thanks alot. Since i bought my cobalt back in 06 and notice that they were just reverse lights and not real lights a part of me was greatly depresed. i have been wanting to do this and make it look like a corvette but didn't know how.

yesterday when i was looking for info on the new ss i bump into this awsome website. poking around the website i saw this mod and became really exited.

Again thanks for the help. seems like i have a new project.

 

hey i just bought a bunch of leds to use for my front turn signals... i was hoping on hooking them up like you did with them all wired pos pos neg neg without a resistor on each led. any tips on doing that?

 

Hey guys, sorry to revive a dead thread but I have several questions. How would I wire the leds for the inner lights if:

I want them to be dim when not braking
To be brighter when braking
Stay dim and not blink when turn signals are on
Glow bright and not blink when turn signals are on and braking.

Also, can anyway provide me with the specs on the diaodes and resistors. Eg. max amp, and voltage.

Thanks.

 

In order to get 'em to do that, just wire the brake lead into your third brake light wiring (+). For the resistors, use the recommended resistor for your LED's for 12V systems for the brake light side. On mine, for the park light side, I used two more of the same resistors in parallel on that lead. You will, however, need to use transistors or relays on both of the leads, pre-resistor, to keep from getting voltage feedback into the factory bulbs if you wire it up so all of the LED's function as both park and stop instead of doing every other one as one function and the rest as the other function. If you don't avoid this feedback, it'll render the LED's lightless. I put 18 10mm LED's in both of mine and they all function as both park and stop/turn. I'm thinking about building some control boxes to make this an easier install for people on this forum. I've got a lot of time on my hands right now thanks to bein' laid off, so I might do that. I'll have to see how much it'll cost to build 'em first though. Hope this helped ya.

 

i might be very interested in said product maybe even a custom one for my headlights as well.

 

1 amp diodes should be enough for this. Inner tails will mimic your CHMSL during the day, and do the same at night, but be constantly on dim when you're not braking; all this of course with no turn signal functionality. Just play with the resistance until it matches the stock tail running lamps, roughly. When do properly, this will look great, better than all four tails as turn signals IMO.

People have said their cruise stopped working when messing with the 3rd brake light; not sure how valid that is.

 

It may screw with the cruise if there is current back feeding from the running lights into the third brake circuit. Use of transistors or relays (larger than transistors) should cure that problem.

 

wouldn't the diodes fix said issue?

lol but whiney if your planning on actually making those control boxes let me know. I would like to eventually do the LEDs in the inner lights and have them function like stock (parking brake and turn signal) and for the headlights i have the custom amber leds that are just turn signal, i would like to get those to be both turn signal and parking lights But i'm just to lazy to work with relays and try to figure out that nonsense

 

regular diodes may work ok, but led's serving that purpose will allow enough reverse voltage to quite possibly screw with the cruise. Where are the amber LED's at on your car? Are they LED replacements for 3157's or what??

 

no they are in addition to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTqXreJURLQ

 

excellent material on this site I must say. Looking forward to doing this and many more mods to come.

Just in need of the how to. Can someone email me it some how I can't find it nor will it load. Much appreciated

big_j_l@hotmail.com

Joel

 

huh i wonder if anyone saved it.... that site looks closed

 

If anyone saved this infor could they still sent it to me?? where do you get the L.E.D. bulb for the reverse light???

 

This how-to is very similar, but used LED strips instead of individual LEDs. Much easier to do with the strips than single LEDs IMO. I pretty much followed it straight up until the wiring part, where I changed it around so that it works how it does in the video.

https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/how-guide-43/how-chevy-skyline-tail-lights-87841/

This is how my lights work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8DE6WtUm-I

 

Heres my failed attempt after a $40 trip to radioshack in which we purchased 28 Red LED's, soldering gun, solder, and wire. Dont really know what went wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVRY6oYjN8o

 

it says the video is private

 

my buddy and i were just talking about this earlier...it looks soooooo bad ass!!

 

Fixed

 

you need a resistor for each led or calculate the math and have a combo for the whole set

 

See i was under the impression the LED's we got were 12 volt max. Then we looked after the fact and saw that 2 or 3 of them were 12 volt, and most were 2.5. We figured 14 leds in a series would be fine, but apparently not.

Today were going to go out and see if we can find LED strips like the guy on here has. Only problem is that his LED strip doesnt fit completely around the circle leaving a gap on the bottom which makes it look like a few LED's burnt out. To fix this I hope to find a longer LED strip if I can find any that is, or buy 2 for each light, cut 1 and sodder it to the other.

But I dont see individual resisters on these ones?


Question is, IF I go out and buy an LED strip and put it in the housing and wire it to the tail lights, how would they get brighter when the brakes are smashed. Like how does the tail lights get brighter? I thought the tails had like 2 filliments in it and when the brakes are mashed the 2nd fillament lights up. Now with LED's you would need a resister for normal lights and then like a 2nd wire that runs to power with no resistor when the brakes are mashed right?

 

Wow that didn't work at all lol. I think the strips are much easier to mess with than individual LEDs. You end up with a far more uniform ring of light. To gte strips that are long enough to go all the way around the light, go to www.oznium.com and order some from them. I ended up having to order their 18" or 19" size and trim it down because that was the next available length. To duplicate the dual filament effect, you need to use separate resistors and diodes to control the electricity flowing into the strips.

You can view how mine work here:
This simple diagram shows how I wired mine up:


If you have further questions, feel free to PM me and I can try to help more.

 

ok i was thinking on my way to class today, what if i get a red reverse light and wire it up to my tails. in other wordsremove my reverse light. that way all i have to do is wire 1 bulb up. i wonder how that would work

 

You'd have to put reverse lights elsewhere on your car if you do that.

 

i think im gonna do it you way with the LED strip i like that the best. and thanks for the wiring diagram that helps alot. i have no idea what a diode is thats why i never even thought about that.just sucks i have to order it and i cant pick it up in a store lol. only problem i have is whats the best way to seperate the lense from the housing. i see in a how-to to use a drill. is there another safer way that anyone else used

 

on the tail light harness, what one is the parking like, and what one is the brake light. Is brown parking?