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Hey guys, which would you prefer if I start selling the led sequencers? Should you buy or they come with a replacement flasher, or should I build a flasher into the circuit. On one hand, a replacement flasher could be put in the stock position and you would hear the clicking sound, but on the other hand making my own means I can customize the flash rate to be optimum for the sequence. The price would probably be about the same either way. A third option would be if I could find clicking adjustable flashers, or at least ones that I know have good duration for these lights. Of course if I made the flashers, they too could be variable, I'm just not sure how to do it yet. The diagram I have says to change the cap to lengthen the flash, but some say you can just change the resistor or make it a pot. Either way it wouldn't have an audible confirmation that your blinker is on. I'm still waiting for the last IC to make the sequencer, they were on quite the backorder.

I think I figured out why these little 8mcd leds seem so bright. I must have gotten the wrong ones in the mail, because while they say they are 3v, they are actually 1.6v, which means I overclocked the hell out of them. Instead of a 1ohm resistor they need like a 100ohm one, according to this led array wizard. I'm surprised they didn't burn up along with the 1/4W resistor, they were using 350mA together.

Sometimes a vibration seems to go away when there's no load on the engine. Plus an engine vibration could be transmitting through the drive shaft and it resonates at the back of the car (I suppose in some rare occasions a vibration could be caused by harmonics between the engine and the differential or something so it would seem like it's at certain rpm--two small vibrations are combining forces at a certain frequency). However, even then it's usually a range that you can power through, not one that just gets worse and worse the higher you go. Airplanes have a caution range because of harmonics between the engine and propeller for instance. Torque does do some strange things in that area, but it seems like if it were the engine, if would vibrate at wot then once you were cruising it would go away, for everything else it would be a speed range issue. For instance, I remember in an r200 thread someone said he had severe vibration at like 40-50mph and after replacing everything one by one he figured out that it was the stub axles, which had a manufacturing defect that caused the bearings to become loose at that wheel speed but undetectable at rest. It could still be the transmission, but I think it has to be on the input side. If it isn't mating with the engine nice and flush, I suppose the input shaft could be out of phase and cause an increasing vibration the faster it goes. If it was something else in the transmission, it would probably only happen in a certain gear or at a certain speed.

He told me he's done group buys for 280z guys on here before, I don't know if he actually has them listed on his website though. Just email him and ask about them.

Yeah 3mm leds just might be the way to go for the more solid look, or at least put the 5mm really close together. And just underpower the whole thing if you have to. I was wondering if it would be cool to make a circuit where the harder you push on the brake the brighter they get, seems like it would be safer if cars were like that too. Or if there's a center brake light that sequences where the bar gets wider the harder you push, that would be interesting. But here I am going on a tangent. Yeah I might do the 100x5000mcd leds. They're pretty cheap when you buy them in bulk. These lenses are so large the 3mm would be a pain in the neck, although I guess you could have some sort of bragging rights that you crammed 2000 leds in each brake light

I wish I had something to relate mcd to. The 5mm leds at superbrightleds are supposedly less than 3 lumens (1200mcd@120) but my flashlight has a 90 lumen bulb and it's not that bright. However the 3mm leds I got for my test panels are only rated at 6mcd and they seem pretty bright, a hell of a lot brighter than I would expect from .01 lumens! Not to mention I'm using a 9v battery for my little breadboard. They might not be smoked lens in the daytime bright, but they make 20000 mcd sound like staring into the sun, unless the sellers on ebay just like to add some zeros to the specs. I guess when I order the big boys I'll get a 25ohm rheostat from radio shack in anticipation of turning them down a bit.

Yeah either that or a different aspect. Worth a shot. "riveted" together?? I have several more ideas. 1. Adopting the late s30 tail but getting rid of the backup light lens area so you just have the two lenses, which klearz already makes in any color. 2. Using patterned plastic for the custom lenses that either have pillows on the inside or spikes like modern lenses (drop lighting style) so they diffuse the leds evenly. I got the idea from behind a car today that had the latter and the light was completely uniform and looked kinda like reflectors look when lit up (might even disguise the problem of not having reflectors (CA and others) and could look more interesting in the day than smooth lenses. I'm not sure if this can be vacuum formed easily enough though, it's pretty finicky when you use a female mold. A guy told me he's even vacuum formed the pillowed lenses with a male mold, but technically it would make the outside ripple a little bit. Otherwise I would probably have to spring for making a more complex two piece mold for resin casting, probably not worth it.

Am I missing something? If a vibration occurs at a specific rpm range but not speed range, it is almost certainly caused by something upstream from the drive shaft...

I was thinking of having a tool made for injection molding them when they guy mentioned machining them out of aluminum and it hit me. I was sitting there thinking of how to make them like the originals it hadn't even occurred to me to machine them. Would be pretty pricey by the pair though, plastic ones could be made by the hundreds. I don't even have a working tail light right now except what's on the car. Should have splashed the pieces before putting them back together.

How would altezza lenses fit? All I know of are custom lenses that people make themselves. Or like the klearz guy but he doesn't make the 240z lenses, just the 260+. I've always wondered if a pantera lens would fit. It's doubtful but too hard to tell without seeing them side by side. They are very similar at least. I'm still debating if it's worth it to duplicate the original lenses myself, they seem to go like hot cakes. People would probably eat them up in clear and orange too.

Somebody stealing my lenses idea? I just talked to my teacher and he thought I was working with someone from fullerton who was asking about a shop that could reproduce lenses. He is a step ahead of me though, he already had a machine shop duplicate the chrome strip out of aluminum, which is exactly what I was thinking of doing! Especially if I were to have the lenses two piece resin casted. Weird.

