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    DIY: Replace Individual LEDs in Tail Lights

    So I got a great deal on a set of OEM LED tail lights recently ($60 for both) because a few LEDs on the passenger side light were out. I figured it wouldn't be too hard to replace them. My original plan was to wait for a crashed car with LEDs to show up locally so that I could scavenge the individual LEDs from it, but I was having trouble finding one. So I started to do some research and found a company that sells the exact same LEDs found in our taillights. As far as I can tell, they are the same color, same brightness, and same dimensions as the ones that came from the factory. Here is a link to the product page. If you're going to be doing this, make sure to buy the red common anode variety, as the others won't work.

    The first step in doing this is getting the tail light open. The housing is sealed and glued to the lens, so the most logical way to approach this would be to separate the lens from the housing and then re-glue it. However, after reading through some forum thread of others attempting to do something similar, it seems like actually reassembling everything is notoriously difficult. With this in mind, I decided to cut the housing of the taillight and then glue it back together. I was a bit worried that it would be hard to align (especially because one of the screws that mounts the taillight to the car is on the part that would be cut), but the housing is actually attached to the rest of the taillight by five torx screws (T10?), which means that alignment issues are nonexistent. I forgot to take a picture of the taillight after making the cuts, but here I have outlined where I made the cuts. Note that the cut on the right side is not actually on the face of the housing, I was afraid that I would hit the board if I did this, so I decided to cut along the side where the rubber weather insulation normally sits.

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    Also note that there is an area towards the bottom that I had to cut out after making the original cuts. This is because the board actually extends all the way to there and is impossible to take out without removing this part.

    Once the housing is cut and the five torx screws removed, you will see that there are a few more torx screws as well as a couple of plastic pieces that the board snap into. Remove these and then the boards can be easily pulled out (again I forgot to take pictures of this step, but with the tail light open, it's pretty self explanatory). One thing to note is that there is a small board that hosts a single LED for the side of the tail light. I accidentally broke the mount for this board when pulling it out, so I had to reattach it with double sided tape when reassembling it.

    Once the boards were out, I used a multimeter and went through all of the LEDs to find which were the ones that had gone out and marked them with a sharpie. Once I identified them, I cut them off with an xacto knife. I originally tried to heat them up with a soldering iron and pull them off, but given their size and the fact that they have four leads made this extremely difficult. With the bad LEDs out, I scraped the area around the original pads to increase the contact area of the solder. I originally planned to use solder paste and a heat gun to attach the new LEDs, but ended up just going with regular solder and a soldering iron. Luckily, the leads on the LEDs extend to the sides, so the solder actually has something to hold on to. Here is a picture showing already replaced LEDs and a prepped area for soldering on the least one (please excuse the messy soldering, these things are REALLY small so it's hard to do a good job).

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    Note that one of the LEDs I soldered on is crooked. This is something you definitely want to avoid, as the lens requires them to be lined up in a very specific spot in order to spread the light out correctly. You want to get them lined up as closely as you can with the original mounting positions. Luckily that one ended up only being rotated (not displaced) so it still worked fine with the lens.

    With the soldering finished, I applied 12V and GND to the appropriate connector header pins to make sure everything was working fine.

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    You can clearly see that the LEDs I bought match the factory ones perfectly.

    Here's a diagram showing what each pin on the tail light harness connector is wired to.

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    The last step is to get the housing back together. Put the board back into their place, reattach all plastic brackets and screws (remember to clip the boards into the brackets) and reassemble the housing using the screws to align everything. I grabbed some JB weld I had lying around and put it on the cuts I made. It's definitely not necessary to maintain the structure of the light (the screws do most of the work here) but I wanted the light to be sealed in order to avoid having water get inside. Here's mine all sealed up.

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    And here it is on the car with all the LEDs working. Some look brighter than others, but this is just due to the angle of the picture, in reality they are all the same brightness.

