LED taillights, turn signals, marker lights & headlights!

[bgd73]

Originally Posted by Ryland

It depends on the LED, the LEDs that I use have a 180° spread so they are just as bright from the side as they are straight on, it hurts to look at them without a lens to defuse them.

I had to think of this too.. I go two at 120 degree to utilize a back reflector in its socket already in place...
side markers I bought at 90.. made to look pretty can be focused..they do not have a back reflector if anyone hasn't noticed.

another bonus in my own vehicle is the license plate lights are under a rim that catches crud in the bad weather and dust etc..

I found chemistries happen on the hot incandescent areas..as well as ionization, (the rim or handle I refer to is all aluminum).. exactly wrong for leaky sockets and bulbs. the led can fix this.

also, back to reflectors in the sockets.. oem seemingly uses one bulb for all things. side marker, and license plate can be two specific items now, and colored.

I stop with led upgrade at the 194 sockets only.. I only have 14 lights. the 1157/1156 last forever precisely in safe places, brightly, and I bought incandescent headlights with xenon gas instead of the cheap radon iron suckers that all of us have had for 50 years... one does not have to do the whole car to benefit.

[NeilBlanchard]

The amber turn signals and the red taillight units have the 9 LEDs on the end of the unit, and they have 6 LEDs shining to the sides below that, so they "fill" the reflectors pretty well. The mini white marker lights all shine from the end, and so they are more directional. The reflectors on the xA for these are somewhat directional to begin with, so the LEDs are now a bit more directional.

As others have mentioned, the blinking speed is done on purpose to tell you when one of the bulbs is gone -- and it is ~2X as fast.

I'll check which flasher I need -- the one for the "newer Toyotas" is $13, so I'll probably buy it...

[NeilBlanchard]

Here's a very helpful post on the Scion Life forum:

xB:My easy clear tail light mod. - Scionlife.com

He just added a higher resistance wire in the flasher to keep the speed of the flashing the way it was -- is this method just going to use the power to heat the resistor, or would this be a good ecomod?

[dcb]

the coil is an efficient mod, as is tweaking the rc circuit if you can identify one. The ballast resistor, not so.

[NeilBlanchard]

Okay, I ordered the blinking unit from Super Bright LEDs -- and I ordered some brighter miniature wedge base bulbs for the license plate and front marker lights, and some for the side turn signals; and a set for my wife's xD... yeah, I got carried away. :-)

[NeilBlanchard]

I just noticed that they have LED DRL bulbs:

H4-WHP Daytime Running Lamps Specifications

If you have separate lights ffor DRL and headlights, then this could be a good thing 30 or 65 mA is nice!

[RobertSmalls]

Wow, a 40lm H4? 55W halogen H4's put out 1000lm. 40lm are going to be ineffective as DRL's, so you may as well just take the bulbs out.

I have 7440's for corner lights, and they're 465lm / 25W. SBLED's 7440's have 80lm/2W. Here are some 540lm / 5.4W LED's, which would be tempting but for the price of $20/ea.

[NeilBlanchard]

Here's my mod; attempting to slow down the blinker -- it did slow it a *little* I think, but it is still pretty hyper... I used about an 8" long piece of steel wire (and made sure it doesn't touch itself):

[gone-ot]

...steel has over 10-times the DC-resistance that copper does, ie:

Steel = 18.00 x 10^(-8) ohms/meter
Copper = 1.72 x 10^(-8) ohms/meter

[NeilBlanchard]

I think that the stock wire is also steel? It is certainly quite stiff. So, I was hoping that going from ~1.5" to 8" would have done the trick. But, it didn't, and I've ordered the load independent flasher for $13.