Project L.E.D!
 

So after my "spider" light burnt out and my last bulb that was barely bright enough to tell me if i had enough fuel to make it home burnt out. I decided to go all led's. I bought this 30peice set of led's with resistors that im going to fit into the instrament panel,center console, both dome lights, and rear tail lights if i have enough left. These things are insanely bright, 280k MCD wich equivilates to 106 candle-power at a veiwing angle of 40+ - 5 degrees. Thats alot out of a 10mm led. I have these on order but i still need to drive my car so for the moment i have only 7600MCD led's installed.

http://cgi.ebay.com/30p-H-P-MultiChips-0-5W-10mm-White-LED-280Kmd-FREE-SHIP_W0QQitemZ350083359491QQihZ022QQcategoryZ66954QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262

Ill make a small writeup about them and how i installed them (and what they are/ how are they used).

It will work great for the instrument panel, in fact I use LEDs too. They were already plug-n-play for the light socket with the resistor built in.
However, it will not work for the center console, dome lights or tail lights.

The key is the viewing Angle: 40±5degree. In other words it lights up only in front of it. The spider takes light from around the side of the bulb, the dome lights would become spotlights and the tail lights would need well over 30 to produce enough light to be seen by other drivers (Even those would just be dots since the reflectors are not made for LEDs and will not spread out their light).

Im going the cheap DIY route lol 5$ for a premade one was out of the question for me. I realized this and then i stumbled upon some 140 degree 100kMCD multichip led's. Those would work well, and if the light still wasnt dispersed enough, i could frost them somehow Maybie sandbast them lightly to etch them?

I just used some light labeled Krypton from O'reileys for my cluster lights, brightest I have come across so far.

Hmm....I've never thought of that before, I do wonder if sandblasting a LED would improve its light "dispersion"......it still wouldn't be the same as an incandescent lamp though, as LED's still produce the light on a flat interior surface focused in one direction....but I bet it would improve it a little.

These Ebay LED's have built in resistors? Did you see this in the Questions box:

"Q: what size resistor for 12 v
A: Sorry, we don't supply resistors for this high power leds. "

The electrical specs are listed, so you should be able to see that the answer is "No."

Forward voltage: 3V min, 3.4V typ, 3.8V max
Forward current: 100mA max.

From this, you can compute the needed resistor.

I know the specs are listed. I asked the question because Cervan wrote:

"I bought this 30peice set of led's with RESISTORS that im going to fit into the instrament panel,center console, both dome lights, and rear tail lights if i have enough left."

He did. I assumed that he purchased the resistors elsewhere.

Sorry, i thought that this auction included the resistors, since all of his other ones did as well. Thanks for showing me that ill have to get some resistors then. For 12vdc im going to have to get about a 490 ohm resistor.

Well i came to my first roadblock, im deciding to either permanently install the LED, by soldering it to the PCB board (for the turn signals) or if i should attempt to solder it to the small metal tabs on the socket. I could also install them by desoldering the leads from the pcb board and running them directly to the leds. I was also thinking i could cut the trace on the pcb board and solder the resistor into the trace to complete the curcuit that would allow me to use the socket but thats proving to be a pain since the sockets little tabs dont like to be soldered on.

Not sure about that but there are ways to dim them if you want. Here is an interesting driver. http://www.leddynamics.com/LuxDrive/datasheets/3021-BuckPuck.pdf

I've got one that I'm going to use with some one watt LED's that I got off ebay. Mine are Luxeon, and lambertian which means 140 degree angle.
They were like $2 ea nd they list for over $5. I'm using them for house lighting scattered all over the place most likely. Wood pile, garage, porch, all 4 corners of the house, etc...

Just don't want the house to look like a space ship. :D
I'll let you know how it goes.

LED's are current oprerated devices iirc. 490 ohms will give you less than 25 ma (max is 100 ma per Matt L) so you won't get full brightness. I'd use a 150 ohm 1/2 w or 120 ohm 1/2 w resistor.

Never ass-u-me anything! :D

Well im in for the night, this is proving to be harder than it looked. Since the sockets dont like to be soldered on its hard to mount these, any suggestions?