The Cadillac XLR’s Tail Light Offers An Opportunity For The Technically Inclined

Source: Hackaday The Cadillac XLR’s Tail Light Offers An Opportunity For The Technically Inclined

Don’t Kick The $3000 Tail Light!

If you have been hit with unexpectedly expensive car repairs because of one costly part you might have some sympathy for the owner of a Cadillac who was surprised by the price tag of a replacement tail light.  It seems GM designed an LED tail light with a rather fragile PCB which was covered in a layer of fixative to help keep everything in place and also makes replacing parts more or less impossible. To top it off, they chose to send signals to the light via a microprocessor as opposed to a simple switch for some reason which likely makes sense to someone.

Hackaday points out that making an LED light blink on and off is one of the most common first projects for someone learning electronics and that with a bit of thought and effort you might just be able to create replacement parts for people you know; possibly making a bit of money at it too.

First of all, there’s scope for an enterprising hacker to make a killing on a repair kit for owners faced with a three grand bill. Then, there’s another opportunity for us to be acquainted with the reality that the rest of the world hasn’t quite caught up with repair culture as we might imagine.

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About The Author

Jeremy Hellstrom

Call it K7M.com, AMDMB.com, or PC Perspective, Jeremy has been hanging out and then working with the gang here for years. Apart from the front page you might find him on the BOINC Forums or possibly the Fraggin' Frogs if he has the time.

4 Comments

  1. willmore

    They were dumb enough to buy a caddy, all sympathy gone. Pay the $3K stupid tax.

    Reply
    • Gandorff

      Long time ago, i bought a CD-ROM burner that used a caddy. It was a stupid idea to equip CD burners with caddies instead of trays, and it was supid of me to buy such a thing…

      Reply
      • willmore

        Seems there’s a history of caddies causing trouble and parts being expensive. I may have one or two left if you really ened them.:)

        Reply
  2. CB

    I’m sure that market is huge with the dozens of XLR’s sold…

    Reply

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