LED taillight guinea pig.

Flight Test · 09-12-2005, 08:28 PM

I said to myself, "Joe, what the hell. Get a set of LED taillights and see how they do." I researched these lights from several different sites and chose to purchase from www.superbrightleds.com. They have 25 total LEDs, 19 pointing to the rear and 6 mounted radially at 90 deg. from the base to fill the reflector. Make sure you get red LEDs. These are direct replacements for the 3156/3157 tail-tail/stop bulbs. Each bulb cost $7.95 each, $5.00 for shipping, total $36.80. They appear to be as bright as the originals. The only downside is they do need a current-limiting resistor because they flash very fast. My question is if I leave it as is, will the lifespan of the flasher unit be shortened? I've attached a few pics for your viewing entertainment. Let me know what y'all think.

f00dstamps · 09-12-2005, 08:56 PM

in my previous car, i had LED bulbs all around. i was most displeased with the brightness of the taillights during the day. you could hardly see it when you stepped on the brakes. however, at night, they looked great! the only thing that convinced me not to switch them back to incandescent bulbs was that i had a 3rd brake light plus a light for my spoiler that was plenty bright. otherwise, i'd be concerned with someone rear ending me during the day.

how is the brightness during the day? are they very visible in direct sunlight? maybe for a fellow TT member, you could switch one side back to the incandescent and take some pics both in the garage again and some outside in direct light so we could see the difference?

bestatchess · 09-12-2005, 09:23 PM

So the advantage is supposed to be less current draw & heat, but then you have to add a big fat power resistor to draw more current & generate heat? Don't they have solid state timing circuits to flash LEDs? Or maybe they are too expensive?

SmokenTitan · 09-12-2005, 10:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by f00dstamps

in my previous car, i had LED bulbs all around. i was most displeased with the brightness of the taillights during the day. you could hardly see it when you stepped on the brakes. however, at night, they looked great! the only thing that convinced me not to switch them back to incandescent bulbs was that i had a 3rd brake light plus a light for my spoiler that was plenty bright. otherwise, i'd be concerned with someone rear ending me during the day.

how is the brightness during the day? are they very visible in direct sunlight? maybe for a fellow TT member, you could switch one side back to the incandescent and take some pics both in the garage again and some outside in direct light so we could see the difference?

:withf00dstamps

Replacement LED's are usually too dim in direct sunlight. I'd do this mod if I wasnt worried about getting rear ended. It'd be great if you'd swap one side back to the OEM bulbs and take some dirct sunlight pic's...

f00dstamps · 09-12-2005, 10:21 PM

one more thing... you don't happen to be getting a taillight failure dash light are you? are you using a load resistor on the parking light/brake light bulb too?

i was considering retrofitting the taillights with some high-flux LED's. they have outputs of up to 10-20 times brighter than standard LED's. i'd also add those reflective shrouds that direct the light like in the Infinity G35. i'm just gonna wait for some OEM titan taillights to appear on ebay for real cheap.

other advantages of LED's:
- less current draw
- "instantaneous" on/off. LED's turn on in a matter of milliseconds which is SUPER fast when compared to incandescent which takes hundreds of milliseconds. this could potentially prevent an accident because the hundreds of milliseconds could be equivalent to 10 feet or more depending upon the velocity of the vehicles.
- intensity of light
- never replace a light bulb again. most LED's are rated at over 100,000 hours. do the math and that's equivalent to over 11 years if you have the lights on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
- it just looks f-in cool!

**chunko** · 09-12-2005, 11:51 PM

Fast tailights don't mean sh*t when the as*hole behind you is talking on the phone and turned around whacking their kids in the back seat while doing makeup and taking notes for a meeting. That's why I bought a titan, should be safe when anything short of Mack truck hits me....

f00dstamps · 09-12-2005, 11:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adavis99

Fast tailights don't mean sh*t when the as*hole behind you is talking on the phone and turned around whacking their kids in the back seat while doing makeup and taking notes for a meeting. That's why I bought a titan, should be safe when anything short of Mack truck hits me....

did you have a bad and bitter experience with getting rear-ended?

Flight Test · 09-13-2005, 05:29 AM

Titans do not have a dash light indicating a bad bulb, they just flash very fast. I will try to take pics later with LEDs vs. stock in sunlight. This may prove which ones I stick with. If the stock bulbs appear brighter, I'll put the bulbs back in and send the LEDs back for a refund. I'm not familiar with the QX.