I plan on making the lens about the same dimension as the oem and it can be used with the stock housing if desired. I'd like to make a new housing for the led clusters though, like an aluminum tray or something, if it's shiny that would also add to the look I think. To make them blend better you could do 3mm leds too. Not many people do that, but it would simply allow you to use more of them in less space so the lights are closer together. 3mm leds can also be about the same brightness as the 5mm but if there are more of them then they don't really have to be. It's just more work is all. Wide angle leds on superbrightleds are 120 degrees, so are most of the flat tops on ebay. That should be plenty, plus they are like 10000mcd. Of course you can never have too bright, because you can always just power them appropriately. You could even put a dimmer and leave it up to the customer, but I digress..

Try searching zgeeezer with only three Es.

I seriously hate you. Where's a classic car loving alcoholic unknowingly sitting on a gem when I need him?? I'll give you a whole six pack of pbr for em, that's like a huge profit!

Now that's tragic. What a waste. I know a guy who has a 280 on jacks in his driveway with an exterior that isn't worth fixing but mint interior throughout and he won't sell me any of it because he wants to sell the whole car for way too much. He said he had a buyer like two months ago, but it's still there. What a waste.

I like those seats so much I wanna take em behind a middle school and get em pregnant. I gave up looking for seats like those a long time ago. Even high priced ones have tears and crap, what's your secret?

Yeah that's why I thought perhaps a running light ring would make it look interesting during the day. It's hard to envision what the smoked lens with leds inside will look like with them off. I know I've seen something like that before and it looked pretty cool. I might do the led upgrade on the stock ones I have first to see what it looks like. I'm also considering custom lenses that retain the chrome strip, but then I pretty much have to make the chrome strip because no one whose buying custom lenses is going to have them already. Not sure what to do with the reflector though. If the white leds you have are bright enough it just means that you could have got red ones 1/3 the mcd and theoretically they would be the same only less power dissipation, which makes each component cost less as well. I'm pretty sure the christmas tree effect comes from them being narrow angle. Most people go for high power and disregard angle, but even round leds can be somewhat wide angle, they just turn people off because they don't look as bright. Flat tops or straw hats are generally better though. They won't be as bright straight on because the light is dispersed more evenly, but they should blend together better. On the other side of the coin, you get really bright narrow angled leds, stand 15 degrees to the side and suddenly they aren't so bright, and some are twice as bright as others. Either way I want to see what it looks like with a defusing inner lens like a camera flasher. Probably won't look as good during the day though if you can only see the lens.

Ah yes old school bmw seats are SO comfortable.

So something not plastic How hard are you slamming that throttle?

I've heard of it, pretty sure it was on this forum. Did you try a search? I was looking into it once because I was interested in doing it myself, but in the end they seemed out of my price range. Even the ones you find might not be perfect or they are the ones that had all the luxury options built in.

That looks pretty good. I was thinking I could easily make some like that for people who didn't want the custom lenses. Do you know what mcd rating you used? In the future don't use white leds though, they will only be a third as bright! I'm still debating the rings. It sounded better in my head, perhaps it's only meant for audis. And if I have it all ready to go, making custom patterns for people would just be a mater of sending me a sketch. What do you think of a really large arrow? My link

There are two ways to go on the brake lights if I do a separate set of leds for running and signal. Either pressing the brake will sequence the signal and hold, or make the running lights brighter like many cars. The stock lights are a mix - the top left run/sig gets brighter on brake whereas the top right only does run and bottom left only does sig/brake, which is somewhat strange because on brake the top right is dimmer than the other two and on sig only the lefts blink. Here is the second of the two options. led mockup

I think the 370z leds are the T1 3/4 style but I can't figure out the rating. I don't know if the round 5mm leds look any different, but again I think they need to be high viewing angle to look right. Also I was planning on using a greater number of leds so they probably don't have to be as bright individually. I like a more solid look as opposed to some people that only use like 10 to fill the lens. It looks kinda funny when they're spaced that far apart imo. In fact if the whole cluster could be a solid panel light I think that would be pretty cool because then the light is perfectly even. But so far I'm thinking I will try out a closely spaced ring of leds around the edge of the lens for running lights and two bars of sequentials for the brake/signals that have the same feel of the stock split lights, and maybe a strip of smds in the middle for reverse. The circuit I have will do up to 16 channels which I think will look cleaner in sequence than most that have only 3 or 4. I think I can do 8 channels and use the same circuit for both tails to save parts. Like I said if anyone has an idea or drawing on what they like for the led pattern I'd be interested in seeing it.

Sweet! I'm probably going to do some mock ups to see what designs you guys like. I have the models for the lenses. I've been waiting for the opportunity to use the thermoformer at school but I'm about to just build my own because I'm getting too anxious. P.S. I just got all the components in the mail except for one IC from ebay which should make 5 sets to start. I'll just need to figure out the led situation so I can buy some in bulk. I just have some little guys right now to test the circuit out. I guess I should just buy one of every kind from radio shack to get an idea what works best, or even go to a pimp my ride shop and ask them what they use for that kind of thing.

I'm working on making marketable custom tail light lenses and sequential LED brake lights to go with them. Not sure which type of LEDs to go with them yet though. I'm not satisfied with most of the other mods out there mainly because the fact that the high intensity goes hand in hand with low viewing angle, which disrupts the uniform look like they're sparkly christmas lights or something. The search for high intensity high viewing angle LEDs continues.