| Author |
Message |
    
Evaddave
| | Posted on Sunday, February 20, 2005 - 10:32 pm: | 
|
Charlie,
By the time you go out and get all the stuff to make a "cheapie" LED taillight in the same fashion as the one Porker introduced us to, you'd be in the ballpark of that price, plus you'd have a lot of fitting, soldering, etc. to do.
IIRC, white LEDs are protected by patent and are still way more expensive than the typical red ones.
The way the guys like Al and whoever makes the one that's the subject of this thread make any money is in quantity. They can buy the LEDs in lots of 1000 or so, and get a discount. They print a bunch of circuit boards at once so that cost, and the cost of wiring all the parts onto the board is cheaper. |
Jlnance
| | Posted on Sunday, February 20, 2005 - 10:36 pm: |
|
Charlieboy - Yes, you can get the parts to build your own. If Radio Shack does not have them, then Digikey or some other mail order place will. Its worth checking to make sure, but I suspect that you will pay significantly more to build it yourself than you would to buy it premade. Thats pretty much the way things go with electronics these days. |
Jarhead
| | Posted on Sunday, February 20, 2005 - 10:52 pm: |
|
Biofilter made one himself, with integrated signals, and I am working on one as well. I never asked him how much his cost but with the top$ LEDs I'm looking at spending about $65 in LEDs, $15 for the "make your own circuit board kit" from radio shack, and who knows how much time spent going cross-eyed.
But then, I like challenges like that, ya know.
Radio shack has all the stuff, but do a google on LED and you can find better prices on Super bright LEDs |
Reepicheep
| | Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 08:52 am: |
|
Jarhead... the best way to make your own circuit board that I have found is with stuff called "press and peel blue" (I think that is what it is called). You run it through a laser printer, then put it on clean copper clad board, and hit it with a household colthing iron, then peel it off. You then have the resist and can etch the board.
It works very well and is little fuss.
But like the others have pointed out, you will probably spend twice what you could get a premade unit for and drop a boatload of time. |
Wyckedflesh
| | Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 09:09 am: |
|
If you could take that board that Porker posted, and add an outward curve to it so the LED's ended up bristling out it would increase the lateral visibility... |
Jarhead
| | Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 09:56 am: |
|
Thanks Reep, Ill check it out |
Sardawg2dpd
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 10:53 pm: |
|
Just got the new Dennis Kirk catalog and found this for the XB series. Went ahead and ordered it. Will let you all know when I get it and will post pics.
www.denniskirk.com in part number search type 21-1028
SAR  |
Biofilter
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - 12:08 am: |
|
Like jarhead said I did make one myself and it cost about 65 dollars to make and only took me about 2 hours to make. Ill go onto AutoCad when I get a chance and design a board design to show my PC board desighn so everyone can share in the fun |
Opto
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - 02:26 am: |
|
Sounds good Bio, a PCB design would be neat. LED's are getting cheaper every month, there's a store in Oz selling 5mm 20,000mcd white ones for 59 cents each, there would be bargains out there on the internet for quantities I'm sure, but be careful of the handling and shipping charges. |
Raraf
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - 12:38 pm: |
|
"brighter" leds. Itza DIODE! I'll take the cheap set and solder on "bright" ones to it! giddy yap! |
Ronlv
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - 12:45 pm: |
|
i would like one with blinkers if someone wants to make me one |
Cruisin
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - 01:05 pm: |
|
For those interested in making their own - I've found http://www.eled.com to be cheap, fast, and good quality.
Very specific info about viewing angle, brightness, etc... |
Reepicheep
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - 01:26 pm: |
|
And by the way, thanks Opto for posting those specs. I did some back of the envelope calculations with some guessed figures, and I am thinking that with those LED's you are looking at around $1000 to build an LED headlight.
Still nowhere near practical, but rapidly approaching interesting. Expect it on an OCC chopper near you soon. :/ |
Opto
| | Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 03:00 am: |
|
I think this is where they're coming from:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=20706&item=4360191619&tc= photo
US$25 + $10 shipping for 100 white LED's with minimum 14000mcd output. This would be a very very bright LED, at worst it might have a slight blue tinge which might make it look a slightly darker red/maroon through a red taillight lens. I bought some "11000mcd" (guaranteed minimum 8000mcd) LED's from this company about 6 mths ago and they are very bright and warm white. No-one knows how long they will last but I wouldn't be worried if they are run within the supplied specs. |
Opto
| | Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 03:47 am: |
|
How about a taillight that reads "BUELL" as a running light and then fills in the gaps between the letters as a stop light? Anyone keen on designing a PCB for that? As you mentioned earlier Reep, the "press'n'peel" does work well.
OK, I'll go to bed with my fancy ideas now 
PS the LED's mentioned in post above are extremely bright, not cheap junk. |
|
