Suburban K20 1986 Silverado - "Silvester"

[kikkegek]

yesterday was the end of a beautifull era. We had to bring Sylvester to storage.

Our Dutch government has decided to change the tax-laws on oldtimers. Untill now cars over 25 year were free from "owners-tax". long story short: as from 2014 we had to start paying €3,300.- a year just for owning this car...as you may understand, we couldnt keep it on the road

I took a lot of stuff out of Sylvester, which we will be putting into our new car "Monster" (see sig):
- AFR sensor and gauge
- vacuum gauge
- cruise control
- tach
- fan-controller (Flex-a-lite 31165)
- stereo
- speakers in the rear
- projector headlights (I will use the projectors to build new 7" round headlights for Monster)

We will keep it in storage for 1 or 2 years and then see how things works out.

Thanks Sylvester, we had a blast!

[motornut]

dam thats a lot.it would be about 4500.00 CDN,
here you could buy another truck or two(a year) lol
it has some good company tho....while it's hibernating

[Matt21lutz]

Originally Posted by kikkegek

I have spent about half a year on researching all kinds of leds for my led tail light project.

recently finished it and here is the result.

I ended up using real Philips Lumileds HPWT orange/red.

tested several board designs:



and ended up using this:


circuit o the back:


in tail light




they are BRIGHT AS HELL


here is the playlist on Youtube to the LED tail lights
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...kjVr5Ml8yjt4sN

I love them...

Couple of questions, I'm making my own tail lights for my truck as well. On the circuitry on the back, you're using a few other things like what appear to be capacitors, diodes and a couple of chips. Can you tell me what you used those for? or even better could do you have design of the circuit?

I plan on making the entire tail light assembly into LED's, the brake/running main lights, the side running lights and the reverse lights. I've designed how I'm going to make everything but I'm trying to research on how other people made them, ca't seem to find anyone else who has except you and one other person.

Would really appreciate the help and maybe we could even trade ideas if you start making them for others as well!

[kikkegek]

Matt21lutz:

check out the link in my signature. It has all the information on circuit and parts and a lot of answer to my questions during the design proces.

The parts on the back are for "voltage regulation" and thus "current control". Your car will make anything from 12V to well over 14V. If you want your leds to last, you will need to control the current flowing through them.

[Matt21lutz]

Originally Posted by kikkegek

Matt21lutz:

check out the link in my signature. It has all the information on circuit and parts and a lot of answer to my questions during the design proces.

The parts on the back are for "voltage regulation" and thus "current control". Your car will make anything from 12V to well over 14V. If you want your leds to last, you will need to control the current flowing through them.

Noticed the link, are you running the LED's in a series circuit or parallel? I only see the one resistor so I'm guess parallel and what all would I need to regulate the voltage so that it's a constant 12v? do you have any more pics of the voltage regulator circuit?

[kikkegek]

Originally Posted by Matt21lutz

Noticed the link, are you running the LED's in a series circuit or parallel? I only see the one resistor so I'm guess parallel and what all would I need to regulate the voltage so that it's a constant 12v? do you have any more pics of the voltage regulator circuit?

sorry man. I just now found out that I never added the link to my build thread on HIDPLANET.COM for my tail lights.

here you go:
http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/show...or-my-Suburban

all the info starting from scratch and all answers to questions raised by me during the whole proces.

sorry for the confusion

[Matt21lutz]

Originally Posted by kikkegek

sorry man. I just now found out that I never added the link to my build thread on HIDPLANET.COM for my tail lights.

here you go:
http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/show...or-my-Suburban

all the info starting from scratch and all answers to questions raised by me during the whole proces.

sorry for the confusion

awesome! haha no problem thanks for the info! I'll let you know how my build works out

[Matt21lutz]

I keep going over and over on your build for the circuits and I still don't understand what the capacitors for. I've been through and read everything but still don't get why you need them? Can you help me out? The pic below is the circuit that I have designed am I missing anything?

