LEDs for bulbs...

[SteveB]

Any ideas where to get replacement LEDs instead of old inefficient bulbs? (For indicators, sidelights, interior light or anything)

Cheers

[SiDaBa]

www.speeding.co.uk free delivery may i note as i've used them before, was most impressed with the blue side light led's i got my friend for his car although they're not street legal i know. Anyhow there is a lot of warning about them not necessarily being road legal so if any one can clear that one up for me i'd be greatful!!

[optima21]

if you use the indicator leds, you need to wire up additional resistances in parallel as the led bulbs dont draw enough current, so the indicators will flash tooo fast

[pettsy]

i think volksbits sell them aswell

[EdN]

For Sidelight the place to go is here:

http://www.hid.uk.com/piaa59.htm

Break, Indicator, Reversing can be found here:

http://www.3dzled.com/vehicle.html

[KarlM]

PM Josh_pologti - he can get some bulbs from his mate (Foxy)

[Tahrey1043]

fitting resistors so they draw more current..... so they end up just as inefficient as the old ones

and if you just try to make them brighter to compensate, you end up blinding people (as i found out when following some f***r who had a full LED rear light conversion - the brakelights were dazzling, but the indicators were like bloody lasers!)

hard to mess with the manufacturers specs sometimes innit! how much would a replacement flasher cost and/or are THEY easy to mod?

[retro]

Current = Voltage / Resistance

So, increasing the resistance will reduce the current, not increase it.

[Tahrey1043]

ok then, thats me told the flashing rate will go to nuts all the same right?

some of the power is still going away as heat though isn't it?
sort of why electric motors use electronic pulse controllers these days instead of rheostats / variable resistors?

hmm there's an idea - a replacement flasher unit that doesn't just drop the voltage with the same flash duration, but can control the brightness pulse-wise with high frequency (say 100hz? similar to mains?) on/offing of variable "width" (so e.g. it's extra bright in daytime/fog but dimmer at night)...
i think my bike light does that - it has a "dim" mode which triples the battery life but emits a whistling noise.. and has a little circuit board inside rather than just a switch and a resistor.


having a look at the speeding site right now, havent got to the LEDs yet --- i just hope they're a better deal than their chrome stripping. the package they have on sale for £25, could be had from halfords for £17, and probably somewhere else even cheaper!

edit - mm interesting, they seem pricey, but then i dunno what's being charged elsewhere. polo suitable stuff seems a bit thin though...
also they cant tell the difference between vacuum and air/fuel ratio (bit of a problem when its actually printed on the guage being sold).... seems like a bit of a saxo crowd site
http://www.speeding.co.uk/acatalog/Book_Section.html
spot the obvious omission

quite taken by some of the miscellaneous gadgets however!
and the idea of a manifold vacuum guage "for better fuel economy".. hmm

[retro]

Oh, I understand what you mean now, fitting resistors to lower the overall resistance (if you see what I mean), so that the flasher unit doesn't think a bulb has blown.

Yeah, thats a crap way of doing it, defeats the whole point of it if you ask me. I just assumed that you would get flasher units that could compensate. Surely you can just get a flasher unit that will run at a constant rate regardless of the load? If not, I'm sure you could build one using a relay triggered by a 555 timer chip.

Interesting idea with the adjustable indicators, I wonder if thats legal? If you converted all the indicators to LED's and ditched the flasher relay, it probably wouldn't be too hard to knock up a circuit that had a variable brightness and/or flash rate.

[Tahrey1043]

yep, thought so....

Speeding's price on "hotspot" LED stop/tail light: £16.99 (or £29.99 for the rather hard-to-fathom "ok for red lenses" variation.. eh??)
Halfrauds: £9.99 (marked, however, as "offroad use only")

see, they are good for something!