LED strip brake light repair success.

[Brambles]

Hi,

The high level strip brake light failed on my Motorhome, many LEDs not working an either blown or the legs corroded.

I started by removing and slicing open along the welded seam between the red lense and black rear. Took a bit of time but evenutally using a stanley knife I spit the two halves apart. The long strip of LEDs on a circuit board was easily removed.

I desolderd all the LEDs and 100ohm resistors as they were looking sorry for themselves. Fitted new LEDs supplied by phenoptix along with 100ohm resistors which phenoptix also supplied. - chap is very helpful, the part I ordered was

http://www.phenoptix.com/shop/ultra-bright-12000mcd-p-39.html

( 5mm Ultrabright Red LED qty 35).

Make sure you get the LEDs soldered in the same way old ones.

 

Wow!! they are bright, a lot brighter than the original LED's. so much so they were too bright and left green spots before your eyes.

As I did not have different values of resistors to play with, and also because no reverse polariy protection is given to the LED's I decided to fit a diode (1N4001) in series with the common supply to the cct board. Still too bright, so fitted a second diode, another 0.7 volt drop.

Still very bright off a freesetanding battery, but when I tested in vehicle was actually slightly too dim, however when engine is running and battery is charging they are spot on perfect for brightness matching the existing brake lights. Far superior to original led's which were never very bright anyway.

 

Glueing the two halves of the brake light back together was simplicity in itself - I used Marley drain pipe solvent cement which also acted a filler for any gaps. Sealed around the wiring grommet with silicon sealant and job done. I also put silicon in the mounting holes when puttng back in holder on Motorhome and then sealed around the outside to stop water getting in to rear of unit.

Job well done for not much over £5 (35 LEDs) where a new unit was over £40 plus delivery plus vat and would have the same poor quality LEDs as old one, as well as not being very bright.

So any budding soldering iron enthusiast can do this if their brake light as failed.

I can also think of many other uses for the bright LED's suplied by Phenoptix, one being their strip LEDS . They are on a strip and can be supplied in any length, all you have to do is connect up to 12 volts. Could be great for mood lightingor fitting under cupboards in kitchen area as a down lighter. All their LED products are available in different colours including white.

And before anyone suggests I have a link with the supplier, well I suppose one could say he bribed me with loads of 100ohm resistors free of charge, but no, just pleased to find someone ( http://www.phenoptix.com ) supplying decent quality ultra bright LEDs for doing repairs at a sensible price.

Jon.

 

 

p.s. strip leds on tape might be useful for replacing the rope light mood lighting in Hymers.

 

[colin]

Execlent post.

Your comment on 'mood lighting' has reminded me that we hired a WildAx last easter and these have blue strip LEDs for lighting dinette, why I cannot understand, it may look good at shows but try reading under one! I ended up using galley light to read when sat at dinette.