TOPIC:

I've fitted lights to nearly all my vehicles from the begiinning.
First ones I used bulb kits from Tamiya, or small miniature bulbs ment for something else.

I've never bothered to fit turn signals as they annoy the heck out of me.
Both one feature I do like is brake lights, and I want them to be in the same led as the tail light.
On my SCX10 trail rig I've also reverse lights.
On that I run on a small device that detectt neutral. But this only works on vehicles that has crawler mode enganged on esc, and it is set to have drag brake so it don't run down hills when I let off the throttle.

On normal vehicles I like to run a light kit if I want reverse or brake lights.
For simpler vehicles that only need headlights and tail lights that are steady on, I like to make my own led kits and plug it directly into the receiver.

For my Zakspeed Capri project I want to have brake lights, so for that I need to sourse a led kit of some sort.
But be warned it it loads of c r a p light kits out there, both on quality and features.
I do not like the headlight to come on when.

Features I look for when I need a light kit:
# Headlights always on.
# Brake lights and tail lights in the same bulb and I want them to be 2x single bulb, either 3 or 5mm.
# Reverse lights.
# I don't need signal lights so I always leave out the ch1 cable.
# Must have clear instructions or icons printed on it.
# Must be cheap ish as I'm always on a budget.

For those who need a light kit, Ampro Engineering has reviewed several light kits in the past. The latest was the best on in my opinion.

For wires I have for the last couple of years fallen in love with old WLAN cables as they has 8 small wires coupled into pairs so you got 4 pairs in one cable.
Those wires are plenty for normal 5 led bulbs.
For COB light strips which is 1A and upwards, they are just enough. For those I recomend using normal 20awg wires.

I used to buy leds from Superbrightleds.com 
But it seems they have a lot less selection of 5mm leds than they used to do.
Last time I bought leds was from component-shop on ebay. They had good selection of leds, wires, connectors etc.

10000mcd is too little for me in brightness if you plan on driving in the dark.
Look for 30000-50000mcd ones if you like the leds to be really bright.
Just remember that as mcd goes up, the angle of the light may be less.
For full coverage of the light flood, look for 120-180 degree leds.

I have made all the lights myself on this SCX10 trail rig.
Front light bar is 3050 240 ledstrip for 12v.
Rock lights are 4w Cob lighs.12v
Tail lights are 2x5x7mm leds glued together.controlled by the receiver and Heyok light controller (6v)
A bit over the top for normal rc cars, but this show what you can do yourself.

caprinut wrote:

For wires I have for the last couple of years fallen in love with old WLAN cables as they has 8 small wires coupled into pairs so you got 4 pairs in one cable.
Those wires are plenty for normal 5 led bulbs.

 

I like that idea.  I have a bunch of old Cat4 cables that might actually be useful again 

Solid core jumper cable is also good for short runs, if you just need the cable to stay where you want it.
 

I just got a box of Led's both 3mm and 5mm don't know what quality of power, not really worried as long as I can wire them in somehow. Actually got them to repair a solar ornamental light but thought I may be able to use some on a build in some way. I have tons of cat5 cat6 cable as I used to work in IT, Never thought of using it for lighting, What a great idea and already paired up. I may be asking questions when I get to the stage of lighting a car but it wont be for a while I don't think.

All wired up.  Just need to tidy wiring and fasten to body.
 
 

Getting the multi-meter onto the Rx pins was a pain, so also threw a DuPont connector on some old jumper cables to make life easier.
 

Looks nice.