LED Tail Lights with PWM

[crazyrog17]

Hey guys, I need some input on this idea.

Right now, I have red 1157 plug'n'play smd 5050 LED tail light bulbs that I'm quite happy with. The resistors in them for the parking light function have failed, leaving only the full brightness brake light function. I don't mind it this way, the running light's weren't dim enough anyways to differentiate between parking lights and brake lights. My LED red running lights that are in the bottom corner are bright enough for that job.

I have a set of Kia Pride tail lights I'd like to customize. I found a 24 emitter smd 5050 LED board, intended to be a dome light, that is 288 lumens of red light. That should be plenty bright for a tail light, I think.

I'd like to set the board up to have both the running and tail light functions. I'd like to be able to adjust the dimness and I think pulse width modulation would be the way to go. I found a few LED dimmers on deal extreme that could do the job but I ran into a concern...

Could I just diode isolate the brake light wire and the dimmer's output wire? I don't know how that would affect the voltage the LED board sees.

[FestYboy]

yeah you can isolate it. just make sure the diode is heavy enough. this is also going to require that you modify the housing to accept the board. doing that will forever ruin the housings ability to accept a standard bulb if the board fails.

[DriverOne]

Re: LED Tail Lights with PWM

Before you even consider that, I would stick the board to your tail light and run it off your running lights at night so you can see side-by-side comparison.

If you find that it's not bright enough, pop one of these apart: http://www.uatparts.com/miva/merchan...ory_Code=MAXX2