Rewiring Tail Light From Mono To Dual

[aus_rx400h]

Hi All,

Hope I have worded this correctly. On my rx400h, I would want to rewire my LED tail light so that during day time, both sections of the tail light is lid when I hit the brake. I wonder if anyone has done this mod.

Cheers.

[cduluk]

I haven't done it, but i've thought about it! It can be done, you'll just need to do some advanced wiring to get the tail lights on the tailgate to illuminate at 12V during braking.

[maseace]

You could probably just wire the inner lights to the wires of the outer lights, so both would always do the same thing.

[cduluk]

You could probably just wire the inner lights to the wires of the outer lights, so both would always do the same thing.

The outer lamps are actually 3-lead, while the inner lamps are 2-lead. The outer lamps have a ground, positive 6V, and a positive 12V for braking. The inner lamps only have a ground and positive 6V. The only way to make this happen would be to add a relay to each inner lamp (cutting power from the car) and wire 12V to the 6V lead, illuminating the lights completely for braking. It might sound complicated, but it's 100% doable. I wanna do it now!

[1990LS400]

I suggest you leave it alone. I don't know if it is still the case but the way your tail/brake lights are wires has in the past been a requirement in many countries to make it more obvious to drivers of following vehicles that brake lights were being applied ... i.e. so that taillights remained in their normal steady state when brake lights lit up. Germany went one step further and prohibited any rear bulb from being used for more than one purpose. The U.S. has for many years increasingly been a follower instead of a leader in these safety standards.

[aus_rx400h]

The outer lamps are actually 3-lead, while the inner lamps are 2-lead. The outer lamps have a ground, positive 6V, and a positive 12V for braking. The inner lamps only have a ground and positive 6V. The only way to make this happen would be to add a relay to each inner lamp (cutting power from the car) and wire 12V to the 6V lead, illuminating the lights completely for braking. It might sound complicated, but it's 100% doable. I wanna do it now!

Just what I need to know. Sounds like it's more complicated then I had hoped for, ie. daisy chained. I reckon it would look really special if you can make it work. I like both lamps to lid up like the Nissan GTR R35 :).

[cduluk]

I suggest you leave it alone. I don't know if it is still the case but the way your tail/brake lights are wires has in the past been a requirement in many countries to make it more obvious to drivers of following vehicles that brake lights were being applied ... i.e. so that taillights remained in their normal steady state when brake lights lit up. Germany went one step further and prohibited any rear bulb from being used for more than one purpose. The U.S. has for many years increasingly been a follower instead of a leader in these safety standards.

1990LS400, that's an extremely good point, i hadn't thought about that. If both the inner and outer lamps illuminated together, it'd be incredibly difficult to differentiate between "on" and "brake". If it ever resulted in an accident, i could see a lawsuit!