Flex strip for third brake lighting.

What would be the best flexible strip from oz to use as a third brake light?

Short answer:

Flexible LED strips.

Long Answer:

A coworker of mine used 4 of the Flexible LED strips stacked 2 high in a 2002 Honda Accord and they work really well. The brightness of LEDs is measured in millicandela (mcd); thousandths of a candela and if you look at those values for different strips you'll see why the above named strips work so well. By way of comparison, a typical 100 watt incandescent bulb puts out around 1700 lumen - if that light is radiated equally in all directions(360�), it will have a brightness of around 135,000 mcd but focused into a 20� beam, it will have a brightness of around 18,000,000 mcd. Whereas your brake light would be shining directly to the rear and viewed from a narrow angle, the flexible LED strips are great...and waterproof!

chrgrownr wrote:

A coworker of mine used 4 of the Flexible LED strips stacked 2 high in a 2002 Honda Accord and they work really well. The brightness of LEDs is measured in millicandela (mcd); thousandths of a candela and if you look at those values for different strips you'll see why the above named strips work so well. By way of comparison, a typical 100 watt incandescent bulb puts out around 1700 lumen - if that light is radiated equally in all directions(360�), it will have a brightness of around 135,000 mcd but focused into a 20� beam, it will have a brightness of around 18,000,000 mcd. Whereas your brake light would be shining directly to the rear and viewed from a narrow angle, the flexible LED strips are great...and waterproof!

Dude, that description came off confusing as a **** . I -think- what he's trying to say, knat, is that Oz's original flexible LED strips would be good since they have a narrower viewing angle than the later designs, which basically means its a more tightly focused beam shining backwards at a driver following your car which could improve visibility .
In practice though I think any of the LED strips offered should be plenty bright to be used as a brake light . Although the later designs had wider viewing angles they had more powerful LEDs .
Personally I'd choose more based on what's going to blend in the best (the strip itself, when you're looking at where you installed it in the daylight) and what's the easiest to mount for your selected location . If its a horizontal mount consider the side emitting strips that Oz has started selling .

chrgrownr wrote:

Short answer: Flexible LED strips. Long Answer: A coworker of mine used 4 of the Flexible LED strips stacked 2 high in a 2002 Honda Accord and they work really well. The brightness of LEDs is measured in millicandela (mcd); thousandths of a candela and if you look at those values for different strips you'll see why the above named strips work so well. By way of comparison, a typical 100 watt incandescent bulb puts out around 1700 lumen - if that light is radiated equally in all directions(360�), it will have a brightness of around 135,000 mcd but focused into a 20� beam, it will have a brightness of around 18,000,000 mcd. Whereas your brake light would be shining directly to the rear and viewed from a narrow angle, the flexible LED strips are great...and waterproof!

I would like to know where you got your number and the proof you have to back them up.

Anyone with a lightmeter can measure the output ...
But the rest of the post , no idea ... I don't see where he measured the STOCK 3rd brake light output , just the 100 watt bulb

I used 4 9.5in flex strips in my third brake light. Bright as a mofo and way more noticable than the stocker. Exspecially with my brake light being clear.

Sorry for the confusion. For starters, I have no measurements for the STOCK brake light and after the 360 and the 20 that was supposed to be the degree symbol. As for the rest, Cooper hit the nail on the head, except for one thing and I could be mistaken about this but the technical info for the flexible LEd strips rates the brightness of the red strip at 1500mcd vs. the side emitting strip (which I do like and enjoy the brightness of) for example, whose average luminous intensity comes in at 70-115mcd according to the technical info. People much smarter than me figure this stuff out I'm just trying to help. The other info came from "notes on LEDs" from gizmology.net. I meant to credit them in my post bc I'm certainly not smart enough to come up with all that, but theres a wealth of info on their site if interested. Either way, the flex strip, bc the leds are so close and crazy bright work awesome for anything.

Its tough to compare because the original flex strips are one of the few products with a complete tech specs page, and the side emitting LEDs have some image that lists specs but doesn't even list the length of the strip that the specs apply to.

I really can't ***** long or loud enough on this subject, but the lack of a proper tech spec standard on this site is truly unforgivable . I guess the prevailing attitude is that since the products are still selling, why bother taking the time and effort to assemble the proper information ? Ridiculous .

well since i didn't get a response for a long time i went ahead and 1 foot strip. I took the original tbl out because my subs would constanly shaking that, i just want people to be more aware of my breaking now that winter is coming around here pretty soon.

now i just need a good idea of how to mount it to the back windshield.