Technostalgia tail lights better now?

[1JEWLDSSRS]

Originally Posted by camguynj

Not having the bulbs polarity correct will cause these lights not to work correctly (ie. the connectors and bulb base each have a white mark that have to line up with each other in order for the lights to work correctly). Happened to me when I first installed them.

Reverse where the bulb plugs into the connector one bulb at a time per side and retest
each time after each reconnect until you get one side to work, then do the other side.

Yes sir!! This ^^^^^^^^ I made the same mistake on 2 of them when I installed them. Good luck.

[RenegadeXR]

I just experienced random afterburner LEDs die in all 4 lamps within the last hour after having been fine for 5+ years. Pretty friggen weird. I've never seen what should be independent electronics all go in such quick succession. I'm starting to wonder what the heck I did.

I have the 6701b, which have the original LED afterburner that was problematic for some but not all folks. I figured I was one of the lucky ones.

Anyway, here is what occurred in the last day or so leading up to the very sudden and strange pattern of failure:

1) I had gotten another car as a daily driver. My Camaro was put in the garage for about 3 months on a battery tender.

2) Drive the car to purge the old fuel, refuel it, put it back in the garage again on the tender.

3) 3 more months go by, take the car out to wash it and drive it to purge the old fuel.

4) Today, I take the car for a 2nd drive to purge some more fuel. The afterburners were fine when I got in (I check it every time I start my car because I was worried they'd fail one day.) When I get back from a short drive, I now have 1 LED on each afterburner out. I lock and unlock the car a few times, one of the lamps gets a 2nd LED burnt out right before my eyes.

So weird. I can't figure out why these failed. All I can assume is due to all the rain this summer, something was slowly corroding while it was in the garage, and it finally killed them since it wasn't getting driven in fresh air daily anymore. That's my only working theory.

Anyway, I now have to decide if I should ship these out for repair or just dust off my original lamps and have a shop install some Oracle rings in those, since that was my "plan B" if these ever eventually went. My technostalgias also have pretty bad parasitic drain, so I'm leaning toward getting rid of them.

[RenegadeXR]

Well, more LEDs are continuing to die. Decided to drive the car to work and it's even worse. RIP. On the bright side, I haven't had an excuse to install a new mod in a few years now, so I'm looking forward to the Oracle afterburners.

[bigwormgraphix]

We sell a product that gives you the same appearance, but no rings that burn out. Using factory style bulbs. Starts with brand new tail lights, then split them open to modify the insides to change how the light comes out and then seal them back up. So you get trouble free lights that have a unique lighting effect with none of the problems. You can swap led tail light bulbs for a brighter output also like in the pic below.

https://www.screamingchicken.com/pro...il-lights.html

[RenegadeXR]

Originally Posted by bigwormgraphix

We sell a product that gives you the same appearance, but no rings that burn out. Using factory style bulbs. Starts with brand new tail lights, then split them open to modify the insides to change how the light comes out and then seal them back up. So you get trouble free lights that have a unique lighting effect with none of the problems. You can swap led tail light bulbs for a brighter output also like in the pic below.

https://www.screamingchicken.com/pro...il-lights.html

Those look good, but assuming those just use light refraction to shape the light into an afterburner design, meaning that the centers are always "off", I don't think this would pass DOT requirements. I could be wrong. I'd like to still have the centers illuminate when braking or signaling. For about the same price, Oracle will actually send a completely new set of tail lamps with their afterburner kit pre-installed, so I think it's a matter of preference with the competitive pricing. If somebody didn't want to have to use a T-tap, then your product would be better for sure.

Another related product caught my eye though: This has to be the cleanest design for a harness setup I've ever seen for an LED bulb retrofit:

https://www.screamingchicken.com/pro...ght-bulbs.html

I have a feeling I won't miss the Technostalgias. I am getting good idea for what I want to do now, and it will be way more reliable and look better.

