LED lighting

Hey good people,

I'm defending after years of tail light issues to go to LED bulbs. My understanding is they run cooler and i wont have to worry about the tail light circuits melting. However, autozone states that i need an inline fusebox to keep rapid flashing from occuring? Any info or suggestions?

I think the rapid flashing is only for your turn signals. Your tails, reverse, fogs, etc. should be fine.

Replace the flasher with a no load electric unit instead of the stock thermal one. All the typical parts store carry them.

Just swap out your turn signal relay for this one. Also what model do you own. If you swap out the third brake light with a LED the 240 bulb indicator will stay lit.

If you are putting these in the redblock car tail lights like a 7/9 or 240. Be sure to use omni directional output led units. The tail light housings require light all around inside of them to be brightly lit up.

SuperbrightLED's has the correct turn signal flasher that works with LED turn signals.
You will have to bypass your Bulb-Out module so the warning light doesn't come on.


LED reality check: Yes they are cool, and more efficient than bulbs. After getting all the turn signal and BOI problems solved you are left with 3 issues that affect LED's and a good many other physical objects in the universe.
1. How much current were these tiny things designed for. Engineers like brightness, but LED's do get hot. If they are run near their brightness limits, life span is goes from 30 years to maybe 6 months.
2. The life span of one particular LED can't be predicted. Like lots of other things, Gaussian distribution is in effect. Some will last forever, some will burn out in a few weeks. Most will fall somewhere in the middle.
3. The quality of manufacturing makes a huge difference in the durability of the part. Currently almost all LED's are made in China.

-L

I don’t aprove

dl242gt said:

If you are putting these in the redblock car tail lights like a 7/9 or 240. Be sure to use omni directional output led units. The tail light housings require light all around inside of them to be brightly lit up.

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+1



Using those (hope hotlink keeps working) in the tail lights to replace the 5/21w bulbs. No issues so far. Had a pair of those in white go bad though, various sets still OK. Hit or miss. Especially brake/taillights, easy upgrade and better visibility.

damann808 said:

However, autozone states that i need an inline fusebox to keep rapid flashing from occuring? Any info or suggestions?

Click to expand...

You don't need an "Inline Fusebox", what I think they intended to say was an inline "Load Resistor". Effectively this completely negates the benefit of LEDs on the electrical system, however you do get the other benefits with one major caveat.

"Load" Resistors have their problem in their name. They resist current, which is expunged as heat from the resistor body. They have to have a heatsink on them (most intended for their usage on Automotive LEDs have them built in), and then they have to be mounted in an area away from heat sensitive components, preferably attached to another metal surface to assist in sinking the heat away from the device.

Don't make it any more complicated adding those things. They're super popular, but they're a poor approach to a problem more easily solved as mentioned above. Get a "Low Load", "Heavy Duty" or "LED Flasher" relay. They will correct your hyperflash problem the right way. The only time I would even consider using LEDs, is if your car unfortunately has the flasher relay built into your gauge cluster. Thankfully, (AFAIK) bricks have replaceable flasher relays.

I would also consider disabling/bypassing your "Bulb Integrity" system as this has been known to fail in its age resulting in intermittent light issues as well as persistent bulb out indications when using LEDs, even using mismatched incandescent bulbs.

I replaced every bulb on my car with ebay chinesum and a no load flasher from a local parts house. Probably advance auto, because they are close. Over a year and change with no issues. I bought literally the cheapest bulbs I could find. I have about $40 in bulbs for the whole car, including the dash. There is no reason not to swap to led. I removed the bulb out light during the process to remove headaches.

My left rear tail light is a melted aftermarket assembly. Once I fiddled with it enough to get it working it has been flawless. I check my lights at every oil change as a matter of routine. No problems to date.

The adjustable time delay relays for taming the timing problem are really nice. Setting it to a speed that is noticeably faster than stock but not so fast as if there's a bulb out has continued to make me smile. Adjustment knob is reachable from the driver's seat, although once set, I've found no reason to re-adjust it. Give a shout if you want a link to the part. 4 or so years on mine and no troubles.