Hi, thanks for sharing these details. I found reverse engineering of this part just here. I got Durango 2014 month ago, I come from Czech Republic, Europe.
One question - do you see a safe way how to cut up carefully the tail light to be able to fix the LED strips and stick that together ? I was engineer, so LDOs, soldering and measurement is in my hand. I just dont know if I can use kind of Dremel with circular saw blade and to cut it up without destruction. With modern epoxy glues it should be possible to stick that together.
Thank you in advance.
Pavel
Greetings from the Everglades, Pavel, and welcome to the forum!
Short answer, yes.... with a caveat: Cutting an 'access hole' to get at the segment boards won't work because they're all mounted on a 'carrier' that is best-described as the "meat" of the sandwich", in which, the "bread" is in the way.
Long answer; So it's not going to be easy, and you'll need to make a homemade heat box big enough for the entire assembly (OR a pizza oven) to split it without warping, or fracturing the red part. It's brittle, but the array carrier and backing are a more flexible formula of PVC. A handheld heat gun
MIGHT work, but my guess is that your chances of cracking the polycarbonate lens go way up using this method. Repairing the boards will likely NOT be an issue for an E.E. here.... Separating the assembly in one piece, and reassembly will.
The LEDs arrays vary in shape, but they all use the same standard surface-mount modular construction all the way around.
These can all be repaired given your electronics background. I know this, because I've done it on the bench myself. and I'm just a "home-gamer".
As previously-posted, my 'guinea pig' arrived with a shattered lens, so restoration was not possible in my case ---- But I now have an entire set of operational spare segments!
When I did some playing-around with my arrived-broken assembly, I discovered that the adhesive
will soften enough to release the red lens
IF you catch it at that melting-point, and don't keep applying heat too long (The black backing plate will release with mild prying, leaving the rigid lens hopefully intact). If it gets TOO hot, it will distort the brittle red polycarbonate.
I'm sure I threw out the piece of paper I worte the part numbers down on when I had it laid-out there, but they're easily-obtainable once you have the segments on the bench in front of you. Standard 78LM05 SM regulators and such. The individual components that make up the array segments are 'off-the shelf', cheap and easy to source through ebay, digikey, or Mouser.
PS: I've been "binge-watching" and English expat on Youtube, who goes by
"BALD AND BANKRUPT .. This guy travels all over the former Soviet Union countries and it's FASCINATING! Belarus is now on my "bucket list".. Well, actually, ALL of East Europe is.