[bigwormgraphix]

Originally Posted by RenegadeXR

Those look good, but assuming those just use light refraction to shape the light into an afterburner design, meaning that the centers are always "off", I don't think this would pass DOT requirements. I could be wrong. I'd like to still have the centers illuminate when braking or signaling. For about the same price, Oracle will actually send a completely new set of tail lamps with their afterburner kit pre-installed, so I think it's a matter of preference with the competitive pricing. If somebody didn't want to have to use a T-tap, then your product would be better for sure.

Another related product caught my eye though: This has to be the cleanest design for a harness setup I've ever seen for an LED bulb retrofit:

https://www.screamingchicken.com/pro...ght-bulbs.html

I have a feeling I won't miss the Technostalgias. I am getting good idea for what I want to do now, and it will be way more reliable and look better.

Thanks, were a reseller on the tail lights but I designed and manufacturer the harness. Your correct on how they work - housing is modified to redirect light. Since most cars have different shaped tail lights I don't believe they would be required to light up in the middle, prob depends on who you ask thou. The company that makes them has been using them for years on their owns cars with no problems passing inspection yearly.

[bigwormgraphix]

We redid our web site, new link for the harness and led bulbs below:
https://screamingchicken.com/2010-13...l-light-bulbs/

[RenegadeXR]

I was able to repair the afterburner rings. It was a really tedious process, but I got faster as I went along. Spent 2+ hours on the first bulb, 1 on the second, and then 30 minutes on each of the last two. The only minor mistake is I got white LEDs, and the originals were red. So the afterburners look a little brighter / lighter than before. It's not noticeable via my phone's camera in the attached photos, but in person, I actually dig the extra contrast.

There's no specific brand for the LED strips. This is something straight from China. If you search "24cm LED strip" in Google you can take your pick from places like eBay, Alibaba, etc. Here's one listing that seems available (at least at the time of posting thing).

https://ledlightsworld.com/products/...cle-car-lights

Again, red is the color these came in from Technostalgia and will match the color of the tail lamps' inner reflector plate LEDs. White will look slightly different when shining under the red glass of the lamps but it will also be brighter. It's personal preference.

How to replace the LED afterburner rings:

The lamp housing has two main halves separated by a rubber gasket in the middle -- one half contains the red glass and afterburner LED strip, and the other half contains the reflector plate with inner LEDs and the circuit board. To replace the led strips, you just need to undo the 4 outermost screws at the back of the bulb housing. Free the two halves very slowly, taking caution not to put tension on a thin wire that runs from the afterburner LED strip to the circuit board behind the reflector plate. Also, BE CAREFUL with the plastic of the lamp housing in general, since whatever plastic Technostalgia used seems to get really brittle with time, and you can easily snap the plastic round the screw holes. Definitely make sure all screws are fully unthreaded / removed before trying to pull the two halves apart. You can also optionally undo the innermost 4 screws if you want access to the circuit board that's behind the reflector plate, eg: if you have some loose connections you wanted to hot-glue down -- but this isn't required for this tutorial.

The afterburner LED strip is taped / hot glued into a black plastic lip just behind the red glass. Cut the wire that connects the LED strip to the reflector plate as close to the LED strip as possible. The more slack, the easier it'll be to splice in the replacement later. Or, if you want to work with less slack, then on the half of the housing the contains the reflector plate, take out the innermost 4 screws as mentioned earlier to access the circuit board and pop out the LED strip's board connector, putting the splice closer to that connector. Personally, I would not suggest messing with anything connected to the circuit board, as every time you unseat / reseat those connectors, they will never click back in quite so firmly (all plastics lose some elasticity with age), and later on, it can be a nightmare to diagnose issues like the rapid-fire or sequential turn signal not working due to loose connections. Again, I'd only mess with those connectors if your plan is to hot glue them down.