[kikkegek]

oh sorry MAtt.
I thought it was in there. The capacitors are standard for the voltage regulators I used. Look up the LM2940 datasheet and youĺl see they tell you to use capacitors. dont know exactly what they are for. But its standard.

http://www.datasheetarchive.com/lm2490-datasheet.html

I think they are sort of "noise-filters"...that dampen the signal in and output

[Matt21lutz]

Originally Posted by kikkegek

oh sorry MAtt.
I thought it was in there. The capacitors are standard for the voltage regulators I used. Look up the LM2940 datasheet and youĺl see they tell you to use capacitors. dont know exactly what they are for. But its standard.

http://www.datasheetarchive.com/lm2490-datasheet.html

I think they are sort of "noise-filters"...that dampen the signal in and output

OHHHHH now i feel kinda dumb, haha. but mind if i ask what capacitor you use? I guess what size and all the info for it so I know what to get?

Also does the capacitor go on the running lights side or the brake/turn signal side of the circuit?

[kikkegek]

hi MAtt21lutz. all the info is in the build thread. but here you go.

datasheet:
http://www.futurlec.com/Linear/LM2940CT-12.shtml

it says .47uF before and 22 uF after the voltage regulator.

this is the picasa webalbum with all my pictures:
https://picasaweb.google.com/1072267...JueyP6F4LfzxAE

Your setup is not quite right. but then again its not complete, because you cant see the whole circuitery.

look at my design:


you can see small black parts on the boards? those are very small SMD resistors. they are a pain in the ass to solder in there, but take up little space and give a clean end result.

I use one resistor per string of 4 leds to control the current running through the strings (leds).

so what you basically want is
- max brightness setup by the reistors in the strings (SMD in my case) BRAKE/TURNSIGNAL
- and reduced brightness for running lights using one bigger resistor in line with all of them.

one big resistor is the simple method for controlling brightness, but you can only dimm so much using a resistor. below a certain current/voltage the LEDS just turn off...better cleaner way is to use PWM. but also more expensive.

[FrankieD]

[QUOTE=kikkegek;6516527]yesterday was the end of a beautifull era. We had to bring Sylvester to storage.

Our Dutch government has decided to change the tax-laws on oldtimers. Untill now cars over 25 year were free from "owners-tax". long story short: as from 2014 we had to start paying €3,300.- a year just for owning this car...as you may understand, we couldnt keep it on the road


Leave it to the Government to suck the blood out of ya I'm sure it has something to do with climate change. When people get into Government they always leave their brains and common sense at the door. You need get people together and try to fight them, not sure how your government works over there but if you have elections vote the SOB's out

[Matt21lutz]

Originally Posted by kikkegek

hi MAtt21lutz. all the info is in the build thread. but here you go.

datasheet:
http://www.futurlec.com/Linear/LM2940CT-12.shtml

it says .47uF before and 22 uF after the voltage regulator.

this is the picasa webalbum with all my pictures:
https://picasaweb.google.com/1072267...JueyP6F4LfzxAE

Your setup is not quite right. but then again its not complete, because you cant see the whole circuitery.

look at my design:


you can see small black parts on the boards? those are very small SMD resistors. they are a pain in the ass to solder in there, but take up little space and give a clean end result.

I use one resistor per string of 4 leds to control the current running through the strings (leds).

so what you basically want is
- max brightness setup by the reistors in the strings (SMD in my case) BRAKE/TURNSIGNAL
- and reduced brightness for running lights using one bigger resistor in line with all of them.

one big resistor is the simple method for controlling brightness, but you can only dimm so much using a resistor. below a certain current/voltage the LEDS just turn off...better cleaner way is to use PWM. but also more expensive.

So I've run through this quit a few times, I would just like to get someone else's input on the "new" design. Added the caps what I believe to the entire circuit.

There are two versions, one that uses a resistor to dim the LED's and one that uses a PWM with a lower voltage (10 volts), let me know what you think?

http://www.digikey.com/schemeit#o82