Originally Posted by
waldig
Did lots of LED testing and have some results worthy of reading. I tried many led lights for the tail light assembly with rather mixed results. Most lights are not good, but look ok by them selves.
The light bulbs in the car are about an amp so they are about 12 watts of light. Hard to beat when the leds are less than a watt all together. The photos do NOT show the differences as the camera can not show the gains to be had with LEDS.
My favorite and the ones I will have installed are the high power leds that are with a heat sink. They are blue for the white and red for the red LED assemblies. These winning LEDS are focused and project the light out; which works in our tail light assemblies. Most of the others scatter the light into the reflector and look ok fooling your eye.
Check out my album, yes there is another one now, to get more info. I will get the IDs and P/N of the lamps that I used from EBAY. You can enjoy the operation too.
DATA:
THe blue-white LEDS are good for the backup light, I tested them at night and they appear to be bright enough to be worthy. I tested them by looking back from the car at night on dark gravel, one light exposed at a time stock versus the LED. From the rear , the LEDS look very good and a bit bluish, like the tag lights, not orangie like the incandescent lamp.
The red- red cased LEDS are real eye catchers without being too too offensive, like I wanna cut your punk ricer **** off. The light is a pure red and looks good in the housing, good color. Unlike the lamp, the LED had a singular red spot in the tail light that is at least as bright if not a 1/3 better image. THe camera is totally confused and can not show any of the clarity of light output. Have to trust me, they look good and are good for that sleepy POS following too closely behind you.
ALL LEDS shown use less power and will run a foul of the lamp out indicator, so you gotta get some resistors and add them in parallel with each ""FILAMENT"" of the lamps. Two for the brake and one resistor for the back up LED. I did not fool with the amber turn lamp as there are not good ones available for less than about 40$. Not worth it to me.
Wanna brighter lights and faster turn on of the brake lights, go LED. Please look over the photos, and see the small differences the camera was able to do. My camera shots were from the rear at a distance of about 30 feet, still overwhelmed the camera CCD cells, bluring the image. You gotta see the real deal to appreciate it, just dont get the little ones with a bunch of LEDS on a stick, not making it IMHO.
Enjoy, hope this helps get you lit so to speak, Woody
RED, ink get it ?
To clarify for the masses, can you post a link to purchase the ones that meet your stringent standards? Both the reverse and b/u bulbs, thanks!
Thanks!