Totally understand where you're coming from. I'm planning an LED halo for sure, thinking it'll handle turn signal and brake light functions for the reasons you've mentioned. Might also do some additional LEDs behind the center reflector portion of the original halo taillight lens.

In the absence of a KnightDriveTV option, a tinkerer is going to tinker! Perhaps my time would be better spent helping you toward your more-viable solution than coming up with my own

 

I'm all for DIY's...run what you like all day bro, no question. I am saying, from a company/legality perspective, selling infinities without a LOT of other features for safety; it just opens someone up to a real bad turn in life when the lawsuit hits the mailbox. I have a guy who came to me to mass produce his infinity design. It has a halo built in, but I explained to him...what can be used in middle Arkansas or Las Vegas is a far cry from what I could run in Pittsburgh or certain northeastern US corridors with 4 full time cop towns. You'll get towed and pistol whipped by some cops runnin lights like that. For a 50 state product I told the guy...no way am I gettin involved in that.

 

Naturally I (and surely plenty of others) will be interested in seeing what you've got in the pipeline!

 

I have actually designed, then went back to the drawing board, redesigned and have now scrapped and redesigned again. I have a...we'll call it...a VERY ambitious plan for taillights ahead. It's tricky...so we'll see. Personally, I like the "gimmicky" stuff for the right type of car and person, BUT I also think a very "expensive" or higher class modern light would go a LONG way one these cars. My plan will be to attack the issue from two directions, at this stage. One is a safe approach...a C8 Stingray Z51 if you will...broad bandwidth, while one is more of a E-Ray...limited audience but will take things to an entirely different and never before experienced level.

 

I think you're the biggest tease on CF

 

Perhaps a check-out location for this kinda thing (art) would be the vehicles, roads and streets of India. 🤔

 

Been screwing around with ideas for the halo part. Was really hoping somehow I could use the COB LED style (as in the 24V & 12V options below) but I don't think it will work out since those can only be cut every 50cm (2inches).

So my current plan for the halo is to use individually addressable LEDs (WS2812B). Was looking at the PCB design tool I've used before (EasyEDA.com) but that won't let me set up an ellipse as one of the PCB shapes. So... I bought another WS2812B strip and I will cut at each LED and resolver to make the appropriate ellipse shape. It's going to be a lot of work!, since each LED will have 3 traces to solder.
I'll experiment with 3D printed diffusers to obscure each LED and hopefully not lose too much brightness.

Then I'll play with using both the COB LED and WS2812B strips for the infinity mirror arrangement. Unsure which one will look better (to me).

Anyways, below are some pictures I took of a few LED strips I've evaluated. The first pic shows essentially two of the same COB LED strips, but one is 24Volts and the other is 12V. As mentioned previously I had read the 24V version is brighter, and my own test show that result as well.


Then below is the same 12V COB LED strip compared to a strip of individual addressable LEDs. The latter seems to put out more light overall but obviously you see the individual LEDs substantially more.

 

Pretty cool but at about a $350 price. I also think if they ever got to be widespread the novelty would wear off, like all the Chally guys with their color shifting headlight halos.....

 

Finally some more pictures to go with all the words.

Halo taillight lens and interior, you can see why this was my spare *sacrificial* one:






And some progress on the CAD model for the infinity mirror taillight, 2nd pic is a cross-section. Note that the infinity mirror LED strip doesn't yet show the LEDs.

 

 

If you're going to use the Halo style tail lights, it' been a popular request to make the tail lights a completely separate function than the stop/turn function.

 

Thanks for the advice
My C5 already has modified halo lights, which if I'm understanding you right achieves what you've shared. i.e. halo is only illuminated with driving & headlights, and the central LEDs are illuminated only with braking and turn signaling. So that's my current baseline, at least... we'll have to see where this project goes

 

This looks to be going towards a more solid line appearing Halo. That's cool. I prefer that over the serrated look of the original.

Has there been any creativity given to mounting options and design so the oval can be made complete? It has always irked me that the OG design from a decade ago or more now is really two clam shells and not a solid oval. The C6s get the darned full circles right from the factory floor. lol

 

Have spent WAY too much time on this design, but hey, this is a hobby and I'm enjoying it.
Ended up tweaking the prior-posted design a bit, now the infinity LED strip is closer to the lens by about 2mm. I figure the closer, the better.

This first cross section shows off the first diffuser iteration I want to try. Keep in mind it will be 3D printed from transparent PETG. The right has it shown opaque and left it is transparent (in real life it will be kinda translucent/opaque).
Also added a hollow section in the main body which is to reduce filament usage and provide a channel for wire routing. Have already modeled in areas where wires should be able to exit.

As shown this design will push the taillight lens toward the rear of the car about 3/8" more than the original halo taillight. Not too bad.

