Re: Instrument lights
Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2018 7:56 am
The Veg wrote: The question is whether the lamp should be so dim, because I have no prior experience with these. I think the answer is 'no' at this point, so I'm looking at some LEDs so I won't have to go in after them again for a while.
It's hard to tell just how bright a bulb is from a photo but the bulbs in my instruments were so dim I couldn't see the display at night. Like you I checked the voltage to the bulbs and the earths but couldn't find anything to blame and the bulbs in the other instruments were fine. Rather than just replace them I changed to LEDs about a year ago and it has made a substantial difference. From memory the LEDs were around 100 lumens and that's about as bright as you'd want to go. Any brighter and light spill round the edges would become distracting.
Both bulbs were ordered as warm white (3k) but annoyingly the one in the tachometer seems to be colder and at night you can see the difference. It's no big deal and I'll get round to changing it eventually but it's something to check for when buying them.