TOK · 09-13-2005, 05:29 AM

The thing I like about the factory LED tail lights is that the whole panel lights up, not just a section shaped like a light bulb. Those are cool, but I was hoping you took the guts of a QX-56 tail light and made it work in your Titan.

**chunko** · 09-13-2005, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by f00dstamps

did you have a bad and bitter experience with getting rear-ended?

No, that was meant to be a joke but tone doesn't really come through on the internet. I didn't mean to sound like an a$$.

f00dstamps · 09-13-2005, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adavis99

No, that was meant to be a joke but tone doesn't really come through on the internet. I didn't mean to sound like an a$$.

it's all good. try using some emoticons.

Justintoxicated · 09-13-2005, 02:51 PM

Wire up the Current limiting resistor...

Is it an LM13T? If your running close to 12-13V to the LED's it won't be disipating much heat. They way these work is they take the unused voltage & current and disipate it as heat. so if your runing 200ma to the LED (if thats what you set the current limiting resistor to) and the LED's take up say 10V and your titan is 14.4V while running then your disipating (14.4-10) * .2 = about a 1/2 watt as waste. You can definately buy more expensive drivers but the titan has plenty of extra power when it comes to a couple watts. hell the whole cluster and resistor take less power than stock in this case.

LED's Can Most Definately be Brighter than Incans, the whole LEd's just are not bright enough can be thrown out. That is going to depend on the LED and how many are used. Hell 1 Red 3 watt LED is going to be so bright it will blind the people behind you if you want it to. People are always telling me the 2, 1 watt RED LED's on my ATV are wayyyy to bright for taillights. See Avitar.

f00dstamps · 09-13-2005, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justintoxicated

Wire up the Current limiting resistor...

Is it an LM13T? If your running close to 12-13V to the LED's it won't be disipating much heat. They way these work is they take the unused voltage x current and disipate it as heat. so it your runing 200ma to the LED for say (if thats what you set the current limiting resistor to) and the LED's take up say 10V and your titan is 14.4V while running then your disipating (14.4-10) * .2 = about a 1/2 watt.

LED's Can Most Definately be Brighter than Incans, the whole LEd's just are not bright enough can be thrown out. That is going to depend on the LED and how many are used. Hell 1 Red 3 watt LED is going to be so bright it will blind the people behind you.

we're referring to ambient light affecting the incandescent replacement LED's. i have experience with this and during the day, you can barely see the light through a diffused (94 prelude) lens. at night, they look really bright and cool.

i'm pretty sure the item he purchased already has current limiting resistors. the ones i've purchased in the past all have them built in.

Justintoxicated · 09-13-2005, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by f00dstamps

we're referring to ambient light affecting the incandescent replacement LED's. i have experience with this and during the day, you can barely see the light through a diffused (94 prelude) lens. at night, they look really bright and cool.

i'm pretty sure the item he purchased already has current limiting resistors. the ones i've purchased in the past all have them built in.

It should not be an issue with a 3 watt red LED. hell 1, 1 watt red LED is likely brighter than that whole cluster.

I have a 3 watt Luxeon LED flashlight that fits in the palm of my had that is brighter than a 5D cell maglite...and thats white, red is 2-3 times brither!

Unfortuantly I don't see ANY drop in replacements using these yet, they are much more expensive than general "super bright" LED's...Believe me, if it was not for a difuser lense you would be blinding the people behind you and causing accidents at night.

f00dstamps · 09-13-2005, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justintoxicated

It should not be an issue with a 3 watt red LED. hell 1, 1 watt red LED is likely brighter than that whole cluster.

I have a 3 watt Luxeon LED flashlight that fits in the palm of my had that is brighter than a 5D cell maglite...and thats white, red is 2-3 times brither!

Unfortuantly I don't see ANY drop in replacements using these yet, they are much more expensive than general "super bright" LED's...Believe me, if it was not for a difuser lense you would be blinding the people behind you and causing accidents at night.

luxeon LED's are reserved for the OEM LED assemblies where they take great care in doing thermal, electrical, optical studies before even making a prototype. i'm just saying that my "super bright" LED drop in replacement was worthless in sunlight.