auxillary brake light

[Pat Kelly]

I have the link to that site bookmarked.
I was looking at a light at a trailer/welding supply shop here locally. They have an LED light setup that is cool. There are 13 LEDs in a 16" x 2" surface mount housing. As a tail light there are 3 (both outer and one center) light, turn signal flashes 7 LEDs on one side or the other, brake turns them all on brighter. Only drawbak is the housing is unflexable and my trunk is curved, I'd need to space each end out 1½" each or french the center in by 1½.
When the time is right the correct light set-up will fall into my lap.

BTW, the same shop has a LED (30 of them I think) tail/brake light that is almost the same size as a standard model XS tail light housing. This thing is almost dangerously bright on the brake mode. I was going to buy it till they told me the price ...... $72.00

[skids]

I tried several brands of 1157 cluster bulbs, and I can tell you, most are not worth a crap! I did find a brand, "JamStraight," That works well. All are lit in running light mode, and all LEDs brighten when braking. They are plug and play. www.jamstraight.com. They are good at controlling amp draw and are really the same as stock 1157s because they are red and not quite (but almost) as bright as stock. They do illuminate the lens adequately. They do not illuminate the license plate well, but I am willing to take that risk.

As far as running 1157 bulbs and LEDs in parallel, I did notice that they are finiky and it is best, in my opinion, to run all LEDs in the brake circuit, or all filiment types. I did try one LED cluster next to an 1157 bulb in the tail light and it seemed to have trouble. FYI, If you test your circuit with the key on (lights on) and remove/reinsert the LED 1157 cluster bulb, you can blow it. I ruined one type of cluster bulb that way, but once I found out that you could damage them this way, I did not do it with the Jamstraights.

[skids]

Ooops, the jamstraight link that was on the package did not work. Here is where I ordered them:

https://www.accessorysourcedirect.co...lighting.shtml

PS, they also have the LED clusters for 1157 amber (I used hyper brights for those) that work well for the Vetter farings with the tear drop shaped lenses. Those sockets are the straight-in types. The front signals are visible in daytime.