Tail Lights

PaulProe

PaulProe

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Tony
I noticed the tail lights on your car are noticeably brighter than others. Did those come with your build or did you source them from somewhere else?

Paul
 
Paul, I got those tail lights from RodWorx. They are all LED and act as if its only one bulb. So if your wiring harness is set up as dual bulbs (brake and turn) you will need a trailer module. It must be a powered unit though. If it does not have its own power source it will not work right. The one RodWorx sells will not work. When it wouldn’t work he sent me the resistors. Still no luck. After lots and lots of searching on the Web, I finally found only one other (JEEP) guy that had a solution. That was the powered trailer module. I needed no resistors. I still have the regular bulb front blinkers. Because of this the flashers still work. If I change them to LED I would need a solid state “no load” LED flasher. https://www.rodworx.com/product-category/1960-cobra-leds/ Pictures of what I used are attached. Any questions just ask.

IMG_1052.jpgIMG_3507.jpgIMG_3508.jpg

Tony
 
Geez, Tong G is all over it...perfect description, although COMPLETELY OVER MY HEAD!

Paul if you see this, did you happen to notice the DIFFERENCE IN MY TAIL/Brake lights ...On Rt66 ride. They were all completely redone and replaced...should be perfect now... just an FYI. and thanks for bringing to my attention....bright is the theme....
 
Not sure I understand why this light won't simply work with a 12v source Tony. Goesinta, goesoutta logic. It's a 12v bulb, so, seems to me, every time 12v is applied, light on. Was the reason for the resistors or the trailer harness for the running lights maybe?
 
Purple Venom said:
Not sure I understand why this light won't simply work with a 12v source Tony. . . .
Click to expand...

Tim
Increasing resistance is a common thing with LED's to make the flasher work. LED's don't apply enough load to the flasher to make it function.
 
Ian, I was going to ask you if you changed them. You're upper lights are brighter, but your lower lights are dimmer and have a different pattern. Are the lens different? The lower lights looked like 6 or eight individual lights in a circular pattern. I'm assuming you are running LED bulbs, are they the same bulbs upper & lower?
 
Good question...yes the lower bulbs are LED, TOP ARE NORMAL CLEAR BULBS....need to change out bottom bulbs and trash the LED crap...make everything clear... thanks for observations...
 
Purple Venom said:
Not sure I understand why this light won't simply work with a 12v source Tony. Goesinta, goesoutta logic. It's a 12v bulb, so, seems to me, every time 12v is applied, light on. Was the reason for the resistors or the trailer harness for the running lights maybe?
Click to expand...

What Paul said about the resistors is correct. But since I'm running regular front lights I didn't need them. You could also use a solid state flasher. https://www.rodworx.com/shop/12v-3-prong-led-turn-signal-flasher/ The trailer converter is to turn 2 separate light bulbs (turn and brake) a 3 wire system to work as one bulb. These tail lights act as one light bulb or what is called a 2 wire system. Same as the lights on the back trailers. Why a powered converter was needed I don't know. But it was.

Here is a quote from etrailer.

"Converters are required when a vehicle has what is called a 3-wire or separate lighting system. These systems will have turn signal circuits that are separate from the brake light circuits.

Trailers use a 2-wire or combined system meaning the brake lights and turn signals are on the same circuit.

A converter is needed to take the separate signals from the vehicle and combine them so that the trailer lights operating on a combined system will work properly."
 
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Ian I noticed the same as Mark with your blinker lights being very dim. Do you know if its Red LED's under the red lens? That could be the problem. With a red lens you would want to put in clear LED's. Normally LED's should be brighter.
 
I have an electronic flasher that motorcycles use. Believe Keith is running the same. Seems it could work fine with these, but, ok with the round lights.
 
MPTech said:
Tony, I was told you should run Red LEDs with Red Lens.
Click to expand...

Well that's interesting. Just looked it up and you're correct. I assumed you would do the same as the old filament bulb. Well see what I get for assuming.

Ignore me Ian. I was wrong.
 
it would be interesting to put Tony, Keith Wilson and Ian's cars side by side and take turns operating the brakes to see a comparison. Keith has Red LED's behind a red lens as I recall
Paul
 
Why is that Rich? Every taillight bulb known to man is a clear bulb behind a red lense......
 
You can't tell anything from looking at the LED, the color comes when the device is activated. The LED's housing is clear. Some of the older, first generation ones used a tinted plastic housing to produce the color since they hadn't learned how to produce color yet.

Without getting all scientific, it has to do with the frequency of the light being produced and how it is filtered by the red plastic lens.
 
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