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    2002 Topasblau M3 - Coupe - 6MT - Karbonius CSL Airbox - MSS54HP Conversion - Kassel MAP - SSV1 - HJS - PCS Tune - Beisan - MK60 Swap - ZCP Rack - Nogaros - AutoSolutions - 996 Brembos - Slon - CMP - VinceBar - Koni - Eibach - BlueBus - Journal

    2012 Alpinweiss 128i - Coupe - 6AT - Slicktop - Manual Seats - Daily - Journal

    #2
    And here is what I've found about the turn signal LEDs, although I haven't attempted to replace those:

    I found a thread on E46Fanatics where someone says that the turn signal LEDs are SnapLEDs and they do look similar to those in the tail lights. However, I haven't really found anywhere to buy those. Maybe try contacting the company? Here are some pictures I found online of what the turn signla LEDs look like.

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    They do also seem to be welded on? So getting them off will definitely be harder, although I'm sure that once they're off you could just solder the new ones on.
    2002 Topasblau M3 - Coupe - 6MT - Karbonius CSL Airbox - MSS54HP Conversion - Kassel MAP - SSV1 - HJS - PCS Tune - Beisan - MK60 Swap - ZCP Rack - Nogaros - AutoSolutions - 996 Brembos - Slon - CMP - VinceBar - Koni - Eibach - BlueBus - Journal

    2012 Alpinweiss 128i - Coupe - 6AT - Slicktop - Manual Seats - Daily - Journal

    Comment


      #3
      would you mind also adding a link to the LED you bought?

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by rbg View Post
        would you mind also adding a link to the LED you bought?
        I linked to it in the first paragraph, but here's the direct link in case that doesn't work:

        PLCC-4 Surface Mount LEDs from $0.59. The PLCC-4 size LEDs are generally used for car dashboard and gauge cluster illumination.
        2002 Topasblau M3 - Coupe - 6MT - Karbonius CSL Airbox - MSS54HP Conversion - Kassel MAP - SSV1 - HJS - PCS Tune - Beisan - MK60 Swap - ZCP Rack - Nogaros - AutoSolutions - 996 Brembos - Slon - CMP - VinceBar - Koni - Eibach - BlueBus - Journal

        2012 Alpinweiss 128i - Coupe - 6AT - Slicktop - Manual Seats - Daily - Journal

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by heinzboehmer View Post

          I linked to it in the first paragraph, but here's the direct link in case that doesn't work:

          https://www.oznium.com/loose-component-leds/plcc-4
          Common cathode, red version?

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by netcsk View Post

            Common cathode, red version?
            Red, common anode.
            2002 Topasblau M3 - Coupe - 6MT - Karbonius CSL Airbox - MSS54HP Conversion - Kassel MAP - SSV1 - HJS - PCS Tune - Beisan - MK60 Swap - ZCP Rack - Nogaros - AutoSolutions - 996 Brembos - Slon - CMP - VinceBar - Koni - Eibach - BlueBus - Journal

            2012 Alpinweiss 128i - Coupe - 6AT - Slicktop - Manual Seats - Daily - Journal

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by heinzboehmer View Post

              I linked to it in the first paragraph, but here's the direct link in case that doesn't work:

              https://www.oznium.com/loose-component-leds/plcc-4
              Thank you did not see "Here" was a link :-)

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by heinzboehmer View Post

                Red, common anode.
                Well poo, the wrong ones showed up in the mail today. At least it was only a <$10 loss.
                Thanks for the DIY!

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by netcsk View Post

                  Well poo, the wrong ones showed up in the mail today. At least it was only a <$10 loss.
                  Thanks for the DIY!
                  Ah that's annoying. When I did this, I ordered a bunch of each because they were so cheap. I'm almost completely sure the right type is common anode because that's what I wrote down in the original M3Forum DIY, but you could be able to confirm this if you're going to open up your taillight anyway! The diode test function my multimeter was enough to light up the LEDs dimly, so I just went and probed a known good LED on the taillight to determine which of the four lugs were positive and which were negative. then did the same for the LEDs I ordered.
                  Last edited by heinzboehmer; 03-25-2020, 11:20 AM.
                  2002 Topasblau M3 - Coupe - 6MT - Karbonius CSL Airbox - MSS54HP Conversion - Kassel MAP - SSV1 - HJS - PCS Tune - Beisan - MK60 Swap - ZCP Rack - Nogaros - AutoSolutions - 996 Brembos - Slon - CMP - VinceBar - Koni - Eibach - BlueBus - Journal

