Has anyone ever made there own l.e.d tailights?

[1trickpony]

Tailights for 79-93 mustangs are pretty dim. I would like to build my own l.e.d taillights. From the little bit of looking I have done it will require some boards and bulbs. (Obviously more than that).

So has any one built any? Where a good place to start looking for boards? L.e.d bulbs in bulk?

[yellomalibu]

There are LED bulbs available... most of them are junk. I've tried two different kinds, and they don't illuminate the whole lens - just send a few beams of light in the rear direction.
After buying the second pair of led 1157's, and being disappointed by them, I just made the reflector as shiny as I could with some of that "chrome" spray paint, washed the red lens, and reassembled them with standard 1157's. Much better.

These look promising, though:

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&category=CAR&Page2Disp=%2Fspecs%2F115x-x45-T.htm#photos

or

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=%2Fspecs%2F315x-x45-T.htm

You need to use red LED's if you have red lenses. If accessable, make sure the reflector inside your tail light housing is as bright and reflective as possible.

Making your own, while it sounds like a cool project, may take a few tries to perfect. The running lights could be too bright or dim, the brake lights could be too bright or dim, if the brake lights aren't much brighter than the running lights, etc. And keep viewing angle in mind; As I mentioned earlier, LED's pointing straight back aren't very bright when viewed from an angle.

[1trickpony]

I too have wasted my money on just the led conversion bulbs. I think with the right. Amount of bulbs I could make it work. My friend would be doing the board building. I have seen a sequential tail light for the old mustangs and want to build the board similar to this without the sequntial part. Also would make my reverse lights pretty bright so I can see out of the back.
I think making 4 boards per side would help being seen at different angles. In my dads 47 chevy we were worried about the angles of his led lights but really it isn't a issue.

[Bamfster]

I've never done any myself, but there is a guy that works at the police garage that builds his own. Here is a link he sent me when I was considering building some ... never got much further than looking at this, but there's some good info there.

http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz