This is going to be a cross post from corral and where ever else it ends up. I am in the process of cutting open the third brake light in the spoiler. I am planning on replacing my burnt out LED strip with incandescent bulbs out of one of the rope lights that were cool about 6 years ago. As I found one laying in the garage that was my wifes from her dorm room. The existing brake light has a strip of flux LED's from what I have been told. They are on board with what I believe to be one 720 ohm resistor for the 20 flux LED's, on the wiring harness, outside of the light. To start with the dimensions. The board that the factory LED's are on is 5/16" wide, 12-5/16" long, depth is 1/4" from flat of LED to tip of pig tail out the back of the board. The LED spacing is 5/8" center to center. I did a really quick wiring of the incandescent lights from a rope light also, and they were surprisingly bright. All I did was strip single speaker wires and make a parallel set up with taping it to the leads on the lights for a quick mock up. Even if i would have soldered and did this neatly, I don't think it would have fit back in the case. Here are some pictures. This way of fixing is for the cheap lazy person I guess, but it at least gives some insight for those wanting a weekend project. If I can find friend with a good soldering iron, and decide I have the time this winter... I will go the LED route, but I still don't know how this is going to fit back under the back of the cover.... Also I should note my entire board was bad, I tested the individual LED's and only four of them worked anyways. Also I am fixing my tail lights today also to the correct ones..
Update- So I went with the bulbs from the rope light. I used fairly small gauge stereo wiring that was laying around and a junk soldering iron that barely worked. I had to keep the speaker wire pretty close to the bulb holes to get the cover to fit back on. I sealed it back up with clear silicone.
Have fun guys.
rope light
resistor in shrink wrap
resistor cut open
wire routing on inside
side
board and LED's
mock wiring of bulbs
crap solder job with speaker wire
spoiler off
Third brake light with incandescent bulbs from a rope light $0.00 spent on fix, I am pretty happy.
Update- So I went with the bulbs from the rope light. I used fairly small gauge stereo wiring that was laying around and a junk soldering iron that barely worked. I had to keep the speaker wire pretty close to the bulb holes to get the cover to fit back on. I sealed it back up with clear silicone.
Have fun guys.
rope light
resistor in shrink wrap
resistor cut open
wire routing on inside
side
board and LED's
mock wiring of bulbs
crap solder job with speaker wire
spoiler off
Third brake light with incandescent bulbs from a rope light $0.00 spent on fix, I am pretty happy.
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