LED Replacement Bulbs

Honest John Back Room » Technical matters
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Tue 5 Oct 2004 20:58
LED Replacement Bulbs - fossyant
A number of companies have now started making replacement LED side light, indicator and stop/tail lamps in the common bulb formats for all cars.

I have recently replaced my front side lamp (501 type) bulbs for white LED ones - one car with 9-led bulbs and the other with a 6-led bulbs. They are brighter and whiter than conventional bulbs. Does anyone know the legal issues with these or are they perfectly fine so long as you stick to the correct colour !
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Wed 6 Oct 2004 00:15
LED Replacement Bulbs - Kingpin
I think you should be OK so long as white at the front of the car and red to the rear as per usual laws.
You may find websites that supply more common fitments also to replace your stop lights and indicator type bulbs etc. These are very popular with motorcyclists who like to modify their bikes, several adverts appear in accessory catalogues for LED bulb replacements. Eventually they will all be fitted as standard unless the bulb manufacturers object strongly?
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Wed 6 Oct 2004 08:23
LED Replacement Bulbs - Peter D
Indicator bulds not so easy as many flasher circuits rely on seeing the correct load to flash at the correct rate and the LED's do not and the flash rate increases dramatically usually implying you have a duff bulb. Regards Peter
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Wed 6 Oct 2004 10:42
LED Replacement Bulbs - bert-j
Also, if your car has a bulb failure warning sensor, it may 'see' a LED bulb as a failed conventional bulb. This is because LED's draw far less current than incandescent bulbs.
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Wed 6 Oct 2004 11:51
LED Replacement Bulbs - martint123
I went to a LED stop/tail lamp on one of my bikes because it was going throught filament bulbs at an alarming rate - vibration from a big single I suppose.

Main problem is that I couldn't see it at all due to the red lens. With a white bulb, the lens just lets the red bit of the light through. With a red LED lamp, the 'colour' of the red must have been slighty different to the colour of the lens - so none went through. I couldn't do away with the lens as the reflector was built in to it. Ended up cutting a circular hold in the lens and it works a treat and flies through the MOT.

Martin
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Wed 6 Oct 2004 13:04
LED Replacement Bulbs - Schnitzel
I tried some of these multi-LED replacements for rear lights, they were rubbish and feable, as the light comes out at the wrong angle, it doesn't get sent in all directions by the parabolic reflector, and only a small 40mm circle of light could be seen on each lens.
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