LED TAILIGHTS,ANY GOOD?

[ihatemybike]

I almost feel like Astros have a big target painted on the back of them. I've been rear ended twice and I see lots of them driving around with rear end damage.

[nikskyline]

wow the leds realy liven the back end up,def gona get some now nik

[phr1$k37]

I almost feel like Astros have a big target painted on the back of them. I've been rear ended twice and I see lots of them driving around with rear end damage.

YAH THINK!?
Twice is nothing compared to how many times I have been plowed into!!!

Hey normally those LEDs do not throw up a ton of light - but can someone confirm if they are indeed a heck of a lot brighter!? I mean take a photo of before and after or change just one side and pull 10' away from a wall and show us the light difference!

[wagonmaster]

Hey normally those LEDs do not throw up a ton of light - but can someone confirm if they are indeed a heck of a lot brighter!? I mean take a photo of before and after or change just one side and pull 10' away from a wall and show us the light difference!

Look at my picture, earlier in this thread! Every transit agency that I have ever seen and even the school bus industry is jumping on the LED bandwagon! They use far less juice and are WAY brighter, no comparison! Some designs require you to be in the rear of a vehicle (as opposed ot being way over to one side or the other) to get the "real" effect, but there is no comparison when you place them side by side with incandescent bulbs. Also they last probably 10 times longer as well!
Nearly every trucking company has them on tractors, trailers and dollies. The are also faster than regular bulbs and anyone behind you sees them a split second faster, giving them more time to react! It's truely a win-win situation with LEDs.

[phr1$k37]

Trying not to bash here but I like real examples. LED vs Bulb is NOT brighter. LEDs vs Bulb may be brighter. LEDs on a circuit board vs Bulb may be brighter. Without getting into the electronic part I just want good ol' comparisons because the above makes a difference as does the reflectors inside. I bought one a while back after seen them on a few people's ride but it was crappy lighting for me. My intent is to have more light so on the dark rainy days in the city backing up I have more light to see NOT to run over people

[Rebel]

I don't know how bright these will be but think there are 21 LED's in each of these strips, so hope they work out after all this crap with the rollpan. FBI is making another pan and lasor cutting the location in the pic for the strip. That metal piece on top of the red lens, by the way, is just the template used if you cut the opeing yourself.

[phr1$k37]

Thank you Rebel. I will keeping an eye on this thread. We had similar ones where I posted some links for others to try but again I was doubtful as to the light amount thrown. You guys know my light craze
If just for looks - they are awesome. But I want LIGHT!

[wagonmaster]

LED vs Bulb is NOT brighter. LEDs vs Bulb may be brighter.

I'm a little slow, admittedly, but am I missing something here?

I'll try to get you a night picture of my van lights on-brakes off, lights on-brakes on for comparison. If I can get my son's Safari over, we'll see 'em side by side. His has no LEDs.

[Rebel]

Joe,,,I'll agree,,I may be missing the boat myself.

The LED's are brighter, no doubt. The pic I posted, the lights are not on and may be part of the confusion,,sorry if that is the case. I haven't wired mine up to see if brighter but I'm sure they will be pretty bright.

[phr1$k37]

No, you did not miss the boat ... just in the wrong boat ...

Photos of comparison would be great folks!
One side with LED, one side with halogen ... brakes / reverse light on, cover up on side with cardboard or whatever and then switch.

BTW now that we got some curious folks here is a quick and dirty break down:

LED takes a threshold of 1.2-1.6V to light on and that is per LED - amps is what it pulls to make it brighter (or burn out lol) so you need many LEDs to make good Watts. This is why LEDs are not meant for headlamps yet because it cannot rival the Watts put out by good old xenon or HID due to it being easier to get Volts instead of Amps (think of your battery).

Typical 1157/1156 is 21Watts (21W/12V =1.75A). Lets take 21 LEDs with BEST case numbers at 1A each @ 1.6V = 33.6W. Neither situation is ideal because halogen bulbs lose energy to heat and LEDs to light refraction (there a good reflector / projector is even more important). BTW anyone full this far, it means our LED brake light with 21 LEDs to get the 33.6W is pull a total of 21Amps ... YIKES! OK fine it came with a circuit board and therefore uses Volts and pulls a total of 2As instead. Well 21 LEDs @ 1.2V (lower number for best case to get turn on threshold) is 25.2 divided by 2 = 12.6V meaning the circuit board needs to be able to hold higher voltage to discharge to get the brightness. Think what a flash on a camera does.

Anyways painting the picture - a good LED set may be brighter and if you guys have one please copy and paste link where you got it! LOL

Also bare in mind there are 50W 1157 / 1156 but they generate a bit of heat and I change my bulbs once a year :( They claim 2.5 the brightness over standard, number wise it is more like 2.

Hope I have not bored anyone. Again I am just crazy for light

[safariobsession]

Here's another way to think about it...I'm not really sure if i understand what you mean phr1$k37 but here's what i figured in setting up round LED segments (with 20 LEDs) from work, to retrofit into my altezza tail lights.

Originally the segments were setup for 24 Volts but i was able to convert them to run on 12 volts by splitting up the two 10 LEDS setup in series, into 4 sets of 5 LEDs in series.

At full brightness the LED segment (20 LEDs) was pulling 70 mA or .070 A at 12 volts. These LEDs had about 2.25 volt drop across each of them, so 5 in each series.....
12 volts - (5 * 2.25 volts) = .75 volts remaining for the drop across the "in series" 100 ohm resistor (to limit current).

The highest LED wattage rating i've seen is a 1 Watt white LED, and it definitely lights up a room for a miniture LED! The wattage an incandescent bulb pulls get transferred into a lot of heat. Yes you need a lot of LEDs to equal one incandescent bulb but at equal brightness between the two, the LED setup draws far less current. This is one reason why your blinkers might blink faster with them in place because the load (current) isn't there to heat up the contacts inside the flasher unit to operate correctly. Sooo...there should be a load resistor in parallel with the LED setup as a whole, to fool the flasher unit into thinking the original incandescent load is still there (not burnt out, haha). So in the end the LED tail lights might draw the same current as the original incandescent setup to "blinker blinker" right, using that load resistor.

[wagonmaster]

If you want to actual check light output use candlepower, not watts. After my motorcycle accident last year, I installed an LED tailight. There is NO COMPARISON at night, with without brakes on, when riding next to a person without LED lights!! Check out the tractor trailers with and withot LED lights....There are dozens of comparisons out there, if that's what you need. Good luck with it.

[phr1$k37]

If you want to actual check light output use candlepower, not watts.

That is correct but I dont think 95% of the folks on this forum can do that LOL. Actually I have seen the LEDs in motorcycles - VERY good light and is not dispersed too much.

Again I dont mean to bash anything just that I have gone through some LEDs for my Safari and no good. On the BMW gone through two sets not happy until I got a good set with a control board to pop voltage up and to give the proper resistance to the BMW circuit for timed flashes - man those are bright and good!

Waiting for the results from other folks here - then I may try the same thing again. Getting brighter back lights beats wiring up a set of AUX lights ;p I dont do night time boat loading - maybe just once a year if even!? Just want more light for the nice dark rainy nights