And I do believe the halo LED diffuser and main body are ready for 3D printing! Still have to figure out a tool/technique for soldering all of the halo LED pieces together... each strip constitutes 32 LED pieces, and of course there are 2 of those. It's a fair bit of work especially since the placement along the oval shape needs to be spot-on.



The halo will appear a bit more solid just but the nature of 3D printed shape I'm planning for the diffuser plus material opacity (or lack thereof).

I think earlier in this thread I mentioned about making a custom taillight lens, which would be pertinent for the halo to be a complete oval. Right now the mounting screws interrupt it. It's doable (thinking vacuum-formed acrylic) but isn't on the table for this prototype iteration.

 

Progress pictures!
Infinity mirror LEDs aren't wired up yet and just placed in (the fit is so good the LED strip stays put by itself, adhesive backing is still on).
Halo LEDs are still in progress, but I made a jig that ought to work for positioning and soldering them.
Red lens fits quite well... but I had printed a partial prior iteration to dial in the fitment.

Of course it still needs the mirrors for the infinity mirror part. I have the acrylic for those and just need to cut/sand them to shape.

 

Got the acrylic mirrors cut for the infinity mirror part... didn't turn out great but it'll do for this prototype. Note to self: band saw isn't ideal for cutting 2mm acrylic (you'll surely notice some cracks near the perimeter). Benchtop disc sander worked pretty well for bringing them to final shape, though.
The picture below really doesn't do a great job of capturing the effect. This stuff is rather hard to photograph!
Might still play with different LED options for the infinity mirror, i.e. a COB LED style where you can't really see the individual LEDs.



Have been screwing around with different diffuser profiles for the halo LED. Below images are ordered to show my progression, with the last one being the latest. First image is no diffuser, just for reference.








Basically you can see this last one has lesser "dark spots". My main hope is that overall brightness isn't reduced too much to achieve that.

Also I can't take full credit for this last iteration. Found a site with some interesting diffuser profiles that I somewhat mimicked: https://imgur.com/a/RMBtmyr
And this is the cross-section profile I modeled that's shown 3D-printed:

 

Super excited about this!. Do you think they will be bright enough? And Is this something a layman like me can do DIY? Or is it something that would need to be bought?

 

It's been a couple weeks now that I've been intrigued by a different LED strip option: This one has more and smaller LEDs than the currently-pictured infinity LEDs and is COB style. Each LED is individually addressable, unlike the other COB LED strip I posted pictures of (on that one you can only change the color/brightness every 2" of LED strip).
The price on this Amazon option is kinda high but I found the same thing on Aliexpress for substantially cheaper... and it's en-route.

I think their brightness has exceeded my expectations so far, but too soon to tell if the brightness will be sufficient in daylight.

As-is, I don't think a "layman" could build this the way I have. The soldering alone on the halo LEDs is pretty intense and very time consuming (I have a lot of soldering experience). That's not to mention the 3D printing involved.
But I'm also considering/evaluating other halo LED options, i.e. re-using the original halo arrangement from the halo taillights, which would vastly simplify everything. There's just less fun for me to have on that since it includes less development.

Also I should be clear, I won't be selling any of this, so I'm unsure who it could be purchased from.

 

It is these custom and one-off projects which always hold my interest. I am a tinkerer at heart.

 

3 month bump... I am back here resuming this project thanks in part to the kind words in a private message sent by user @Slo.c5 .
Had to prioritize other things since my last post, but also was getting discouraged by the extreme amount of soldering time required for the halo LEDs. It looks like I never photographed those halo LED strips previously (while unlit), so here they are:



I picked back up this project the other day and decided to start taking a different approach... I've dabbled in PCB design via EasyEDA.com a bit on 2 other projects I've posted here.
However, several months ago I didn't immediately notice a way to get the elliptical PCB shape I would need for these halo LEDs (on EasyEDA software).
BUT THEN TODAY!!! I learned EasyEDA can import a DXF for the PCB's outline, which is a 2D CAD design file format.
So from my Solidworks (3D) CAD model I exported a DXF of what I'd want the halo PCB shape to be, then imported that into EasyEDA.

Long story short, I designed a halo LED PCB. Even managed to squeeze 37 LEDs onto it vs the 32 from my hand-soldered version.
And I ordered 25 boards, enough for 3 cars worth of taillights (2 per taillight). Also these boards will have the LEDs and capacitors already soldered on! This is WAAAYYYY easier than my previous approach, and probably a comparable (or even cheaper) cost. It also could mean other people getting their hands on these taillights much more readily... $124 total for all of them means $41/car cost on the halo LEDs.

Anyways, this is a rendering of the PCB with LEDS/capacitors and the bottom side: