Putting the red bumper lenses to use

[AlexJet]

AlexJet,

Looks great! They look brighter than I thought the led bulbs would be.

I can't recall if you bought premade led bulbs or if you made them yourself. Any information (pics) on the bulbs would be greatly appreciated. I know that these tubes in the housing are very small and not every premade led bulb will fit. If you could clarify the bulbs that you used, this may be very helpful for those looking to do this or upgade there filament type bulbs.

Did you use the bolt for ground or did you tap into the ground wire used for the other lights?

Thanks and glad to see you made it work!

Tom

Pennywise, I used 4157 LED bulb. Its 25 LED pre-made bulbs from www.autolumination.com.
I contact ground to the upper fixing bolt of my taillights. First I contact it to the lower, because it was easier, but then figured out that it has bad ground, so I reconnect my ground to the upper one.

Here is the image of 4157 LED bulb:

 

[00328]

As an added precaution, you may want to seal up the three holes on the connector where the wires come out with silicone to keep dirt and moisture from getting in to the connections.

Do the LEDs run cooler than the filament bulbs?

Also, I thought LEDs don't need as much power so you need to use something (not sure what it's called) in-line to reduce the current to the LEDs. Did you need to do this?

Do those LED bulbs light up red or light up white?

 

[Pennywise]

As an added precaution, you may want to seal up the three holes on the connector where the wires come out of with silicone to keep dirt and moisture from getting in to the connections.
Do the LEDs run cooler than the filament bulbs?
Also, I thought LEDs don't need as much power so you need to use something (not sure what it's called) in-line to reduce the current to the LEDs. Did you need to do this?

Good point 00328! You want to keep them nice and sealed to prevent corrosion. I have used silicon and that liquid electrical tape. It seems to the job and I haven't had any issues, but I remember reading somewhere that silicon isn't completely an insulator. It does have some electrical properties. I don't know this for sure, I'm just relaying the information that I read. As I said, I have used it and had no issues.

You may also want to use some of that bulb grease to help prevent corrosion as well.

The leds run very cool, almost no heat is generated. The resistors used to limit the current will get hot after a while, depending on the current draw and the resistance value.

If you buy the premade bulbs, they are a simple plug and play. If you make your own led bulbs, you would need to do a little homework to determine the resistor that you would need to limit the current to a safe operating range for the leds.

Tom

 

[00328]

Thanks for the info. I don't know crap about electrical resistance, I would just buy the pre-made bulbs.
Thinking of changing my bumper tail/brakes from filament to LED.
The filaments get pretty warm, although I haven't had any issues with them yet.

 

[AlexJet]

As an added precaution, you may want to seal up the three holes on the connector where the wires come out with silicone to keep dirt and moisture from getting in to the connections.

Do the LEDs run cooler than the filament bulbs?

Also, I thought LEDs don't need as much power so you need to use something (not sure what it's called) in-line to reduce the current to the LEDs. Did you need to do this?

Do those LED bulbs light up red or light up white?

00328, thank you for an idea of sealing the connectors. I didn't do it yet, but cold and snowing Canadian winter coming and I rally think it's a good idea.
I didn't put any resistors. As Pennywise said, I used plug-and-Play version. So it works fine as is.
The LEDs I got are red. These ones will perform better then white. Its Optical Physics, red light-filter will let only red spectrum pass. Red LED produce red spectrum, white one - all spectrum, so the white one will be divided to different colors and only red will pass. Sorry, it's a little bit complicated, so I tried to explain it as easy as possible.

 

[00328]

As long as they're plug and play that's all I need to know.
Thanks

 

[00328]

AlexJet - is the light output from the LEDs a pretty close match to the light output of the filaments?

Also, you said you ordered the 4157s, looks like you really have to order the 3157s.

Think I may give these LEDs a try.

 

[Pennywise]

AlexJet - is the light output from the LEDs a pretty close match to the light output of the filaments?

Also, you said you ordered the 4157s, looks like you really have to order the 3157s.

Think I may give these LEDs a try.

Also, how well do the side leds do at lighting up the rest of the reflector? I like way the filament bulbs fill the entire housing, but was never really fond of how the leds shine straight back. Any chance to get a couple more photos, maybe a little closer to the lens (that is, if it isn't a problem)?

Thanks,
Tom

 

[AlexJet]

AlexJet - is the light output from the LEDs a pretty close match to the light output of the filaments?

Also, you said you ordered the 4157s, looks like you really have to order the 3157s.

Think I may give these LEDs a try.

1. Yes, its 25LED bulb and it's actually very bright. If you look from the back it

 

[AlexJet]

Also, how well do the side leds do at lighting up the rest of the reflector? I like way the filament bulbs fill the entire housing, but was never really fond of how the leds shine straight back. Any chance to get a couple more photos, maybe a little closer to the lens (that is, if it isn't a problem)?

Thanks,
Tom

It

 

[Pennywise]

Thanks AlexJet and I'm sure there are a number of people who would like to see the closeup photos.

Now, just to make things clear for those thinking about switching to led bulbs, the last couple pages of this thread were making the bumper lights behave identical to the brake/stop light in the stock housing. And they were powered off of the stock light (NOT the trailer power connector). This is why there are no problems using led bulbs.

If you are using them with the turn signal and brake lights wired off of the trailer connector, there may be some problems with the low resistance of the leds (rapid flashing or the feedback issue). I'm not going into the details here as it was discussed in great detail throughout this thread. So, reread this thread and keep this in mind before spending $25.00 on led bulbs that may not behave the way you expect.

Tom

 

[AlexJet]

Thanks AlexJet and I'm sure there are a number of people who would like to see the closeup photos.

Now, just to make things clear for those thinking about switching to led bulbs, the last couple pages of this thread were making the bumper lights behave identical to the brake/stop light in the stock housing. And they were powered off of the stock light (NOT the trailer power connector). This is why there are no problems using led bulbs.

If you are using them with the turn signal and brake lights wired off of the trailer connector, there may be some problems with the low resistance of the leds (rapid flashing or the feedback issue). I'm not going into the details here as it was discussed in great detail throughout this thread. So, reread this thread and keep this in mind before spending $25.00 on led bulbs that may not behave the way you expect.

Tom

Yes, you

 

[Sifrk]

Based on the original instructions, it seems as though connecting the bulbs to the tow connectors actually would make the brake act as a signal light as well, correct? If so, has anyone found a different way to wire the brake so that it doesn't also work as the signal?

I read the instructions today as I got started on this project and noticed this - guess I wasn't reading it closely the first time around. Anyway, if I've interpretted it correctly, I think it would be kinda odd to have both red and yellow blinkers.

 

[00328]

If you are looking to just do tails/brake lights, I found it easier to just bring the bumper light wires up behind the regular tail lights and splice into the wires there. You have to remove the regular tail lights to do this but it's easy.
Good luck.

 

[Pennywise]

Based on the original instructions, it seems as though connecting the bulbs to the tow connectors actually would make the brake act as a signal light as well, correct? If so, has anyone found a different way to wire the brake so that it doesn't also work as the signal?

I read the instructions today as I got started on this project and noticed this - guess I wasn't reading it closely the first time around. Anyway, if I've interpretted it correctly, I think it would be kinda odd to have both red and yellow blinkers.

Yeah, many people aren't fond of having both the red and amber signals. You would always get this using the wiring from the towing connector. As mentioned somewhere in this thread, you could find the towing converter relay (driver's side rear panel) and use the brake inputs there. This relay takes the brake signal and the turn signal and converts it to a single signal which runs to the towing connector. This would be one option to get the brake only. The other way would be to tap into the stock brake light connector as discussed in the more recent pages of this thread.

What functions would you like to have the bumper lights perform?

Tom

 

[Sifrk]

Thanks for the many suggestions.

I'm interested in the tail light and brake functions. For the tail light, I guess I can use the lead described in the original post, but the brake is where I'm not sure what to do. Question, there's a branch near the tow connector, not sure where one of them goes, but the other branch apparently goes into the vehicle for the stock tails, signals, and brakes. Does anyone know which of the many combination of color is the right ones for the brakes?

Not to get too far off topic, but anyone know of a thread where all the bulb part numbers are listed? I'm looking through autolumination.com and would like to replace all the stock bulbs on the interior.

Thanks in advance.

 

[00328]

Not to get too far off topic, but anyone know of a thread where all the bulb part numbers are listed? I'm looking through autolumination.com and would like to replace all the stock bulbs on the interior.

Thanks in advance.

If you do a "search" I think I've seen several threads discussing replacing or upgrading bulbs along with bulb numbers.

 

[MDT4RNR]

Tow Lights

All of you might have this already, but I thought it woun't hurt to post it any way.
I am thinking on doing the Tail lights only set up.
I ordered my 12v 5w honda bulbs per TRD04RUNNER's set up.

 

[OUTRNNR]

I completed the rear bumper lens mod over the weekend. I used dual element 3157 bulbs to incorporate blinker/brake and tail lights. This mod took me longer than it should have ~6 hours because the bulb sockets "pigtails" that I bought from Checker were shi*ty pieces of junk. They weren't making contact with the bulb, making me think I had it wired wrong.

Anyways, after it was all done I really love how it looks!! I don't have any pics because I don't have a digital camera *yet*. But since I just did this mod, its fresh in my head if anyone has any questions.

 

[OUTRNNR]

I completed the rear bumper lens mod over the weekend. I used dual element 3157 bulbs to incorporate blinker/brake and tail lights. This mod took me longer than it should have ~6 hours because the bulb sockets "pigtails" that I bought from Checker were shi*ty pieces of junk. They weren't making contact with the bulb, making me think I had it wired wrong.

Anyways, after it was all done I really love how it looks!! I don't have any pics because I don't have a digital camera *yet*. But since I just did this mod, its fresh in my head if anyone has any questions.