Hi Chris,
I've heard that one of the drawbacks of LED tail light bulbs is that they
are very
directional- something you already mentioned regarding their use for
instrument lighting. My snake's tail lights are small, flat, have
virtually no
side illumination and are very dim if the original type bulbs are used.
Probably
one reason for this is that the Lucas 542 tail light assemblies used have
no
reflectors and are, in fact, completely open inside. On the other hand
this does
allows the use of brighter, higher wattage Halogen bulbs without the risk
of
excessive heat buildup. These bulbs made a huge difference, especially
during
daylight. With the old bulbs I got lots of complaints that my brake
lights and turn
signals were not visible in bright sunlight.
For anyone interested, these bulbs are made by a company named
Candlepower; part number H1157. I got mine from Dave Bean Engineering.
I don't recall what I paid for them, other than the fact they were pretty
expensive compared to regular tail light bulbs.
Roland
On Thu, 27 Mar 2003 11:15:19 -0800 (PST) Chris Kantarjiev
<cak@dimebank.com> writes:
> I've been talking about this for some time now, perhaps years. I
> finally
> got together with the local rep for LEDtronics to see if there is
> a product that the Dimebank Garage could stock and sell to improve
> the instrument panel lighting in our cars.
>
> After messing about with gauges and sockets and bulbs for an hour,
> the
> conclusion is basically "no", or at least, "not yet".
>
> There are a couple of problems.
>
> 1. The "standard" small bayonet bulb that is used in the 2" gauges
> is a
> British oddity - LEDtronics doesn't make anything in that base. The
> LLB987
> that is used in the larger instruments *is* available. It turns out
> that
> there's a standard US fixture that can be made to fit up the access
> in the Smiths gauges, but it's not really pretty.
>
> 2. It doesn't matter anyway. The construction of the gauges is such
> that
> the light takes a tortured and reflected path from the bulb around
> the shrouds to illuminate the gauge from the sides. LEDs aren't up
> to
> that - they produce light at a fairly narrow forward angle. Even
> the
> "flat top" LEDs, which spread the light more, don't make any
> appreciable
> impact. This is true for both the small and large gauges.
>
> There are some Smiths gauges used in earlier cars that take their
> illumination
> from a central source through a window in the side of the guage. I
> don't have any of those, so I couldn't test that setup - those
> might
> be made to work better.
>
> However ... I'm going to sample some 1157 and 1156 taillights. I
> think those
> have pretty much promise for cars with small taillight lenses,
> especially
> those with thick glass lenses. My GT6+ and Morris Minor will be
> test
> subjects - both of them have fairly low rear light visibility.
>
> More as testing progresses...
>
> chris
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