Tail/Marker/Turn Signal Lights
Michael Faith
started converting brake light and turn signal bulbs over to the new LED
bulbs.
This led me to thinking.... we could actually put these things in my A
Body, and if I did it all the way around, I wouldn't have to worry about
changing a bulb for another 20 years!!
Not to mention the LED's draw less voltage and amperage...
I've tested my "theory" across all of my vehicles here at home.... The only
thing that you have to get is a VARIABLE Voltage Turn Signal Amp, instead of
the ol' thermal deals.
I love it... and my commercial insurance company says that the LED's come on
so much quicker tthan regular bulbs.. and at highway speed it translates
into an extra 90 feet of stopping distance for the person behind you.
Anybody else's thoughts?
Mike
Joshua Skinner
less.
Variable voltage turn signal amp? I'll assume you mean the turn signal flasher.
Yes, you would have to use a heavy duty flasher instead of the original fixed
load flasher. The fixed load flasher was there to indicate when you had a burned
out bulb by not flashing the remaining bulbs and dash indicator. Heavy duty
(still thermal) and electronic flashers will flash just about any load (within
reason) so you loose the dead bulb indicating feature, but can tow a trailer
without flashing the bulbs too fast or burning up the flasher itself.
The LED replacement bulbs do come on faster, but I think 90' is optimistic even
at highway speeds. 60 MPH is 5280 ft/min or 88 ft/sec so you would have to have
the tail lights lit one full second sooner for your insurance company's
statement to be true. Since neither of us are likely to have a high speed camera
and clock to measure the difference between the bulbs further argument is
futile.
Joshua Skinner
Little Bill
Don't beleve me, turn on your light switch at home and try to time how
long it is between when the circuit is completed and when the lights
come on.
Daniel Stern Lighting
> Incandescent light bulbs react very quickly (much faster than a second).
About 200 milliseconds from "off" to full intensity for a standard brake
lamp bulb. About 3 milliseconds from "off" to full intensity for an LED.
--DS
Daniel Stern Lighting
> I own a business that has quite a few service trucks.... Recently, we
> started converting brake light and turn signal bulbs over to the new LED
> bulbs.
Uh-oh...exactly what kind of conversion did you do? This "LED bulbs" stuff
has me worried you might have bought these cheesy "wafer of LEDs on an
1157 bulb base" pieces of trash. I hope you replaced your trucks'
standard-size bulb-type signal units with standard-size LED-type signal
units, many of which are quite good indeed.
> This led me to thinking.... we could actually put these things in my A
> Body, and if I did it all the way around, I wouldn't have to worry about
> changing a bulb for another 20 years!!
True, but nobody makes A-body LED modules. The riceboy "wafer on a base
bulb retrofit" stuff _is_not_safe_. You don't get adequate intensity,
adequate projected area (just a small dot lights up in the middle of the
lens), adequate bright/dim ratio or adequate vertical or horizontal angles
of visibility. Bulb-type lamps rely on the point-type light source of a
glowing filament. The reflector and lens disperse this light through a
wide vertical and horizontal angle, and the whole lens lights up. Altering
these performance aspects is not a safety upgrade, but a downgrade.
"Carpeting" the inside of the lens with individual LEDs doesn't get you
out of jail, either. Take a look at some of the LED standard-size modules
from Truck-Lite, Peterson or Diodelite sometime...the optics required to
spread the narrow, highly unidirectional light from an LED are pretty
fancy! And that's to say nothing of what's required to make them work in
the dedicated-to-auto-model rear lamp clusters such as those found in some
Cadillacs. Check it out sometime.
And now I have a question for you: Who cares if you never have to change a
brake light bulb again? Even the most expensive kind of bulb, which your
car does not use, costs only a buck or two.
> Not to mention the LED's draw less voltage and amperage...
Less voltage, no. They're 12v units, just like the bulbs. Less amperage,
yes, but who cares? Have you been having problems with turn signal circuit
overload lately?
