looks like i spoke too soon... the LEDs are slowly starting to dim... after 11+ hours...  that's less than 160mA draw... i think that's pretty damn good.  

now i need 30 more amber LEDs (four front turn signals, minus this one i've already built), and about 60 red LEDs... 30 per tail light.  not sure how i'm going to configure them in my taillights yet, since i have to deal with the intensity difference for braking.  i think my taillights are dual-filament, so i could wire the standard taillight line through, say, a 200ohm resistor, and then the brakelight line through a 50ohm resistor (still need to actually calculate values)...  that way when my lights are on, the taillights are dim but still very visible, and then when i hit my brakes, they get significantly brighter.  any other ideas?   :unsure:

because LEDs:

1) don't burn out
2) draw much less current
3) have no warm-up/cool-down

not to mention, it's great to see the look on peoples' faces when i tell them i modded my '72 pickup and put a bunch of LEDs in it. B)

btw, for the technically unsavvy, LED stands for light-emitting diode.  that means current will only flow one way through them (you can't hook them up backwards), and they give off light when there's current flowing

almost forgot to mention, after 13 hours, the LEDs are still burning, albeit a bit dimmer... meaning < 138mA current draw... i'd like to see an incandescent bulb do that  

there's a picture of it wired up to the batteries i've been running it on for almost 18 hours now... as you can see, it's still glowing, but not nearly as bright as it was when the batteries were fresh...  sorry the picture's so fuzzy, but it's the only digital camera i've got, and it was free.  abso-f*cking-lutely free.  :blink:

*looks for his NiMH charger*

the perfboard it's on now is perfectly sized to make four of the units, as you can see the solder pads are divided into quadrants, each of which fits one LED array quite nicely.  the LEDs and resistors cost me about $3, and the board was about $4... so that's a $16 expenditure to do all four turn signals... not too bad, imho.

how many of 'em do you have and how bright are they?

Nice....hope it works alright, the way you want it to, could you show us finished project pics, when finished?

At least he's got his priorities straight.