OK. Those of you with LED interest, please read!

[DTMAce]

I have some news, or rather an idea.

In 2 -3 weeks, I would like to ramp up and be able to do several LED builds at the same time. I know there have been many of you over the past few months that have expressed interest in obtaining something for your Beretta, especially in view of my latest beta build. Well this is probably a good opportunity for you all to take advantage of at this time.

Here is the thing, I plan to achieve 3 goals:

1: Doing several builds as a group, I can save money for each of you on your light build. Not much, maybe 10-20 bucks, possibly more, depending on what you want me to build but hey, it helps. I can buy more of the higher intensity LEDs in bulk, thus lowering the cost for each build. Plus if you are buying more than one type of light conversion, you get discounts anyway!

2: Most of the money that goes toward my time doing these builds is going to be put right back into finally getting the rest of what I need to put the first true custom LED tails into reality, and so I can fine tune the build process for others and pin point the cost of them.

3: Getting you all what you want to give your Beretta that little extra sparkle.

Also in doing them in this fashion, I can setup a sort of small assembly line process, to make them more uniform and get them done quicker. Plus having more of you at once is a bigger incentive for me to really get them done and out quickly.

IF YOU ARE SERIOUS and REALLY want to commit to this, I need to know within the next couple weeks. I know as always funding can be issues. Even me. But if I can get at least 4-6 people to step up and get your order in, I can get them done before spring/summer etc and you can have them to enjoy sooner.

What do you do?

Simple. PM me with what you are wanting to get and let me know that you can commit to ordering them within the next couple weeks.

This will tell me what I will need to buy, and allow me to see what I can bulk order and lower costs with. Then I will let you know the actual cost of your build. Then its a matter of paying and providing any housings I have to convert. That's it. Once I have everyone setup, I will just take a week or so to spend time doing nothing but LED work.

Questions, concerns, by all means, post here. Please refrain from posting that you want something, if you are unable to commit to it at this time. I may do builds in this fashion again, if this one works out. And of course I can always do them individually too. I just figured this way may be enough of an incentive to get some of you to jump up and get your orders in!

Thanks for your time.

[Styluss]

PM SENT!!!

Oh man I am stoked.

EDIT: Question - I have wondered how this would work out... Concerning the Z04 front turn signals I see that your current plan is the low intensity lights, 2 rows, as the parking light and three rows of high intensity as the blinker. Well, you know I want mine done in white and I'm wondering how to best obtain high output lighting from just the parking light portion of this build. Perhaps the 2 strips are high intensity and the blinker strips are low? Would this look out of place? Odd? Is there any way for you to take film of this thought with your current test piece? I know that it owuld be 3 strong and two low, but that was another one of my ideas... Or all high intensity strips, or three high intensity white strips for park lights and two high intensity orange strips for the blinker? Thoughts?

I'm aiming for even more light output from the front end as my Euro heads well, suck when it comes to light output.

[DTMAce]

There are no amount of white LEDs I can mount that will do the job of headlights or fog lights. If I go through the trouble of making you that, then people are not going to see them blink at all when you go to turn. Lumen wise, the white will put out more than any other color, but if I can keep them subdued and use the amber for just turns and hazards it will look fine and people will know you are using them. 2 lower intensity white with 3 of the high intensity amber should work well. You WANT the turn indication to be brighter than the running lights. Remember indicate, not illuminate. Plus that way, you keep your "clear/white" look when going with the running lights. I could possibly do it the opposite, with 3 running in lower white and 2 higher amber instead, that should still work, but I'm just trying to make them bright so they can be seen in the daytime. That part is critical, or at least I think so.

I think you are trying to turn them into road lighting, rather than indicators. If you are having that much trouble with the Euros, sounds like you need to explore a different approach for your actual head lighting. Or supplement the fogs better. But as they say, customer is always right? lol If you are certain, I can do my best to make them how you want. Just let me know.

[Styluss]

Eh, I was more looking for advice. And I was not trying to say that I want these turn signals to do the work of headlights, but rather looking to get the most illumination out of them as possible. The road lights up like crazy with my current LED turn signals that you built me. It's crazy to watch the area to the side of my car "go black" when I use the turn signal and it cycles to off.

I do think that an all white light would work just fine, but I think that I like the idea of white parks and amber turns. Let me mill it over with myself...

[DTMAce]

Still looking to do this. And I have more to add, the possibility of doing a group buy/build of CLEAR tail light inserts. Been looking into mold materials and clear resins. Right now, a gallon of material to build the molds looks to be around 150 bucks, a gallon of clear resin (UV resistant, etc) around 180 bucks for a gallon sized portion. Not sure how many parts I will be able to make out of all that yet, but still.

Edit:

I was thinking of molding the Euro light parts, (mostly to make smaller molds actually) and those parts could be used for any style of light after having one here to look at. All they are is just a split version of the US insert. Same dimensions when set together.

Any interest in that? lol

[Styluss]

I need to remove and ship you my Z-signals.

[DTMAce]

OK.

I am fast approaching a point where time to make lights before fest will be hard to do. I haven't even had time to work on mine yet, but hope to do some work this week.

SO. Now's the time. Not only that, I got a 5 percent discount from buying a lot from them, they sent that along. What does that mean? Well, you take 150 bucks for LEDS and knock off another 5 percent.... Savings!

Anyway, point is now is the time to get this stuff going. Then I can crank on them.


