Lincoln LS custom LED taillights made

I agree, Mac... but if all else fails, I may have at it with a dremel and a cutting disc :wrench
 
Well, I got the car from the wife today and managed to remove the inboard and outboard tail lights. It looks like the two pieces are being held together by a thin piece of black silicone. I'm going to try the oven method first to see if it will loosen the silicone enough to separate them. If not, ther's a distinctive line between the outter lense and the black housing, so it should be easy to cut with a dremel or possibly even a razor knife.

Either way, they should go back together fairly simply with some black silicone or other adhesive, and not look like a hack job. Then I can measure up the interior dimensions for the first set of LED clusters. I haven't decided what shape to use for the lights... they'll accept both a rectangular or circular cluster of LED lights. I was thinking of curves on the top and bottom and keep the sides square... but then again, maybe I'll keep it simple and just use horizontal rows of LED's. I will draw up a few configurations and post it later to see what the popular vote would be. Maybe I'll incorporate the Lincoln star logo into it somehow ;) Anyways, I'll make my first attempt to separate them either tonight or first thing tomarrow.
 
mholhut said:
Maybe I'll incorporate the Lincoln star logo into it somehow
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That would be bad a$$....I like your thinking. Can't wait to see this project take flight.

One other question, do you guys think the look would be effected any with tinted tails?
 
I have the two tone tails and they are tinted pretty dark I was wondering how much light would be visible during midday sunlight b/c I know that LEDs usually arent quite as bright. Can this be overcome through diffrent types of LEDs or resistances or what
 
Well, they can be opened! And, they should seal up again nicely with little to no references to the operation. Shouldn't be a problem to do pretty much what we want now, as far as LED's. Gonna go hack open the outside tail right now... be back in a few!

ls-lenses.jpg
 
As for tinted tails, I'm sure they can be overcome... but at a higher price I'd imagine. You can get 10mm LED's that throw out 100K mcd as opposed to the meager 10K that the standard 5mm red LED produces. But, the 10mm's cost almost three times as much.

I'm going to hatch the other tail light lense, grab some photos, and then think about light patterns for the LED clusters I have to make.
 
Here's the outter tails... More difficult than I thought. The indented areas of the red lense fit right up to the black housing on the side of the assembly and it's a bugger to make sure you cut through it enough. Delicate procedure at best.

Another thing to note in the lower picture... there's an extra window of clear plastic over the brake bulb bay... it pops out, but I'm curious as to why it's there...

Before I reseal the tail lights, I'll put them on the car to see what clear tails would look like.

Going to start taking measurements for the LED clusters and designing things on paper which can serve as a template with the instructions.

ls-lenses2.jpg


ls-lenses3.jpg
 
That clear piece of plastic might be there for heat purposes. Those bulbs get fairly hot and as close as it sits to the outter lens, it might cause melting problems.

Glad to see the lenses come off so easily. When I did the alero lenses, I had to break them off because they were welded to the assembly.

The door of infinate possibilities has been openned. :)
 
why dont you guys get a Cadillac or better yet a Zephyr if you want LED tails? :rolleyes: jus playin, should look good if you can get it right...
 
The LED's I ordered came in today and I picked up a sheet of plexiglas for making clusters that will be inserted into the individual bulb housings. I also drew out some templates that will be used to space the LED's on the plexi clusters. I cut off a piece of plexi and drilled it out to see how how big a hole I need to fit the LED's. This is going to take some time.

I have to work half of this weekend so I'll probably get around to fabbing a test cluster to mount behind a lense by Monday.
 
gt95coupe said:
Soo how much you talkin for the 10mm to do all 8 lights? and do you have to seperate the lens' to do so?
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Sorry, missed this question earlier.

It's almost $30 for 20 10mm LED's... but they are prewired for 12V applications which does help in fabrication. I'd think you'd probably need at least 40 10mm lights to do the tail lights. Then again, these may be too bright for the running lights on the car. And yes, I think it's best to separate the lense at this time.

If I get a spare, spare lense, I may try the 10mm lights, but for now I'll stick with the 5mm because of price. I have a plexiglas cluster cutout for the trunk mounted running light which uses 8 5mm LED's. Once I see what that looks like behind the lense, during the day and night, I'll be able to adjust the patterns for the remaining tail lights.
 
OK, another update:

The LED's are listed at 25,000 mcd and have a forward voltage of 1.9-2.3. I strung together a cluster of 6 LED's in series and connected them to a 12V source... managed to fry them, that was cool!

