On the radar
Building out LED tail lights Part 1 - Turn Signals
Parts used in this build
No parts listed for this build.
About 15 years ago, I had a long thread on Thirdgen.org of my LED tail light build. It was a very popular thread at the time as not many people were doing LED retros. Those tail lights are still going strong in the car today. But I've been wanting to change it up just a little, so recently I found another pair of tail lights and have now begun V2.
I was originally going to try and really get advanced on this set, by using surface mount LEDs and having boards printed. But I quickly found out that there is just too much trial and error and it gets costly having the same boards made multiple times because I messed up or forgot something. So back to perf boards and the super reliable superflux style LEDs. I'm starting with the turn signals, I wanted to have the top and bottom rows be sequential and the middle will be instant on. I think I got it after many attempts.
EDIT 5/24/26: I ended up scrapping this version of my tail lights, things were just not turning out the way I wanted. I went back to the drawing board and came up with a much better solution. Check out the new LED tail light series.
I have a short video of my attempt here.
Check out the rest of this series
Taillight restoration and LED conversion - Part 2