Oh, and I was serious about looking into doing a group buy in and making molds to do CLEAR TAIL LIGHT INSERTS. I know the material is available. I just don't have a final on the costs, though hopefully I only would have to make the molds once! But the material to make the actual inserts isn't cheap nor easy to work with. All parts would be made from the Euro tail light colored inserts. These will work for BOTH Euro and US tail designs. I would rather make 2 smaller molds for each light instead of 3. The US colored lens is huge, would require a much larger mold, and consequently be harder to make. There is no need to make ones for the backup lenses, though I much prefer the US reverse lens over the Euro one, after having both in my office.

The real trick, is going to be figuring out how much material (liquid volume) it will take to make the parts, without actually doing them. Or finding a really good math geek to calculate it close. A gallon of the clear resin material I would use to make them is around $180 bucks. At a guess, I would assume around a half gallon would possibly do 4 pieces. If that's the case, its an easy 90 bucks just for the material to make someone a set. But then you have the cost of the mold material, not to mention my time in making this work. I am certain to have some fails the first couple I make. LOL

A group buy in, may have to be around $150 each, more or less depending on how many actually would be interested. As we have no options, no upgrades, nor any other solution that would keep the style correct, who knows. I would even paint them black as they are when built stock. (just better, as I noticed the quality paint job on all the lenses I have worked with sucked major ass)

Anyway, thoughts are welcome. But let me know. And get your commitments in on the LED work, so I can get all that rolling.

[Styluss]

As soon as I get my car back, and after the CSUCC car show, I will tear out my Z-signals and get them to you. This Sunday/Monday-ish.

[berettaboi]

prices and options mate! i'm pretty poor, but will be interested in a third brake light to start

[woody90gtz]

Clear tails? Isn't that 10 years old already?

[DTMAce]

Not one of you have any that I have seen. Not like this. Instead of the red lens (or red and amber) those pieces would be clear!

[3X00-Modified]

Yes but Woody means that FAD is 10yrs old... I agree, I'm not a fan of the clear lenses. I like the near solid black look of our rear section and think the clear lens will take away from that because the tinted cover alone won't be dark enough to give it that near black look when you remove the color behind it.

[96B-Mike]

I know LED requires less voltage?right? so has anyone has this done to their car, with a sound system? cause i know loud bass causes the lights to dim, how much would it effect if you have the LED's conversion and you producing loud bass? will it dim dramatically or what?

[3X00-Modified]

It would still equate to a voltage drop, they use less voltage yes but your using resistors to get the 12v down to the proper voltage for the LED's so if you lower the input voltage then they would still receive a lesser voltage after the resisitor.

You'd have to use a transformer of some sort to prevent that since those will accept a range, sometimes wide, for an input and always will put out a stable output when within that input range.

[DTMAce]

Yes but Woody means that FAD is 10yrs old... I agree, I'm not a fan of the clear lenses. I like the near solid black look of our rear section and think the clear lens will take away from that because the tinted cover alone won't be dark enough to give it that near black look when you remove the color behind it.

Yeah, well that fad was bad looking, since it involved yanking the lenses completely out.. What I am doing will not affect the tint level. They will just look like the reverse lights already do, but all the way across. Anyway.

I know LED requires less voltage?right? so has anyone has this done to their car, with a sound system? cause i know loud bass causes the lights to dim, how much would it effect if you have the LED's conversion and you producing loud bass? will it dim dramatically or what?

LEDs will draw on average 1 amp or less per light, in bulb form. As an example, each of the side markers I convert only draw around .5-.75 amps. So many of the LED lights draw between .5W to 1.5W. The regular bulbs draw around 25W each on high brightness. Now the stuff I use already has resistors to make the LEDs work, but with the turn signal bulbs (1157's) you either have to use an LED compatible flasher, or load resistors to simulate the 25W they should be using.

To better answer your question, I still think you would see some effect from your "bass" as it uses power. May not be as dramatic as the regular bulb but it will be noticeable. The reason that happens, is because you are using so much amperage to push the speaker(s) which translates into dropping the car's voltage say between 13-11 Volts with each bass note, or similar. It basically means you do not have enough power to sustain the system properly at that volume. May want to consider either supplementing the system with a second battery and/or a higher amperage output alternator along with the big 3 upgrade to the wiring.

It would still equate to a voltage drop, they use less voltage yes but your using resistors to get the 12v down to the proper voltage for the LED's so if you lower the input voltage then they would still receive a lesser voltage after the resisitor.

You'd have to use a transformer of some sort to prevent that since those will accept a range, sometimes wide, for an input and always will put out a stable output when within that input range.

Actually, most of the 12v LED circuits commercially available are using individual LEDs that run on voltages between 1.5 and 4 volts. The strip ones I use run on 3-4.5v. So they wire 3 of these in series along with a very small resistor to limit current flow through the LEDs. No matter how many LEDs are on the strip or its length, it still consists of groups of 3 LEDs to a segment of it. If you just hooked up an LED by itself to a battery of its correct voltage, it would immediately burn out, as it would try to use as much current as possible, as fast as possible. But by putting a small resistor to limit the current flow, you can make the LED last indefinitely.

All the stuff I buy has all that fixed and done already. All I have to do is build with it. If I use LEDs with the turn signal bulb locations (again 1157s) I usually just drop in the load resistor to simulate the OEM bulb load.

I hope that clears up some confusion. Or makes more. LOL