Ok it's time to share what I've been up to recently.
Not long ago i got myself one of those special Super Duty 3rd brake lights that seem to only be on certain 06+ models which also fit our rangers.



Well I wanted to convert my cargo/3rd brake light to led so what a great mod candidate Think I'm the first to attempt this with this particular one? hence I'm posting it here

Anyways I needed to pick up some red and white leds along with compatible resisters and some bread board. I chose to go with flat 165° wide angle leds. Reds were rated at 5,000 mcd and white at 20,000 mcd.

The first step was to remove the plastic housing off the back for traditional bulbs. I used a rotary tool to cut it.




Interestingly I noticed that once i got it cut off there seems to be a built in light spreader just behind the front cover (the red part). I don't believe the older style CHMSLs have these.


back side with boards laying in the SD CHMSL (*note haven't trimmed/mounted perm yet)


The LED arrays themselves(two cargo/one brake)


for some reason the camera flash glared through the cargo lights


cargo lights light(21 leds per light)


brake light(32 leds)


both cargo/brake on




Not bad however I would have liked to get the brake light brighter. I just cant fit enough single leds on the board to get the brightness I'm after with red. I tempted to try 20 or so Oznium Superflux 4 Chip LEDs.

They aren't cheap though at almost $2 an LED and one downside is they have a much smaller viewing angle at only 90°.


The other thing was I sort of slightly buggered the rubber seal up in the process of using the rotary tool to cut the backing off. It worries me that it might leak rain water which i cant have at all especially with an amp right below The other thing during the cutting process somehow a piece of plastic managed to lodge itself between the red light spreader and clear cover. I haven't had any luck getting it out yet. Its barely visible but it still drives me insane lol.

 

06+ SD FTW!! Nice work Colin!!

 

just use some silicon to seal it up u dont want to mess up your headliner

 

ya nice i tried the same thing and also did my tail lights but now my truck is acting weird every time you touch the breaks when the car is off/on all the lights inside and outside turn on its really annoying

 

sell that to me!

 

yeah that's the plan when i switch it out. In fact i was planing on doing that with my old one before i got the idea to replace it as it was getting pretty tired looking over the years.

I'd still like to get I cant find a way to get the brake light part brighter. I was going for something intensely bright Still researching LED options. I have yet to find anything decent with a rating above 5,000mcd and a good viewing angle. Still have oznium super flux as an option but I'd need a ton of them.

 

Looks awesome man. I am still on the look out for one of those brake lights.

 

btw just came up with the idea that if run the red leds verticaly in 3s I can fit 42 on the board instead of 32 :) off to rat shack i go(my luck I don't have proper resistors for that)....

 

What I would like to know is how places like oznium, v-leds, etc get so many leds into their own arrays.

They must have some trick to getting them tightly packed together with tiny resistors or something?

 

here's a little update. I changed around my middle break light module and this is what I came up with using three LEDs mounted vertically instead of 4 horizontally.

new on the left(notice the spacing):


Both light with lights off


using the old board:


using the new board:


I'm not exactly sure rather or not its noticeably brighter but its a lot more evenly light then before.

 

Looks great man, I should do this to mine.

 

If you guys have the ALL RED style CHMSL can buy my LED boards they are fully make with the deflector inside and brighter that you ever would need it to be.




https://www.ranger-forums.com/forum2...-just-say.html

 

yeah got one of those still too It was a great deal that i couldn't pass up when i got my tails off JP7. I decided not to use it as it seemed like such a shame to remove the circuit board and cut up the deflector for my needs.

I plugged it in last night just to see how bright it is and man I nearly blinded myself

Just curious are those oznium 4-chip superfluxes in there?
It Gives me ideas

 

Yes, but they look that good because it has the disperser.

If you want, I can get you boards of them, you have to unsolder them though.

 

Gotta love oznium products
Great quality even though their superchips are somewhat expensive.

I've been thinking about making new boards with either 21 or 30 reds in the brake light portion of the SD light with an additional 12 whites per cargo light.

It would be brighter then **** lol.

Unfortunately Oznium is out of whites right now. At least they are pretty local thus providing the fastest shipping times when they get them back in stock.

 

Cool mod man. Looks awesome.

 

Got most of my oznium superflux chips in today(except for the whites on backorder). Now I just wish radioshack or some place around here carried 1 ohm resistors. So i could get right to work on it :D

 

heres an update

I made a new brake light module using the superflux chips from oznium.

However I majorly screwed up as I had it setup for 7 in series not thinking. If you do the math they cant get enough voltage for max brightness. So anyways I temporarily removed 3 of the superchips and did a quick and dirty fix to the bord to see how it would look. This is with 18 instead of 21 chips and off center...



Oh and the overhead room light is on which it overpowered in the first pict lol.