Brake light question.

[CAhmroiss]

Hi All,

Ive bought 5m of 12v red LED strip from eBay and wanted to put 2 little strips on the undertray and connect them to the rear light so they get brighter along with the rear light when I brake.

But what actually happens to the rear light when you activate the brake?

Do the LED's in the light just get brighter or are there another set of LED's that come on sperately?

Cheers

Chris.

[otaylor38]

On a pointy? I think its the same leds that get brighter. I think the leds you have will only be one output? So they may not work with the brakes?

[Tomor]

I have seen this done, well they come on with the brake. Don't quite know how you will get them to be brighter though. I have some white strips on either side of my rad on the street, and im sure it makes people look twice at me before pulling out!

[yorkie_chris]

It's 2 sets of LEDs.

There are 3 wires... common earth... +ve for tail and +ve for stop light just like a normal setup.

Look on wiring diagram, you will see switched feed from brake light switches goes into the tail light.


There is loads of spare capacity to run some strip LEDs so long as they're not all XR-Es or something utterly mad like that. The 0.5m 48LED strips that are like flexible clear plastic draw about 100ma per strip.



To make it on all the time, and brighter on brake, just put them in parallel with the tail light. Have say 4 strips, common earth, one each side to each live.

[CAhmroiss]

Yea I was also unsure as to how they'd get brighter that's why I asked the question.

The strip's I've bought are cuttable every 3 LED's so I could put 2 small strips that are always on with the bike then adding 2 larger strips and connecting them to the brake?

[yorkie_chris]

Question is voltage. Can you feed them 12V or what?

It's pretty hard to answer those bits for you from my point of view without knowing the parts you're using.

[CAhmroiss]

Posted the last reponse before I saw your reply yorkie.

I guess all the LED's in the light are all the same? The rest just light up when the brakes on?

Can you explain the part about being in parallel and one to each live etc in dummy terms please?

The only parts I'm using are a 5m strip of Red LED's, I also have Bibio's gizmo if that means anything

[yorkie_chris]

Send me a PM to remind me if you haven't fathomed it out by 5 and I'll look at the wiring diagram and draw you a picture!

Your parts like this?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5M-3528-SMD-300-LED-LIGHT-STRIP-COOL-WARM-WHITE-RED-BLUE-YELLOW-XMAS-PARTY-12V-/260885287452