Best arrangement for multiple LED tail lights

Starinless

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I'm replacing the sand filled taill light brackets on the back of my car and the new brackets have positions for 5 hella ADR approved strip lamps on each side stacked one on top of the other.
Currently I have the strips arranged from top to bottom as, tail/brake light, Amber turn, brake only, amber turn, tail/ brake light. Would having the colours so close together and mixed reduce their effectiveness, would it be worth the time rearranging them?
 

Alaric Darconville

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Stillwater, America
I'm replacing the sand filled taill light brackets on the back of my car and the new brackets have positions for 5 hella ADR approved strip lamps on each side stacked one on top of the other.
Currently I have the strips arranged from top to bottom as, tail/brake light, Amber turn, brake only, amber turn, tail/ brake light. Would having the colours so close together and mixed reduce their effectiveness, would it be worth the time rearranging them?

We'd probably like to see the back of the vehicle to tell more, but I'd concentrate the turn and stop signals, leaving the tails separated to convey more information about distance and closing speed, and have the turns signals at the top:

yellow turn
yellow turn
tail/stop
stop
tail/stop

You don't mention a reversing lamp-- is that going to be on another section of the vehicle?
 

Starinless

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It's an oldish utility vehicle so it uses the amber turn signals as reverse lights and it has a switched flodlamp at the rear.

It wouldn't be too hard to rearrange the lights from the current configuration and the one that you mentioned although with the way the car is set up it does technically have 6 separate brake lights,
is there a maximum brightness for brake lights or even just a recommended amount, I could disconnect some wires and make it so that the Centre red strip is brake only and the outer two lamps are tail only.


It has 3 of these: http://www.hella.co.nz/en/products/...l-lamps/led-stoprear-position-strip-lamp.html
And 2 of these: https://www.hella.co.nz/en/products.../led-rear-direction-indicator-strip-lamp.html
 
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Alaric Darconville

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Stillwater, America
It's an oldish utility vehicle so it uses the amber turn signals as reverse lights and it has a switched flodlamp at the rear.

It wouldn't be too hard to rearrange the lights from the current configuration and the one that you mentioned although with the way the car is set up it does technically have 6 separate brake lights
is there a maximum brightness for brake lights or even just a recommended amount, I could disconnect some wires and make it so that the Centre red strip is brake only and the outer two lamps are tail only.
Yes, there's a maximum intensity for brake lights. My suggested arrangement puts the small gap between the rear position lights to help people judge their closing speed-- they'll get queues from both the change in the horizontal separation of the left and right sides and the vertical separation of the rear position lamps on each side. Braking, on the other hand, lights all three for a concentrated signal, similarly for the turn signal lamps (and when used as hazard flashers).

I don't think your original plan is particularly *wrong*, though.
 

-Virgil-

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Mar 26, 2004
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I second Alaric's recommendation:
yellow turn
yellow turn
tail/stop
stop
tail/stop

Don't worry about maximum intensity; that's for the maker (Hella) to worry about. If there's a regulation limiting the number of brake lights (or turn signals, etc) you can have, that's one for you to concern yourself with, but usually Australia isn't as worried about that as Europe is. If anything, you should worry about the stop lights not being bright enough. The UN (ECE) specifications Australia uses for signal lamps allow the stop and turn signal lamps to be much too weak (dim) for such a bright, sunny environment. Your doubled-up turn signals and tripled-up stop lights are making things safer, not less safe. But they really should be clustered as suggested, not as you have them.
 
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