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Draconious
2002.01.18, 04:26 PM
Partialy done with my LED conversion on my BMW, this is OLD work from like a week ago, but I just now took a picture of it. I have 2 large 3v watch batteries to power it, but for now its being "tested" with a 9volt, even if they get a bit hot ;).

The small Red LEDs I had looked just like the tail lights so I popped out the original clear red pieces made the hole behind the clear piece the same diameter of the hole the clear piece was in, and put the LED in there... not that easy to tell the difference.

I plan on doing the same with the front lights, but not the ones on the grill... although I will do those too. The primary head lights ;) -- I have yet to take pictures of those, that will have to wait a week. They are tricky to take apart with out breaking them. I also have VERY bright LEDs for headlights, they blind you if you look at them directly, but they are a bit too big, so i am going to have to improvize or get smaller ones ;).

http://members.home.net/draconious/Mini-Z/Images/BMWRearLED.jpg

Brett
2002.01.18, 10:36 PM
nice :D u have done well ;) with the fron lights wire them up the oposite to what u did there so they will be brighter

Draconious
2002.01.19, 05:02 AM
I may or may not Unsolder the red LED and change it to parrallel, but right now I am going to pum 6v through it, be it from the car, or double 3v batteries, the front LEDs I have get hot over 6v so I am going to put them in series as well.. they are REALY bright... now for the resistor, I have a variable that I will use so I can dim them and adjust as needed :D.

W-tone
2002.01.19, 03:22 PM
Drac:
Please don't abuse your poor little LEDs so much :)
You really should use a 75 Ohm resistor in series with the two reds that are connected in series. That makes the current 40mA using 6V (that's what there will be if you're running on alkalines and powering the lights from the mini-z.)
As I said before there really is little or no point running any LED past 40mA, you'll just run down your batteries faster.
As for the front, usually the 3mm white LEDs are somewhere around 2000mcd, for the secoundary front lights you might consider using smd versions that are smaller and have the output of approx. 200mcd.
SMD LEDs can be ordered atleast from RS http://www.rswww.com

For the front I'd connect the LEDs in parallel and use a 47 Ohm resistor.

Just my 2 cents as they have the habit of saying in this forum :)

W-t