LED turn/brake lights, JDM tails, oh my!

[grmorrow04]

So I'm getting ready to install JDM tails that I bought off a member, and thought it couldn't be a better time to put LED's in place for the turn signals and parking/brake lights.

 

TSi+WRX helped me understand more of what he feels is needed, and I agree; high SMT count radially mounted to fill the bowls, and something with high-powered front-throw to "blind" the people behind you when you brake.

 

http://autolumination.com/ seems to have a good selection of the appropriate bulbs necessary to accomplish this. Yes I know that the flasher has to be replaced as well, that's on the list as well.

 

Does anyone have any experience in using these, or other bulbs, with any amount of success? Any pictures? Looking for other member's experience so feel free to chime in!

 

If all else fails, I might try buying different kinds to see what the best illumination for my needs ends up being. I have searched around here, but it seems the only thing I'm finding are threads about LED license plate lamps, or custom LED boards fitted into the tail lamp housings.

[berkshire40]

In for answer, was looking at their tower bulbs last night and they seem to have great side illumination.

[Underdog]

Good timing! I just started opening up my jdm tails for a similar project. I want to put led turn signal in the diffuser stripe and have the open socket as a rear "flasher". Otherwise I will duplicate the usdm pattern and use regular bulbs.

[TSiWRX]

I really wanted grmorrow04 to post this publicly, so that we can get a discussion going. I honestly don't have the knowledge-base to be able to give him proper advice, and what's more, I feared that what little know-how I had was out-dated.

 

Here's what we talked about, in our PM:

 

I was wondering if you could recommend some LED's for use in stop/park/turn? Or am I just being silly and should stick to stock style bulbs? http://legacygt.com/forums/../images/smilies/spin.gif

 

I'll give this a shot - it's something that I would like to move to, too, but I'll tell you of the difficulties, as I go along......

 

I've been parusing through autolumination and superbrightled but can't seem to put a finger on what LED's would be optimal for my setup. Car is a BL, 2005.

 

I've got JDM tails and am doing a retro on my headlights (soon), but I'm filling the squirrel blinders for now for my DDM's. I'm debating about the front amber reflectors now, but this is what I'm thinking for LED's:

 

Amber Front/rear turns (I want amber running lights in front, not the clear when running then amber when blinking ones)

Red running/brake lights

 

From Superbrightleds:

315-x18-T (amber front turns)

7440-A15 (amber rear turns)

7443-R15 (red tail/brake)

 

I can't make heads or tails of what the optimal setup would be from autolumination, so many similar bulbs that it's almost sickening.

 

http://autolumination.com/7443_7440.htm

http://autolumination.com/3157_3156.htm

 

Then on top of that there is this V-leds.com which seems to be the most expensive.

 

 

So, here's the problem.

 

I think that virtually anything that's not the "traditional"-type LEDs ( i.e. http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=%2Fspecs%2F7443.htm ) will offer more than sufficient intensity for a parking-marker/turn-signal application, as long as there's something accounting for "radially" projecting the light, since the popular-for-this-application "surface-mount" LEDs are very, very directional in nature.

 

Why?

 

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=%2Fled_info.htm

 

Look at the "LED intensity" section.

 

Using that calculator ( http://led.linear1.org/lumen.wiz ) on the linked product above, we get (9 LEDs) * (8300 mcd) = 74700 mcd @ 35-degrees beam angle, which nets ~22 lumens.

 

Look, instead, at the lumen-output figures for:

 

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=%2Fspecs%2F315x-x18-T.htm

 

But in-truth, I'd actually pursue even more SMTs, like what you cited of the Autolumination products, like products 1 through 3 and 5 and 6 (all counting top-to-bottom) on this page:

 

http://autolumination.com/7443_7440.htm

 

The more SMT elements you can cram in there, the more radial light will result - allowing you to "fill" the reflector bowl.

 

Look at it like this:

 

The current LEDs - be it one of those SMT elements or a single "star" (as seen in the 4th product on the above page, the one that I skipped over, above) - used by these product makers all "shine forward." If you dropped a single one of these LEDs into, say, a common MagLite flashlight head, you'd get very little light "thrown" forward, as compared to a standard incandescent bulb. Custom flashlight makers, as of the turn of the decade, had started using different optics as well as "stars" that distributed the outgoing light differently (i.e. "side-firing") in order to shape that light, to be used by conventional reflector bowls.

 

So, lacking such specialized optics or stars, what you want is to have as many individual LEDs firing radially at the bowl as you can, to "fill" it up.

 

But what about the brake lamp?

 

That's the *REAL* toughie.

 

You need to both fill up the bowl, as well as to plain just be obnoxiously bright for the guy directly behind you - just the same as any incandescent fixture or the high-dollar (or high-fashion) vehicles with LED brake lights do, today.

 

http://autolumination.com/3157_3156.htm

 

Products 5 and 6, and 12 and 13 catch my eyes - because they all tout some kind of "bowl filling" side elements, along with some kind of more powerful "forward facing" element to really put power where it needs to be: directly behind you.

 

My fear, though, is thermal shutdown on these 1W and 3W stars. It appears that these stars are heat-sink'ed, but in a constant-on application, I honestly don't know when they'll reach shut-down, and that would be unacceptable for a brake-lamp.

 

I'm sure you remember my earlier posts on my rear-fog project - at that time, I'd entertained using some of these 1W and 3W stars, but, at least back then, they had thermal-shutdown warnings...which I now can't find. I don't know if this means that they've improved things so much that this is no longer a worry, or what.

 

To tell you the truth, I think that your questions will benefit much from an open-Forum posting, to solicit opinions and experiences from people who've actually used various of these lamp elements. Sadly, I just don't have enough first-hand experience, with the exception of that rather disappointing early SMT "radial" bulb element I tried (which used very few SMT chips). http://legacygt.com/forums/../images/smilies/redface.gif

 

And to be brutally honest, also my true thinking at this time is that unless you want to take some pains (and some expense) to experiment, it's probably safer and easier to just stick with the standard incandescents: at least for the brake lamp and the rear-fog. http://legacygt.com/forums/../images/smilies/smile.gif

 

Well, that's it, I'm tapping out! http://legacygt.com/forums/../images/smilies/redface.gif Hope this was at least of some help!

[anthonyr]

sorry if this is a repetitive question, but i was hopeing someone could point me in the correct direction. i just ordered some front and rear signal lights, but cant seem to locate and electronic flasher. mostly in part because i cant find my part #. 2008 legacy here. any help would be greatly appreciated

[grmorrow04]

http://legacygt.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2756802&postcount=89

 

Not sure if it's in the same spot for 08's, but that's what my car has.

 

Slight update on this topic: I've decided to do something different for the fronts that I haven't seen done yet on this forum; I'll be updating later once my experiment develops more.

[Nickz31se-r]

Notes to self 05 wagon

Front marker/signal 3157a

Rear signal 7440

[berkshire40]

anyone get these bulbs?

[grmorrow04]

Once Christmas is over with, I'm going to start trying some different bulbs. I don't like seeing the orange bulb in my JDM tails... not stealthy enough for me!

[peteyjr]

Did anyone get these LED Bulbs? Tired of ugly orange rear turn signal bulb on my Clear Hanabi tails.