MESO Total Tail Light Kit

Nice!!

the extremes do have more of a punch. Regular V6 are still great though

 

For I second I thought the truck was yellow like the pizza planet tacoma from toy story. I might go this route if I can't get the limited edition meso clear tails.

 

Yes, V6 is plenty bright. I have it as my backup.

 

I’m really happy with them.

 

Thanks for the comparison.

Just to clarify, the tritons being the ones that pop right into the reverse housing (meant to replace the stage 1 switchback), and the triton extremes being the larger ones you have to modify the hole for?

just want to make sure because if so, then I’m curious why the Tritons I tried were so bad. They were terrible compared to the mess stage 1 SBs. Maybe it’s just because your video is dark. Your extremes look good though.

 

Ok, I see now that the stage 1 VLEDS “upgrade” is indeed not really an upgrade and that’s why I was disapppinted. Those are Tritons which are an over 10 year old design. They are rated at 500 lm amber and 900 white. The Meso stage 1 switchback is 500/500 but it makes better use of the reflector than the 3 amber or 3 white LEDs of the Triton.

I do NOT recommend these

https://www.vleds.com/2016-up-toyota-tacoma-meso-total-tail-v6-triton-921.html

Then there is the V6 extreme which is 1400 lumens amber and 1000 lumens white. Now THAT seems pretty damn solid! These require the Meso bulb adapters. I’m assuming the larger bulb ends up being pretty brilliant compared to the Meso stage 1 or the VLEDS triton stage 1 “upgrade”. Damn it, now it makes me want to get some bulb adapters and see!

Stage 2 V6 extreme bulb that requires Meso adapter:

https://www.vleds.com/2016-up-toyota-tacoma-meso-total-tail-v6-extreme-switchback.html

Meso adapter:

https://mesocustoms.com/products/vled-triton-bulb-adapters?variant=16289397571697


And for anyone randomly wanting to upgrade their stage 1 reds to what comes in stage 2, then 4 of these bad boys will do the trick.

 

Just FYI, I emailed Meso about spare switchbacks to have on hand and Austin replied last night. They are $27 each, said he could send me 2 so I grabbed them. So now I will have 2 7443 reds and 2 switchback bulbs on hand as spares for my stage 1.

 

What email address did you use? I filled out the form on the MESO website about a week ago and have yet to get a response.

 

Just the 921 bulbs needs no modification.

Both the larger non extreme and extreme triton bulbs need modification to the taillights, not just the extreme. If I read that right*

I keep a spare set of adapters. I busted one of my taillights last year and had to wait a few months for the 3d printing window to open up for replacement.

 

I didn't send an actual email sorry. I used their chat to generate a contact form. Austin got back to me in about 48 hours.

 

Recently sold my stock pro taillights with the total tail stage 1 kit and for some reason the turn signals are now hyperflashing for the new owner. He has an SR5 (not sure that would make a difference) and is getting a hyperflash even when not in reverse. Does anyone know what would cause this? I never had a problem in the 2+ years I had the kit.

 

Its hit or miss depending on the truck. Some hyperflash, some don't. Mine did not with the total tail stage 1. He needs to put in resistors.

 

The SR/SR5 models have different hyperflash parameters. He can get a plug and play resistor to solve it.

 

I’m not certain the ECU sensitivity is different. That’s an interesting question and one we might be able to answer if we could isolate things. I believe the observed differences are more about the circuit itself. Wiring harness is different, no mirror turn signals and different bulbs in the front. Plus no combination of DRL and Turn.

Net effect is what you say, SR & SR5 are different, but I’m not certain it’s from numeric configuration.

ETA: unless maybe you’ve seen stuff in techstream?

 

They may not have the mirror turn signals, so there is less resistance in the system.

 

No, for correctness, I probably should not have said different hyperflash parameters. What I did mean by that is actually what you said, that the trucks are different. I don't know what they're looking for. I do know on my TRD, it is not looking for much. Any LED wired in is enough to keep the hyperflash at bay. First thing I did on day one was LED turn signal bulbs (LED, stock design not MESO yet) and front ambers in the halogen headlights. They worked perfectly fine from the get go. It was when I introduced the Meso switchback to the truck that hyperflashing happened (the parallel parking situation: reverse with blinker on). I suspect the Meso bulbs having that specific issue is directly related to their circuitry. I believe the circuitry in the bulb powers the blinker with the reverse power supply when reverse is active, hence why the turn circuit starts to hyperflash.

The part about the mirrors is a good point, I'm not sure what would happen to a TRD if you were to unplug the mirrors, then run LEDs front and rear. Maybe hyperflash? Maybe not. If I'm bored one day I may try it and report back. If a TRD hyperflashed due to the mirror being unplugged, then I'd be more inclined to believe the SRs are more similar to the TRDs than I thought.

I have no way to prove this, but I suspect Toyota knew in 2016 that eventually they were going to install full-LED headlight assemblies on TRD models (which turned out to be 2020) so they set up the circuits to hyperflash if no current, otherwise ANY current draw keeps the hyperflash away. I believe that because even 2016s which all came with halogen and incandescent bulbs, still don't hyperflash.

But really my main point in the first comment was that at surface level, TRDs do not hyperflash with LED bulbs installed, while SRs do, so I stated they have different parameters.

 

I have '17 with Total Tail 1. No hyperflash when in normal use but hyperflash activates when reverse in use with turn signal on. I don't care about that since I don't use turn signals in reverse. I also have UTS for side mirrors.

 

Yours is normal. the only time the hyperflash thing would show itself would be when parallel parking. For me, just knowing it would do that was enough for me to want to buy the resistors to fix it, but not everyone cares that much. It was only $15 and I was buying something else already so I threw them in the cart. It was plug and play so no sweat whatsoever.

 

I have a SR5 and I did get hyperflashing only on one side but only when using the turn signal. I also didn't get hyperflashing with the emergency hazard lights. I popped one resister in and it solved it.

 

Passenger or driver?