LittoDeviL Design Group - 2006 Infiniti G35 Sedan Quad HID Projector, LED Projector Turn Signal Write Up

This specially designed very high powered LED turn signal projector that puts out over 300 lumens for EACH turn signal. These are 11 Watts LED Clusters! Popular known "LUXEON" LED's are only 1, 3, and 5 watt LED's.

Stock turn signal housing piece from headlight.

The whole turn signal piece is actually amber plastic that has been chromed in all parts except the front opening where the light shines out. There is no lenses to pop off to get rid of the amber so the only way to get rid of it is to carefully precisely cut it out.

Tested various projector lenses to see which one fits the best. This one was a close fit but the glass needs to be reworked for it to fit and seat properly into the opening but this is what it generally looks like. I'm holding it upside down so the lens doesn't fall off.

The LED's I'll be using is a very high powered high output K2 LED from LumiLeds. With the high powered output LED comes along with high heat that needs to be taken into consideration; the thermal management area of the design. These are the LED's that will be sitting on top of a extruded aluminum heat sink.

Notice anything different between the bottom two LED's? The one on the left is how it came like and the right one is the one I modified by pulling out one of the gold connections that I don't need. I need to pull it out to minimize any chance of short circuit when I mount the LED's so closely together in a square cluster on top of the heat sink.

Of course I don't skip any corners and what you see below is typical silver thermal compound to allow better heat transfer between the LED and the heat sink to make sure the LED's junction temperature does not become too hot.

The LED's were then glued onto the heat sink with a high temp epoxy compound after the LED's were precisely located and centered on the heat sink.

Before anything was attached, the optical design was already done where the distance between the LED and the projector lenses made sure that every LED on the heat sink platter could be seen thru the projector glass lens with max view angle from the outside as well as filling up the projector lenses instead of having it look like 4 small dots behind a big projector lens when the LED's are turned on.

In this photo below you can also see the edge of the glass projector lens that got shaved using water and silicone carbide.

Testing to make sure they light up as well as leaving them on to test if there's any thermal runaway. Thermal runaway is where the LED's heat up and can't get rid of the heat fast enough and due to the increased temperature, the current draw from the LED's will also increase which will generate even more heat and then eventually burn up. I left them on consistently for a good while and monitored the temperature of the LED's and they were perfectly fine. In real life when the project is done, they will be used as LED turn signal so they will only have a 50% duty cycle where it's on and off and not consistently on so it wont have a chance to heat up as much as if it was consistently on.

Since I'm a stickler for perfection, you'll notice that even with the projector glass in place, amber can still be seen since the whole plastic is amber. Solution? Is to carefully paint the edges black so they are less noticeable in a chrome headlight housing.

Here you can see the difference between the normal bare amber plastic and the edge of it painted black.

Here the glass projector lens is shaved, shaped and ready to be bonded to the plastic turn signal housing.

Attaching the glass to plastic reliably was achieve with a good scuffed surface on both the edge of the glass and the surface of the plastic. Solvent was used to wipe off any silicone, oil etc on the surface and then it was bonded using a high temperature UV resistant epoxy. Careful consideration to the edge had to be taken as any epoxy on the underside flat face surface of the glass could be seen thru the front, yet enough had to be used to make sure the lens will not fall off and no, they will not even come off if you push as hard as you can from the front.

Here's the back half of the turn signal housing, this is the stock reflective part for the bulb holder.

Right one is stock and the left one is the one I modified so I can fit the LED Heat sink cluster in.

Here's the LED heat sink unit attached to the inside of the stock turn signal reflective piece.

Everything is centered.

If you pay attention here, you'll notice that the surface of the heat sink is also level with the straight edges of the turn signal piece that it's attached to.

Same as with this picture except this is a side view.

I realized that you could see the ivory color of the epoxy used to attach the LED's to the heat sink when viewed from the outside and again this is not something I like and decided to fix it.

I decided to mix up some special epoxy where I could also mix in black paint and the epoxy would still be able to set.

Before...

And After... the result is a dark finish just like the heat sink and much better cosmetic appearance from the outside.

Here's the final result of the LED turn signal I designed for the headlight. You can clearly see the edges that I painted black does make a difference. Even though you can only see it from a certain angle, that is enough for me to make sure it comes out as good as it can be. Time consuming, yes, but worthwhile and perfect!

Here's the power regular I designed for the LED's and even the regulator itself has silver thermal compound to the heat sink, over kill but... it's okay.

Here's the LED turn signal turned on, some comparison and etc.

Wide view angle so you can still see directly into the LEDs.

This is a comparison with a cheap blue led flash light that has 4 5mm led's in them.

It looks intense when viewed straight on but does not put out enough light or anywhere near the high powered K2 LED's I used in the LED turn signal.

This is with both the LED turn signal and the LED flashlight pointed in the same direction, notice the dimness of the blue led's light output compared to the amber one.

Even with the blue led pointed directly on the ground, the amber one still is more intense and put out a lot more light.

Another view of the cheap 5mm led's I'm talking about.

Clean rear finish, can't even tell there's a cluster of high powered LED's mounted on a huge heat sink.