So I strung another cluster of 6 LED's and installed a resistor at the + end and they worked fine... nice and bright. I strung another row of 6 along side it with another resistor and no problems. They look great in the daytime and in the dark.

The resistors came with the LED's I bought and I have no idea what Ohm it is. It's color markings are red, red, black, gold... or orange, orange, dark red, gold. Using one resistor for 6 LED's in the cluster.

Tomarrow, I'll install it behind the lense to see how it looks in the day and at night... I'll also snag some pics too.

You guys are still interested in this, right?
 
mholhut said:
OK, another update:

The LED's are listed at 25,000 mcd and have a forward voltage of 1.9-2.3. I strung together a cluster of 6 LED's in series and connected them to a 12V source... managed to fry them, that was cool!

So I strung another cluster of 6 LED's and installed a resistor at the + end and they worked fine... nice and bright. I strung another row of 6 along side it with another resistor and no problems. They look great in the daytime and in the dark.

The resistors came with the LED's I bought and I have no idea what Ohm it is. It's color markings are red, red, black, gold... or orange, orange, dark red, gold. Using one resistor for 6 LED's in the cluster.

Tomarrow, I'll install it behind the lense to see how it looks in the day and at night... I'll also snag some pics too.

You guys are still interested in this, right?
Click to expand...
Yo! Your tail lights are on the way.
 
mint05LS said:
if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Click to expand...
Man, that's a terrible thing to say. There is always room to make things better.
 
mint05LS said:
if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Click to expand...
Since you hav an 05 your taillights have not melted around the brake light bulb and caused moisture so they are broken just you havent had this problem yet. There is always room for improvement. True I am not a big fan of how the first set of LED tails look but its a begining.
 
GrayGhost1 said:
Man, that's a terrible thing to say. There is always room to make things better.
Click to expand...

Bah... see what too much "Shoefly Pie" does to a man. The problem is, it's a Ford product... so if it ain't broke, it will be soon. lol
 
GrayGhost1 said:
Yo! Your tail lights are on the way.
Click to expand...

They ain't mine... they be yours :)

As an afterthought....

I'm thinking of adding more LED's in a small cluster to the trunk tail lights so they act like the euro fog lights on Audi's et al. Hmmmmm?

I don't know if they'll be bright enough behind tinted tails... I'm not sure I can simulate that without going all the way down that road. They are bright and they've been burning constantly since my first post this morning. I have them hooked up to a battery jump pack ;) Since I'm stuck at work until 11PM tonight, I'll have to wait until tomarrow to put them behind the tail lights for a brightness check.

There are a bunch of opporunities with wiring these... you'll be able to change what lights come on with the brakes / directionals or just leave them function as they are now.
 
mholhut said:
I don't know if they'll be bright enough behind tinted tails... I'm not sure I can simulate that without going all the way down that road.
Click to expand...

Maybe you could go to a local tint shop and find a scrap piece of say 20% or just a fuzz darker that is big enough to wrap the tails in. Wouldn't look pretty by any means, but should serve the purpose. Maybe give you an idea of what it could/would look like at least.
 
Yeah, I was thinking about that too. It'll be close, but it won't be exactly accurate. Then again, it's pretty difficult to say whether it will work on tinted tail lights due to the extreme variation in the amount of tint people use.
 
Bump...

I found a red lense I could use as a test... came off the ATV we have at work. It was removed with two screws and was wide and deep enough for me to fit the test 12 LED cluster behind it.

(Bet you never thought "screws", "wide", and "deep" could ever be used in the same sentence that concerned cars.)

Anywho, I took the test cluster outside, installed it behind the red lense, and hooked it up to the 12V source. I'm satisfied that it's bright enough, but with the design of the test lense and the various facets that the lense has, you can not see the individual LED's. I don't know if that's going to be a problem from a style standpoint, but 12 LED's is adequate for a simple running lamp.

So, I'm going to make up another cluster tomarrow; only the new one will have 24 LED's... 12 will be on with the running lights, and all 24 will come on to simulate brake or directional lights. I'll then be able to compare them directly to those on the LS.

The plexiglas I'm using is too thin. Drilling holes causes it to chip and splinter so I'll get a thicker sheet tomarrow as well. It's also difficult to use a hand drill and keep the horizontal rows of LED's perfect; even after marking and punching the locations for a start. So, I'm going to make a drilling template that I can clamp onto the plexiglas to drill the holes uniformally. It'll also allow me to make the LED spacing consistent from set to set.

Things are looking good!
 
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