LED bulbs

[john.p.clegg]

Dear All

Have done a search but come up blank,I know sometime in the past someone replaced all the bulbs (except the headlights?) with LED bulbs and was wondering if they still had the list of the various types wattages etc....and where they purchased them from....

am trying to reduce the strain on the battery/alternator...

John

2nd post today-must be bored, off work on the sick...

[types26/36]

John, a friend of mine replaced all of his with LED's from these people:
http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/advanced_sea ... &x=26&y=16
The link is for the dash bulbs but you should find the rest on the site, I am about to order some (just for the gauges) but cant decide between the wide angle and the normal ones, any thoughts?

[john.p.clegg]

Brian

Many thanks but I can't help you there re angle?

John

edit

Maybe wideangle as you want to illuminate the side of the gauges?

[elansprint71]

I seem to recall that someone fitted them into the indicators but the LRDs would not draw enough current to make the flasher unit work. I think.

[types26/36]

[quote="elansprint71"]I but the LRDs would not draw enough current to make the flasher unit work. quote]

Yes,I belive you have to use a flasher relay something like this:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/LED-Flasher-Relay ... 286.c0.m14

[Jason1]

Hi

Someone in a previous thread has used these;

http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/automotive-b ... 9716a10881

To be honest I use LED's at work in those signs that flash up 30mph at the side of the road and the reason we use them is that they are very directional. If you want to see this drive upto the signs and as you pass it you will see very little light. I am not sure how good they would be for a car as you want the stop lamp to show at every angle not just when a car is directly behind you. For dash bulbs they may be better.

They are not cheap and do not last forever, we are told that Philips say they are good for 20,000 hours, our suppliers says 10,000 is more realistic. This is continuious use but have a look at the signs again, these signs are not bumping down the road in a vehicle and they are still failing.

If I was you I would just replace a couple and try them out before you shell out a load of cash for the whole car.

Hope this helps

Jason

[Jason1]

Hi again

Have a look at the new stop/tail bulb

http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/3801157-ultr ... -1863.html

the fact that they are now making this bulb with 30 LEDs in it means that they recognise that the directional feature of LEDs is a problem.

?12.49 for one bulb

Let us know if they work out for you, I would be interested to know if they are any good. They also look longer than a standard bulb so may not fit under the lense.

Jason

[Frank Howard]

I am not sure how good they would be for a car as you want the stop lamp to show at every angle not just when a car is directly behind you.

Jason,

I believe they are now standard equipment on several newer high end cars and are used in 3rd brake light applications almost exclusively. Wouldn't put them on my car though except possibly as a 3rd brake light.

[bcmc33]

I replaced the bulbs in my car for LEDs from Ultra some time ago in an attempt to protect the 35 year old wiring, and they were mostly OK but there were some exceptions.
I kept the standard bulb for the igntion lght and subsequently changed the speedo and tacho back to 5W standard bulbs due to the LEDs directional issues. Regarding the directional issues for the rear and stop lights ? it?s not a real issue as the lamp optics take care of this.
The indicators are more of an issue - you will need to solder a resistor in the circuit at each bulbholder point or use a specific LED flasher unit.

Overall, I believe that the quality of light from an LED is much better than that from a standard OE bulb, and less ?wear? on the wiring.

BTW - an ?amusing? situation at this year?s MOT when the tester advised a failure for the front side lights being blue. I maintained that the LED bulbs were pure white at 6000K temperature. There were long discussions with all the mechanics (technicians?) in the garage and the concensus was that the lights were blue. I insisted that they get their Kelvin meter to measure the light value ? yes, of course they didn?t have one, I was just calling their bluff.
I took the discussion to the point of asking what they did at the MOT for cars with HID headlamps ? not an issue for consideration was the reply. The bosses Jag was trawled out with the consensus that the headlights were blue when looked at from certain angles. Hence there was no mention of the sidelights on the MOT report.

I?ve bought an LED third lght to fit on top of the roll bar ? just one of the jobs for the winter schedule.

[zarelan]

Same here. I replaced some of the lighting in my car with LED bulbs from Ultraleds for the same reasons mentioned above.

Here is a piece advice: Make sure they are rated to 16v minimum, or 20v even better. If they are only 12v they will burn out in no time. I know this from experience. Modern cars probably have voltage regulators built into their lighting wiring looms, so 12v bulbs are ok for them. Not for our cars!

In my car I replaced the stop/tail, front side, and all the dash instruments lights last year. Very happy with the results. There is also a safety aspect: They have a much faster response. Put a traditional stop/tail bulb on one side and a LED replacement on the other and get someone to step on the brake pedal. You will see the difference.

--Antonio

[john.p.clegg]

Antonio

Yes,have already noticed the difference,just want to do the sidelights (front and rear) ,reversing and stop lights..

John

[john.p.clegg]

[quote="JJDraper"]You may be interested in this site -

http://www.norbsa02.freeuk.com/goffyleds.htm

They have addressed the radial light output and have a cure for potential problems with flasher units not being triggered by the low power of LED indicators.

I have had LEDs for my +2's rear/brake lights for around 4 years now, with no adverse reactions...

Jeremy[/quote]

[mikealdren]

John,
I've fitted LED reversing lights to my everyday car. Find the spec of what you want and you may well find that they're much cheaper on Ebay.

Mike

[ElliottN]

I went into this for my S4 Elan (not Federal) as the low current draw, long life and brightness appealed.

Bulb spec's I sourced were:
* Stop/Tail - 21W/6W Bay15d - red
* Indicator (front & rear) - 21W Ba15s amber
* Front Clearance - 6W Ba9s - white
* Wing Indicator - 3W 36mm Festoon - amber
* Instruments - 2.4W - white

The standard indicator flasher 'can' has to be replaced as it relies on current draw to flash and LED's don't draw enough current - but most LED suppliers can supply these relatively inexpensively and they just swap in.

In the end I haven't retained the LED's in the indicators (front/rear) or stop/tail as with my tired reflectors (lenses are fine but the interior reflectors of the light fittings are not) they are bright but tend to give a sharp, pinpoint, whiteish light which doesn't distinguish the colour (red vs amber) very well, despite my lenses being fairly new. For the wing indicator festoons, with effectively no reflector, the effect is even worse and the traditional incandescent festoons are much better.

The front clearance and dash lamps are good, though fitting all the dash lamps is a challenge.

Modern cars using LED's appear to have multi-faceted, polished chrome reflectors which are designed to complement the LED's, although I have seen LED lamp units recently with multiple LED units aimed in different directions to boost the directional distribution (but haven't tried them).

9 Months ago when I went into this, I got a complete set of 10 lamps (excluded dash lamps or number plate festoons at the time) plus a new flasher can for about Aust$100 all up (approx GBP40 or USD65 - but maybe less tomorrow!) through a local supplier with an ebay store.

Others may have had different experiences or found better LED's but as I said, I wasn't happy with the out and out effect of what other drivers would see - especially during daylight.

I also tried white LED's in the indicator and stop/tail just to see but they were worse (more piercing white light) than using amber/red units.

Interested to hear more experiences or opinions.

[sebring]

try these guys - they do specific LED bulbs for cars - incl. ones for Smiths instruments:
http://www.aceparts.com/upgrade-bulbs/501/index.php