LED number plate light

[ahebron]

As I am reinvigorated to work on my Vitesse again I have been working on the wiring.
It seems that when I rewrapped my loom I have shortened a lot of the wires so I have been extending the ones that needed extending.
I also finished off the 4 x relays I have fitted to the headlights, 2 each below the horn brackets.
I know I dont need 4 but it has 4 headlights so I fit 4 relays.
Getting to the back of the car I find my pet hate on these cars of using the body as the sole return so I fitted some earth wires to the taillights and ran a large earth from  the front pf the car with the rest of the loom.
Looking through my box of rear lights I pull out a number plate light and decide to make it LED.
Grinding off the 2 copper rivets the original lamp holder falls off.
I piece of aluminium angle 1mm thick is shaped to follow the mount and cover the opening.
To this I add 4 lengths of 100mm led strip, 3 on the bottom and one on the top to act as a boot lamp.
Solder all the lengths up and test then mask the led and spray paint.
Bolt the 2 bits of metal together and we have a number plate light.
For the window in the boot I cleaned the piece of plastic and with the da sander sanded it from clear to diffuse, this was then double side taped to the in side of the boot lid.
Light bolted in and tested.
It is running at approx 8 watts so is plenty bright enough, I will see how long it lasts but the boot lid should be a good heatsink.

With the exception of the headlights all exterior lamps on the car are LED.

 

 

Edited February 28, 2023 by ahebron