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LED bulbs
sebastiaan - 6/3/12 at 07:08 PM

Hi,

As part of my winter rebuild I'm looking at fitting LED-type replacement bulbs to my rear lights (tail, stop and indicator. All the round landrover defender style units).

Anyone got a recommendation?

Thanks!
Sebastiaan

omega 24 v6 - 6/3/12 at 07:35 PM

Not really a recommendation just a warning that your indicators will not work unless you ballast resistor them or fit a time based flasher unit which, in turn will not warn you when a bulb fails.

sebastiaan - 6/3/12 at 08:17 PM

Thanks for that. I was planning to get a led flasher relay at the same time to solve that problem. I'm basically looking for some first hand experience with the led replacement bulbs. Are they brighter /more visible than standard incandescent bulbs?

loggyboy - 6/3/12 at 08:32 PM

Get some that have LEDs at lots of angles, as when I got some a few years ago for my Tintop, they were great when you viewed them within a few degrees of perpendicular, but appeared very dim at more acute angles. This was down to almost all the LEDs pointing straight backwards.

spiyda - 7/3/12 at 12:13 AM

quote:
Originally posted by sebastiaan
Hi,

As part of my winter rebuild I'm looking at fitting LED-type replacement bulbs to my rear lights (tail, stop and indicator. All the round landrover defender style units).

Anyone got a recommendation?

Thanks!
Sebastiaan


If you can measure the biggest diameter disc you can fit inside the lens...

it is probable that the indicator boards I make for Minis will fit

the indicator from the MK1 front (about 47mm dia)
https://www.spiyda.com/magento/index.php/classic-mini-parts/individual-lights/classic-mini-led-front-indicator-board-mk1-on.html

The stop and tail would need a new board, but I could rustle one up in a day or two

They use 6 off 10mm 0.5 watt wide beam LEDs for the brake and indicator..
brighter, more visible and longer life than the standard bulb... and a LOT cheaper than the NAS LED lights

cost would be £11 per bulb replacement (the same as the mini ones when I put the price up this weekend)


Chris

www.spiyda.com

ps I also do the ballast resistors and ususlly very good LED flasher units but I am out of stock of those for a week or so




[Edited on 7/3/12 by spiyda]

owelly - 7/3/12 at 01:57 AM

I bought some stop/tail light replacement LEDs and the way they were connected inside, made a connection between the tail lights and brake lights which meant my high level brake light came on dim with my side lights and then bright with the brake lights. It also meant that the brake light circuit was conneced to both side light circuits and defeated the fuses.

loggyboy - 7/3/12 at 09:24 AM

These are the type I bought, which ha da very narrow angle:




Which I then replaced with ones like this that have extra LEDs at side:



It will very much depend on your lenses, as if you have reflectors you may want ones with lots of LEDs at the side to bounce off and spread the light:



Either way they are cheap as chips on ebay - 99p for orinental based sellers or £2-3 for UK.

spiyda - 7/3/12 at 10:27 AM

quote:
Originally posted by owelly
I bought some stop/tail light replacement LEDs and the way they were connected inside, made a connection between the tail lights and brake lights which meant my high level brake light came on dim with my side lights and then bright with the brake lights. It also meant that the brake light circuit was conneced to both side light circuits and defeated the fuses.


To work properly, they need diodes to prevent the stop and tail circuits interfering with each other...

thats a definite MOT fail