths I don't have a clue about, or by sticking the values into a calculator like I did http://www.csgnetwork.com/ledresistancecalc2.html There's loads of others if you search on google. Ultimately, I just bought a load of different values and tried them out. It seems that you can reduce the current to quite a small proportion of that required for full brightness, and it will make hardly any difference to the light output. I ended up using a much higher resistance than I expected. James. Sounds like a right pain in the ass ! I don't mind a bit of soldering but that just sounds like too much hassle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Supraman989 Posted June 20, 2004 Share Posted June 20, 2004 Hi All, Does anyone know what size LEDs are required for the rear brake light under the spoiler? I dont really want to take the lights out to measure them (talk about lazy). Only about 10 LEDs are working when my light is connected - Looks really sh1te I have checked the Maplin web site, but there are so many to choose from. Also does any body have the code for the LEDs from the maplin site? Thanks in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dangerous brain Posted June 20, 2004 Share Posted June 20, 2004 There aren't all that many 12 volt ones from maplins so reduce your search down to those. I used some in my dash to change the lights to red in there. As for taking the light out it is deffers a 10 mm double deep socket approx 4.90 from halfrauds. If I had seen this thread before hand I would have followed the plug back to its source when I pulled the wirirng loom ouut of my donor car but unfortunately I ripped it out yesterday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewis Posted June 20, 2004 Share Posted June 20, 2004 Emin and I did mine (replaced all the LED's) He was thinking of offering it as a service as many people seem to suffer with them. Perhaps you should ask him if he decided to do it or not - IIRC we also looked into obtaniing new ones and the full unit was around £150 Emin was thinking of doing the refurb for around half that I think?? Best to check with him though - dont take my word for it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supra ST Myster Posted June 20, 2004 Share Posted June 20, 2004 Yep now as a service i can offer a full refurb on your centre strip brake light for £60. Turn around will be 2days max but normally will be done same day it arrives or i can do it at your place of work for a bit extra. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewis Posted June 20, 2004 Share Posted June 20, 2004 Do you want me to invoice you at the end of the month for commision?? Speaking of money - did you transfer those funds to me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supra ST Myster Posted June 20, 2004 Share Posted June 20, 2004 yes mate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith C Posted June 20, 2004 Share Posted June 20, 2004 What - no high-level brake light? Why, I thought J-specs have had that since the beginning... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zed Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 Mine is an early uk car with the dummy light, I managed to make the srtip light with 12v leds from maplins only to find out that the conector that is already in place isn't even live!!!!! If anyone can give advice on how to wire it up I'm sure there's a few of us that would benefit from this. Thanks in advance!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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