SuperbrightLEDs taillights and marker lights

[PaleMelanesian]

I did my best to meet or exceed the OEM brightness. One reason I bought from SuperBright is they actually give specs, including lumens. The taillights (brightest they offer) are rated at about 1/3 OEM lumens, but it's all red instead of white that gets filtered by the lens.

[Cobb]

Now lets see how long they last.

[NeilBlanchard]

The good news is, that with pure DC, LED's should last virtually forever - or certainly longer than the car they are installed in.

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

The good news is, that with pure DC, LED's should last virtually forever - or certainly longer than the car they are installed in.

They should, but often they don't. At least one of my LED chips is out, saw it flicker and die. It had only spent 0.001 % of its promised burning hours. All of my LEDs are quite new, but I am anxious to see if the rest will hold out.

[nackerton]

Originally Posted by PaleMelanesian

The taillights (brightest they offer) are rated at about 1/3 OEM lumens, but it's all red instead of white that gets filtered by the lens.

Yes, that's true.

I took few pics of the tail light set on my vehicle. Right side of the car is stock on the picture (21W incandescent for brake, 10W for tail).

On the tail light assembly indicator bulb is stock, next to it is a 35W halogen for reverse, short 20 smd bulb is for tail, and longer ones (46 and 30 smds) are for brakes and fog light (I added diodes to make the fog light work as an additional brake light). All the bulbs have ba15s base, leds are red.

46 smd bulb is actually much brighter then the 21w incan. bulb, the lense makes incandescent look brighter from this direction.

[Blue Angel]

Originally Posted by darcane

I presume this means you didn't bother with using a projector lens, and just used your standard reflector headlight housing?

All the HID enthusiasts bemoan this practice due to the poor light pattern it creates which leads to glare for oncoming drivers.

Having seen a bunch of these driving around, it seems like much ado about nothing, but it's enough to keep me from giving it a shot. However, my Civic's headlights are rather pathetic, so I've been considering it.

Some halogen headlights are better than others regarding stray light, but since they all meet the same standard there's no telling which ones are better. The fact remains that the standard approves their light control with sources of roughly 1/3 the output. This means that if a particular light was right at the limit of the standard, it could be close to THREE TIMES the limit with an HID swap.

This, and the general disregard for other motorists by the "key target demographic" of HID kits (i.e. people who just do it for the look without knowing or caring about other factors) are the key reasons for its lack of popularity.

Many of these kits are also of poor quality and are not regulated in any way, so if the arc is not positioned precisely where the bulb filament would be the light pattern can change.

If we "ecomodders" were truly eco-minded, we'd be looking to keep light output the same as halogen and using 15 watt ballasts instead of 35.

[Blue Angel]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

The good news is, that with pure DC, LED's should last virtually forever - or certainly longer than the car they are installed in.

You'd be right, if only cars offered pure DC!

The main reason cheap LED bulbs fail is that their drivers are not equipped to deal with the constant bombardment of noise and voltage fluctuations in the automotive environment. I've read articles suggesting that electrical filtration and component robustness should to combine to handle up to 120V spikes and numerous other energy fluctuations.

Perhaps someone here has experience in the OEM world of electronics supply who can comment further?

I bet comparing the schematic of a $5 aftermarket LED replacement bulb with the schematic of an OEM LED tail light assembly would be very telling.

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by Blue Angel

If we "ecomodders" were truly eco-minded, we'd be looking to keep light output the same as halogen and using 15 watt ballasts instead of 35.

I've been craving those! But could not find any, let alone at a reasonable price.

Anyway, with my 35W HIDs I have the best of two worlds: more light (where that was needed) for less power.
I don't think it is just about ballasts either, you'd need the right lamp or the startup time in the cold would be really bad, to name one thing.

[Blue Angel]

Yes, my comment was a little sarcastic... but we can dream, right? As you said, at least the existing hardware is a step in the right direction.

I know there are lots of ballasts that are more powerful than 35w, but haven't seen any less powerful. I have lots of OEM HID hardware hanging around, but I've convinced myself not to go ahead with a swap until I'm ready to retrofit a set of projectors. That might be a while for me.

[PaleMelanesian]

I just ordered a pair each of the Philips Ecovision halogens and the Sylvania Ecobrights. They'll fit both my Fit and Odyssey. Whichever consumes lower power goes in mine, the other goes in the Ody ("other driver" doesn't EOC). $16 and 13 from Amazon, respectively.