Make your own led turn signal mirror

[crate]

I came across this site while trying to figure out how to wire up some leds in my truck.

 

http://www.taurusclub.com/modules.php?name...article&sid=106

[asilverblazer]

So what would go wrong if I tried it....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Broken mirror for sure...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

burn myself soldering...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

200 ain't so bad.

 

Thanks for sharing. Looks good enough and sounds easy enough. Whos gonna try it first.

[JimG]

Cool idea - I'm willing to try it but right now I've got no time to do it. Unless I had a pair of spare mirrors to try it on.

Did find the LEDs for relatively cheap, less than a buck each. And I agree with the guy, who wants to pay $200+ for mirrors with turn signals?

 

Besides, the GM book describes how to remove the glass so it must be possible. As for burning my fingers, been there done that too many times. Want to try out one of those Cold Heat tools and see if it's a gimmick or the real deal - maybe this is the project for it.

[BBSilverado]

I'll give the man an "A" for that one, but he didn't use GM truck mirrors. I just popped out a mirror to take a look and found that the heating element can not be peeled away like the one he did. second, an led doesn't shine through the coating on our glass like it did on his but that might be because this mirror is one of the dimmimg mirrors. Where the LED's are positioned the mirror coating is louvered so the light can shine through the lines.

Third thing I noticed was that our glass does not separate from the plastic, it is bonded on almost the whole surface.

 

Here is the back of a factory GM mirror.

[GnatGoSplat]

I tried very hard once to remove the mirror glass from its plastic backing. I was very slow, meticulous, and used a heat gun. The mirror broke anyway.

 

You can peel the heating element away from the glass and the LEDs WOULD shine through, but I doubt you could get the glass off the plastic backing without breaking it.

 

I bought OEM heated, autodimming, signal mirror glass for $60/pair from a guy once that advertised on another forum. I don't know where he got it, but it was brand new and he had several pair to sell. I think if you can source it from the manufacturer, it's probably pretty cheap.

[Hotwire]

Don't mean to skew the topic, but I received the Coleman Cold heat soldering iron for Christmas. It's pretty cool, but fragile. The tip is composed of two seperate pieces and it uses the area you are soldering as it's switch. when shorted to the work surface, I'm assuming it flows a lot of current through and heats up the connection. It's hard to get a good connection to keep the iron on, the tips will get hot enough to burn you if you have it flowing a large area, and the tips are a little bit harder consistancy of a graphite pencil so you have to be gentle.

 

good luck w/ the led mirrors, sweet find!

[J-rod]

Don't mean to skew the topic, but I received the Coleman Cold heat soldering iron for Christmas. It's pretty cool, but fragile. The tip is composed of two seperate pieces and it uses the area you are soldering as it's switch. when shorted to the work surface, I'm assuming it flows a lot of current through and heats up the connection. It's hard to get a good connection to keep the iron on, the tips will get hot enough to burn you if you have it flowing a large area, and the tips are a little bit harder consistancy of a graphite pencil so you have to be gentle.

I'll second every bit of that. I broke a bit off one side of tip of mine within 5 minutes just because I didn't expect it to be that fragile. It doesn't seem to work well on larger parts where it has to heat more area, but worked fine on soldering wires together and such ... when I could get it to maintain a connection that is. Of course I'm all thumbs anyway so that didn't help.

[BBSilverado]

I tried very hard once to remove the mirror glass from its plastic backing.  I was very slow, meticulous, and used a heat gun.  The mirror broke anyway.

 

You can peel the heating element away from the glass and the LEDs WOULD shine through, but I doubt you could get the glass off the plastic backing without breaking it.

 

I bought OEM heated, autodimming, signal mirror glass for $60/pair from a guy once that advertised on another forum.  I don't know where he got it, but it was brand new and he had several pair to sell.  I think if you can source it from the manufacturer, it's probably pretty cheap.

 

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The OEM heated, dimming, signal mirrors are made by Gentex, Thats is what is onlt the back of the one I removed to look at. You can see it on the above pic right under the heating pad connections.

[firefighteremt3100]

I tried very hard once to remove the mirror glass from its plastic backing.  I was very slow, meticulous, and used a heat gun.  The mirror broke anyway.

 

You can peel the heating element away from the glass and the LEDs WOULD shine through, but I doubt you could get the glass off the plastic backing without breaking it.

 

I bought OEM heated, autodimming, signal mirror glass for $60/pair from a guy once that advertised on another forum.  I don't know where he got it, but it was brand new and he had several pair to sell.  I think if you can source it from the manufacturer, it's probably pretty cheap.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

 

If you go through a GM dealer, MSRP is almost 400 dollars PER MIRROR. Mine was failing on my drivers side of my 2004 Silverado. It wouldnt always go back to where it was when you power folded it back out. Thank goodness for warranties. I looked at the price when they were looking it up to order, what a ripoff. I always wondered how one could go ahead and do it themselves if they had a few tools. Its nice to see someone finally came up with a decent plan. Too bad it doesnt work for everyone.