When you take out the old LED strip, the odds are it's extremely dried out and the glue can be brittle. When removing it, be very careful as you work toward the far ends of the LED strip, since those are positioned behind some plastic washers on plastic pegs. If you pull too hard, you'll dislodge the washers from the pegs, and that will make installing the new strip a little trickier. If you do lose those washers, it's not a big deal though. Without them, you'll still have the plastic pegs as a general guide. But the big benefit of having the washers is they will keep the ends of the LED strip semi-secured but still maneuverable until you're ready to push everything down and secure it with double-sided tape or glue later on.

Personally, I used 3M 1/2 in double sided clear tape (part # 03614) to put the new strips in. The trick I used was to cut it only 1/2 or 3/4 the length of the LED strip and to stretch it to length and apply it to the back of the LED strip in advance. This makes the tape much narrower and therefore much easier to manipulate into the right spot inside the housing. If there's too much excess tape folding over the edges, the LED strip will catch to all surfaces when you try to install it, and it's a major pain. I found that out the hard way when I was originally cutting the tape to the exact length of the LED strip -- it was simply too much and too cumbersome.

Start the application of the new LED strip by orienting it with the wire side facing the side that has a metal bolt, wrapping the wire over the inner plastic peg and rubber washer so it'll be less visible later on without drooping. Again, there are plastic pegs at either side where the strip will rest as well as some rubber washers to help you align the far ends of the LED strip, and if you align the strip starting at those positions, you'll end up with just enough slack in the middle part of the LED strip to be able to form a smooth semi-circle for the afterburner shape. You may need to place the lamp half face-down and tap it a little so those washers rest at the end of those pegs and it can be tricky to get the strip to rest under the washer, but it's critical or you'll end up with your strip misaligned or bunched up as you try to press it fully into place later.

Once both ends of the strip are under the washers and positioned well, then work your way downward along the lip where the old strip sat. I found it's easiest to at this point to flip the lamp half face-up to watch my fingers pressing down on the the LED's while looking downward through the red glass with a bright desk light shining down on it, since you'll see exactly how the LED's will look from the exterior and can catch any minor misalignment of the strip early on before the lamps get reinstalled in the car. You can technically decide to either fix the strip facing a little upward (from Technostalgia, they're positioned about 45 degrees -- ie: halfway between being either outward or fully upward) or you can bias them more outwards facing toward the red glass. I decided to position mine more outwards, which also makes them brighter looking and gives them more of a "3D" look. Finally, optionally, you can use a piece of tape to affix the LED strip wire to the top of the lamp half to make reinstallation a little easier, otherwise, even if you wrapped the wire around the inner plastic peg earlier, it still has a tendency to like to pop over the reflector plate if there's too much slack when you later re-join the two lamp halves, which is annoying. Finally, clean the inside of the red glass with some windex to get rid of any fingerprints.

When it comes to attach the new LED strip to your wire splice, the wire color coding probably won't match between the original and the new one. The LED strip Technostalgia originally used (at least on mine) had a bonded pair of wires, both with clear conduit / sleeves -- one with a silver inner wire and one with a copper inner wire. I would suggest this: Just take a chance and guess which wire connects to which in the splice, give them a very temporary connection by loosely twisting the wires to join them, and put in a single screw to temporarily reinstall the two lamp halves back together, intentionally letting that wire splice stick out the side of the rubber gasket that separates the two lamp halves. That way, you can just drape the temporarily-reassembled lamp over the edge of your trunk and temporarily wire it back into the car, rapidly swapping the connections on your wire splice around if your initial guess was wrong and you accidentally inverted the polarity of the LED strip.

How to tell if the LED strip's polarity is reversed:

• It will light up if the tail lamp connector on your Camaro's wiring harness is also reversed, and in which case, LEDs in the reflector plate will stay off.
• It will stay off if the tail lamp connector on your Camaro's wiring harness is correctly oriented, and in which case, the LEDs in the reflector plate will be on.

If the polarity is correct, both the LED strip and LEDs in the reflector plate will turn on at the same time, assuming the tail lamp connector is properly oriented.