> I've tested my "theory" across all of my vehicles here at home.... The only
> thing that you have to get is a VARIABLE Voltage Turn Signal Amp, instead of
> the ol' thermal deals.
And lose your bulb outage indicator. Fine if you're in the habit of
checking your lights every day. Are you?
> my commercial insurance company says that the LED's come on
> so much quicker tthan regular bulbs.
Yes, quite a bit faster.
> and at highway speed it translates
> into an extra 90 feet of stopping distance for the person behind you.
That obviously depends upon the speed the vehicle is travelling when the
driver applies his brakes. Nevertheless, it's worthless if the brake lamp
doesn't produce proper brightness through proper horizontal and vertical
angles, doesn't light-up the whole lens evenly, and doesn't have a clear
enough contrast between bright (brake) and dim (tail) modes.
--DS
Steve
> I've tested my "theory" across all of my vehicles here at home.... The only
> thing that you have to get is a VARIABLE Voltage Turn Signal Amp, instead of
> the ol' thermal deals.
No need for any variable voltage stuff- just get a "heavy duty" flasher
(fixed rate, not fixed load) and go. Or splurge the $10 and get a fully
electronic flasher.
Steve
you have to do is catch a tractor-trailer rig that has LEDs on the
trailer and incandescents on the tractor (or vice versa) and watch the
signals from a positiion where you can see both at once. You'll be amazed.
Michael Faith
And indeed, you are correct, on some of my older trucks, the wafer bulb is
only projecting straight ahead.... so back to the regular bulb it goes!
My thoughts on the swap to LED bulbs on the A-Body is the fact that it's a
pain on some of the marker lights...
And I dunno why I dropped the variable rate flasher amp.... guess amp was
subconscieous??? heh heh
Anyway... later
"Steve" <n...@spam.thanks> wrote in message
news:3D10AE3C...@spam.thanks...
Daniel Stern Lighting
> And indeed, you are correct, on some of my older trucks, the wafer bulb is
> only projecting straight ahead.... so back to the regular bulb it goes!
You can improve on the performance of bulb-type lamps by cleaning-up the
reflectors and shooting them with "Chrome Aluminum" spray paint from the
hardware store, and cleaning the lenses in hot soapy water. Then, use high
efficiency bulbs as follows:
Replace 1157 with 3496
Replace 1156, 1141 with 3497
Replace 194, 158, 168 with W5W (2825, Sylvania number)
Replace mini bayonet-base marker bulbs (e.g. 1895, 53) with T4W (3893
Sylvania)
For standard-size LED lamp modules that *work*, try www.truck-lite.com
--DS
Little Bill
was not significant, only that incandescents lights would illuminate in
much less time than a second. Thus the speeds and distances posted by
Joshua Skinner were highly optimistic for the speed required for there
to be a 90' difference. If we assume that Daniel Stern's times are
correct, then we would need to be traveling 5 times faster than Mr.
Skinner's estimate to result in a 90' difference. I don't think that
many of us are driving at 300 mph on the highway, or the track.
Joshua Skinner
just over one full second for a car to travel 90' @ 60 MPH. And 90' was the
quoted difference in highway stooping distance between LED and incandescent
brake lights. Since Daniel was able to provide 200 ms for an incandescent bulb
to go from "off" to full bright and that an LED takes only 3 ms the difference
is 197 ms. You only travel 17.336' at 60 MPH in 197 ms. And 17.336' is not 90'.
But that 17' or a little over one car length can be a big help in an emergency.
Joshua Skinner
Michael Faith
we have another factor here....
It is not the "how far you traveled from off to on and off again", but the
reaction time of the driver following you- this is where the additional 90
foot comes in at.
And that variable could be argued all night long... :D
Mike
"Joshua Skinner" <joshua...@spammenotattbi.com> wrote in message
news:3D12BAF1...@spammenotattbi.com...
Little Bill
claim was that the difference between incandescent and LED lights would
result in a 90' difference at highway speeds. Although the reaction
time of the driver does change the distance for the driver to stop, it
will be canceled when comparing the differences in the lights.