Valenti Taillight Repair...Any body tried it?

[lextrueno]

Background:
Found some Valenti tail lights for super cheap. Haven't bought them yet but I plan to at the end of today.

Problem:
A few amber LEDs are burnt out on the turn signals. Unsure as to how many, he said a few but they still are functioning. He offered to plug them in and let me know but I figure a few LEDs aren't really all that expensive.

Has anyone tried to crack these things open and tried to repair them? He is selling his because they are not under warranty and using the money to buy new ones. At the worst, I won't get anywhere and lose a handful of bucks but nothing horrible. They still function so I could use them if I wanted but having an LED not work would make me go a little irked.

As for my ability, I am an electrical engineer. So fixing the actual light would be easy. Just cracking them open is what I'm kinda worried about. My guess is that I'm going to have to preheat the oven to 220 F, season with salt and pepper, then bake for a few minutes until gooey. XD

Let me know if you guys have any advice.

[matthui95]

As far as I know (and I may be wrong), but opening up tailights is not as easy as with headlights. With headlights, they are sealed together but taillights are more so one whole piece. Therefore, baking them in the oven doesn't do much.

However, if you look around, I believe there's a thread about opening up taillights. I think the guy used a soldering iron to heat-cut the damn thing open.

Whatever you try to do, good luck! Let us know how it goes.

Edit: Here's the thread .. turns out a dremel was used. http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38101

[lextrueno]

That is quite a shame, I was hoping that popping them open would be as easy as going through some silicone. Well like I said, I am only paying about 50 bucks for them. Which I would think is a pretty good deal. I may document the experience should I find myself successful with it all.

Still me taking my dremel to such pretty lights makes me a little uneasy.... Wish me luck XD

[raven1231]

Yeah saw them om facebook too. For $50 its worth a try.

[lextrueno]

Yeah, I'll post here if I get them and start working on them today. I am still curious as to see if any one else has done this and what LEDs they found best. Otherwise I have some work ahead of them to crack them open. And then examine the damage and LEDs.

[Chen]

@thehapaone chime in here.

[Futaba]

Seems like your issue is identical to the one I fixed a few weeks ago.
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...1&postcount=57

If you want to fully split them, then ovens the best bet but if you just want to dremel a hole big enough to fix the dry joint then you will need to guestimate where to do it, also you dont need a 3d printer to fix it back up, just some pieces of bicycle inner tube cut to size/plastic cut to size and a hot glue gun so you can seal up any holes you make outside of the sealed rim.

[lextrueno]

^top notch stuff man. I plugged them in and had the exact same problem and installed them anyway. When I tried testing them, they worked sometimes and other times did not so I knew there was a loose connection or dry solder joint. A+ right there. Whenever I get to feeling like taking them off and fixing them, I will. Till then I think they look fine and it is barely noticeable with the ones that I got.