                  2012 Alpinweiss 128i - Coupe - 6AT - Slicktop - Manual Seats - Daily - Journal

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by heinzboehmer View Post

                    Ah that's annoying. When I did this, I ordered a bunch of each because they were so cheap. I'm almost completely sure the right type is common anode because that's what I wrote down in the original M3Forum DIY, but you could be able to confirm this if you're going to open up your taillight anyway! The diode test function my multimeter was enough to light up the LEDs dimly, so I just went and probed a known good LED on the taillight to determine which of the four lugs were positive and which were negative. then did the same for the LEDs I ordered.
                    Excellent suggestion. I'll order the common anode versions and check before installing.

                    On another note, I understand the messy soldering now that I see the new LEDs ha. Thanks again.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by netcsk View Post
                      On another note, I understand the messy soldering now that I see the new LEDs ha. Thanks again.
                      Lol yeah, a hot air reflow station would have been ideal, but I didn't have access to one at the time. Without one, it's hard to do a decent soldering job.
                      2002 Topasblau M3 - Coupe - 6MT - Karbonius CSL Airbox - MSS54HP Conversion - Kassel MAP - SSV1 - HJS - PCS Tune - Beisan - MK60 Swap - ZCP Rack - Nogaros - AutoSolutions - 996 Brembos - Slon - CMP - VinceBar - Koni - Eibach - BlueBus - Journal

                      2012 Alpinweiss 128i - Coupe - 6AT - Slicktop - Manual Seats - Daily - Journal

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Some pictures (click for full size) and hints from my repair today.

                        First, thanks to the OP for doing the legwork on finding the right LEDs and making the DIY! I never would have attempted this otherwise.

                        I recommend cutting on the green line from this picture. I hit the board in one spot from cutting too close (got amazingly lucky I didn't damage a trace or LED). I also cut too deep along the outside and cut the bracket that holds the side marker LED. Disassemble by removing the T10 bolts.
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                        I tested LEDs using the diode function on my multimeter
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                        I had 3 LEDs out but only one was the cause. It was visibly burnt. I cut it off with an exacto knife and used solder paste and a heat gun to attach a new one. It was remarkably the easiest part of this and was my first time using solder paste. It worked incredibly well. Personally, I would not try this with typical solder and an iron considering the four pads for attachment.
                        Here's the solder paste I used. It's more than you'd ever need, even if you did all of the LEDs.
                        https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017RSZFQQ..._saYjFbMD6C2RQ
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                        Tested before reassembly and it matched perfectly!
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                        Brakes
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                        I then reassembled, using double sided tape for the side marker light since I destroyed the bracket cutting.
                        Used butyl tape from home depot to seal the cuts.
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                        Here's the bracket you dont want to cut and the size of these tiny LEDs.
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                        Last edited by netcsk; 08-02-2020, 02:12 PM.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Nice! If mine ever fail again I'm definitely going back and doing this with solder paste. I used a regular iron because I didn't have any on hand and was really just experimenting with it. So far mine have been just fine, but agreed, solder paste is the way to go!
                          2002 Topasblau M3 - Coupe - 6MT - Karbonius CSL Airbox - MSS54HP Conversion - Kassel MAP - SSV1 - HJS - PCS Tune - Beisan - MK60 Swap - ZCP Rack - Nogaros - AutoSolutions - 996 Brembos - Slon - CMP - VinceBar - Koni - Eibach - BlueBus - Journal

                          2012 Alpinweiss 128i - Coupe - 6AT - Slicktop - Manual Seats - Daily - Journal

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by heinzboehmer View Post
                            Nice! If mine ever fail again I'm definitely going back and doing this with solder paste. I used a regular iron because I didn't have any on hand and was really just experimenting with it. So far mine have been just fine, but agreed, solder paste is the way to go!
                            It was in no way a knock to you. In reality I'm impressed that you were able to do it with an iron as I don't think I could have at all. Glad to hear it is holding up. Thanks again for the DIY!

                            Comment


                              #15
                              I tried this but it didn’t work. I didn’t realize the LEDs were directional. How do you determine which direction each LED should go?

                              Comment

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