LED 3rd brake light

[highflyer]

About to make my high-mount brake light into LED...who else done this before? Thinking about using 16-18 leds, but would less look better?

[tenspeed]

I made my own using 48 LEDs. It was too much work. I would advise getting a Malibu third brake light or finding something that would fit inside the housing. There are some small motorcycle units that should slip right in.

Here's the thread that has some of the details
LED brake light link (http://www.gaownersclub.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18907&highlight=third+brake+light)

[magyver]

go out late at night, find a gm vehicle w/ the led brake light on the top of the suv, get a hard headed philips, unscrew, use knife to pry up (may be sticky) then cut the two wires, then take home and take it all apart, cut off the last 3 led's, but you have to solder all the connections back to it and tuck it away, then custom mount the 30 led strip in there, this way, there guaranteed to be spaced perfect, and are sweet...

[Brownie]

hahah

[SC/TGrandAm]

nice one magyver.

I would advise against stealing someones 3rd brake light though hah. Go to the nearest GM dealer at 2am and have a shopping spree.

^I dont condone what i said above as Karma is a biatch.

But the Impala LED brake lights are an almost exact fit from ours. At least you can buy an Impala 3rd brake light at the dealer or nearest junk yard and dismantle the Impala light and put the leds into our 3rd brake light.

[highflyer]

48 leds is a lot....I'm spanning 17 across the entire length spaced about 1cm apart...plenty of coverage for me....

[Merlyn]

I have 17 across my 3rd. It seems to fit perfectly in there.

[highflyer]

Well ppl, I finished making it myself with 17, looks great, matches lower LED brake/tail lights...:cool:

[]]v[[ORBI]]))]

I just took the housing apart. There are three chambers. I took the bulb out of the center one and wired 2 headlight strobes to the harness. Have had no problems yet. That way it lights up bright like normal and strobes from the center too.

[TA^Guy]

Originally posted by Merlyn
I have 17 across my 3rd. It seems to fit perfectly in there.
How hard was it to make your LED brake light?

[Dave C]

And maybe some info on how you did it?

[highflyer]

don't have any pics (no dig. cam.), but I took a 6" long radio shack circuit board, cut it in half down the long dimension, then glued the 2 halves together end to end to make a full board that fits on top of the 3 chambers (about 11" long). I just spaced out the leds the way I wanted em, soldered them on, and there's the light. I then made power leads from the board and just soldered em on to the wiring that goes to the bulbs. And of course removed the stock bulbs. To make sure it stays in place, I cut two little pieces of plastic that slide in through the red lens slots and fit over the board. Once the red lens is placed back on the bulb assembly, the tabs that hold it in also press down on my custom plastic pieces and firmly hold the circuit board in place. I've also made a 12-led dome light that replaces the stock bulb and is plug-n-play.

[Merlyn]

Actually, it wasn't too difficult for me. I recessed three circuit boards into the three compartments for the original light bulbs, and used the power from the power strip that the bulbs plugged into. I ran a single resistor along one side, then created several parallel lines with the LED's. With a little soldering, and pin reversal, everything worked out easily enough. I will try to get some pics of the brake light up soon.

Next thing I am planning on doing is replacing my current LEDs with brighter four die ones that will be ten times brighter than what I currently have in there. I am also planning on making boards for the tail lights as well. I will try to take some pics of that goin on, and we will see what happens with the brake lights and how those turn out. (maybe I will just do the signals first)