Led taillights W124
 

What doYou think about this
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7978868354&category=33716

A lot of money for lights . . . and I hope they don't mess up the cruise control circuit.

You can buy a lot of replacement bulbs for what that cost.........its supposed to save you money in what way?

If they are made correctly, this might be pretty nifty (but see below). I made an LED replacement for my third brakelight on my 86 560. The flaw with just sticking an "LED bulb replacement" in is that the light is not even around the bulb, and you wind up with a bright red dot. This appears to be circuit boards and lots of big 10mm LED's, so it might wind up looking fairly even (I put 18 1.2 candela 10mm LED's in my brake light). My mod is completely reversible - I didn't destroy any of the original parts.

Another problem is current drain. My LED's draw about 250ma, and the original bulb was about 1.25 A. In order to fool the cruise and the "lights out" circuit, I had to put in a 15 ohm's worth of high-power "Sandbox" resistors, which get mighty warm.

Of course, mine (and probably this one) aren't DOT approved - this might matter in the investigation (and ultimate judgement) surrounding a major accident, God forbid. I'm just pointing this out.

If you calculate how much time the "instant on" nature of the LED's is worth vs the 0.5-0.75 seconds it takes a filament to attain full brightness, this amounts to a lot of feet at 70 MPH!

and to think I was in the process of building my own LED tails. Of course mine will include LED turn indicators as well.


EDIT: so whats this about disturbing the cruise control?

Curious if they are compatible with the "bulb out" indicator? :confused:

I like it. Very interesting. The bulb out indicator problem will be solved if they have included resistors in the housing circuitry.
$179 is not that bad considering some people are selling the tail light assembly for that price.

With that - I was playing with the LED's and turn signals. The current draw is so light it does not activate the flasher relay. What's the cure for that other than loading up resistance?

For what it is worth, I was in Pepboys Auto Parts the other day and saw LED bulb replacements going for about $14. They look like they fit directly into the typical bulb sockets.

A lot cheaper. Whether they cause problems, I don't know.

Haasman

they use very low quality LEDs and dont produce enough light. for example, actaul LED systems on the newer cars use like 30 or more superflux type LEDs and those "plug in types"...the ones that insert like normal bulbs have maybe 10-15 5mm LEDS. For those of you that may not know, standard 5mm LEDS are no where near as bright as Super Flux leds.

besides adding in a load resistor, replacing the standard blinker relay with an electronic one will do the trick.

Okay, so we agree it's a lot of money and a lot of replacement parts for . . . what amount of improved lighting performance?

LED arrays won't properly iluminate the reflectors and therfore will not likely give the same performance of regular old incandescent bulbs....

if you buy the lights from the auction, they should work nicely. As Strife said, they are virtually "instant on" (like milliseconds) versus standard incandescent. At speed, that can buy a significant amount of distance to help prevent an accident. This is the exact reason why highline automakers are moving to LED brake lights.

If you buy the "over-the-counter, pop-in lights" from pepboys, then you will NOT have enough light.

I am going to build something like what you see using the OEM lights, but I will also include the taillights, rear fog, rear side marker, along with the brake lights. As of yet, effective white LEDs are not practical for reverse function….even if using Luxeon Star’s or IO Moons. They run too hot, need heat sinks, and don’t have the ability to project light like standard bulbs do…..at least not yet.

This is true, and the exact reason why the pepboys type lights don’t work. The optics weren’t designed to work with the way LEDS put out light.


GOOD:
http://www.ledcar.com/images/p87440.01/fblkbg.jpg



BAD:
http://www.ledshoponline.com/images/19led1157133.jpg
http://www.ledshoponline.com/images/1157-19black.jpg