Once you confirm your polarity is good: Take out the single screw you temporarily put in, separating the lamp halves again, and in terms of doing any final fix-up on the wire splice: Do whatever you want. Solder it, shrink wrap it, or just put electrical tape over it and call it a day. Then, carefully tuck the LED strip wire snugly behind the reflector plate so it isn't visible, reinstall your 4 screws, and you're now ready to reinstall the lamp back in your car. Again, be very gentle with screwing together the lamp housing since the plastic can get brittle with time. You may want to use the tried and true trick of tightening each screw just a little in alternation at a time until everything is snug but not over-torqued.

Repeat all of the above with the remaining lamps.

[1JEWLDSSRS]

Very nice write up sir!!! I appreciate the info as I need to replace my afterburners too. Everything else works great still after 8 years!! lol.

[patternpilot]

Well gentlemen, I have had the lights from the beginning and other than once getting moisture in one which I dried out and resealed, they have worked flawlessly. No burnouts and no other issues. I do have the current draw and have to keep a battery tender connected when parked. I do wish that could be fixed.

[RenegadeXR]

Originally Posted by patternpilot

Well gentlemen, I have had the lights from the beginning and other than once getting moisture in one which I dried out and resealed, they have worked flawlessly. No burnouts and no other issues. I do have the current draw and have to keep a battery tender connected when parked. I do wish that could be fixed.

After taking apart my lamps and getting very intimate with them, I would say unfortunately almost everybody is going to see these fail in some way eventually. I don't know if moisture is a requirement, but it might help accelerate things. I had all 4 rings eventually die, even though only one or two lamps ever fogged in the past.

My theory is that with time, the plastic in the LED strip hardens and can become prone to cracking and warping with temperature changes. There were dark black marks underneath each LED that had burnt out on my strips. Looking around those burn marks, the plastic was either warped or cracked. I took a good LED strip (I had bought plenty) bent it a little sharply as a test, and I confirmed it's pretty easy to short out the LED's on these things.

Even if the LED strips never had a problem, the plastics Technostalgia chose don't seem to be appropriate for any form of exposure to humidity and outdoor temperatures and degrade much more rapidly than the plastics used in stock components of the vehicle. On a positive note, the circuit board was in good shape on each lamp I removed.

Anyway, hopefully with what I wrote, people can enjoy these a little longer, since afterburner burn-out is the most common form of failure by far. Time will tell what else goes wrong.

[1JEWLDSSRS]

Originally Posted by patternpilot

Well gentlemen, I have had the lights from the beginning and other than once getting moisture in one which I dried out and resealed, they have worked flawlessly. No burnouts and no other issues. I do have the current draw and have to keep a battery tender connected when parked. I do wish that could be fixed.

Well there is 2 ways to stop the current draw on them, I have that issue with mine. Either get a new set which they use the stock harness now for the power, or do like I do when parked for any extended time, just unhook the pink power wire connected to your battery while she sits. But remember to hook it back up before you put her back into service, or you won't have any tail lights working.

[davesnever]

I can confirm that the leds you are now using from China have been reliable. I ordered the same strips from Aliexpress probably about 2012-2013 and used them for my footwell lighting and to this day still are perfect. Still have some stock left over lol.

[tomlink]

Great thread. I made my afterburner repairs several times and I even had a few extra LED strings for future repairs. In August the far right light failed because of moisture. A neighbor alerted me that "my lights are on", when it was actually just a few segments in that one light. I unplugged it so the others would work without killing the battery, because almost all my tools were in storage as I was moving. Sunday I finally got down to removing the lamp, and there was an inch of water in it. I can't say for sure, but I think the bulb connection at the back was loose. There was so much corrosion on the main circuit board it had no hope. I'm getting real good at removing and replacing these. I wish I had a source for just the 1 lamp, but for now I am back to the OEM taillights. Sigh. Almost 9 years.