LED lights

[DebDav]

I don't remember if this has been discussed.

I am replacing the rear lights to LED.  I will also be attempting to use some LED's in the interior. 

I have noticed that stop lights at street corners are now being built and/or replaced with LEDs.  Some of the lights are getting burned out segments.

Are street lights and, more importantly bus lights, repairable?  I think that the LEDs are soldered to a board, possibly many in series.  This would explain why a whole segment would be dark if one LED failed. 

It does not seem to be economical to keep replacing whole fixtures.

[Jeremy]

In fact the better-brand automotive LED lights have the LEDs themselves encapsulated in resin to protect against vibration - replacing an individual LED must be impossible on this type of unit. Someone who understands LEDs better might be able to say whether LEDs driven at the correct voltage etc 'should' ever burn out - I suspect they shouldn't.

I've actually just ordered a set of LED lights from the rear of my bus from Australia - the Aussie dollar is so weak that even with the Airmail costs they are far cheaper than buying the identical product here in the UK.

Jeremy

[JackConrad]

Dave,
   That is what we are running into with our LED tail lights and trun signals. We have had ours on the bus for about 3-4 years. One of our tail lights has a few of the LEDs no longer working. It looks like the plastic cases were sonically welded (similar to the glasses FMCA sells with an FMCA logo inserted between the inside and outside pieces of plastic which are then sonically welded).  I have not tried to open up ours yet, but with new ones costing less than $10.00, I am not sure they are worth messing with.  Jack

[DrivingMissLazy]

I have read somewhere that the LED's have an expected lifetime of several thousand's or maybe hundreds of thousand's of hours life time expectancy, so the probability of ever having to replace one is very low.
Richard

[Jeremy]

Dave,
   That is what we are running into with our LED tail lights and trun signals. We have had ours on the bus for about 3-4 years. One of our tail lights has a few of the LEDs no longer working. It looks like the plastic cases were sonically welded (similar to the glasses FMCA sells with an FMCA logo inserted between the inside and outside pieces of plastic which are then sonically welded).  I have not tried to open up ours yet, but with new ones costing less than $10.00, I am not sure they are worth messing with.  Jack

Jack - any chance that you could post a picture or a link to information about the type of LED lights you are using? I'm intrigued by the very low cost you quote.

The sort I have just ordered look like this:



They are about 8" x 4" in size. Also, anyone know why the white versions (ie. reverse lights) are always more expensive than the red and amber types? This seems to apply to all the types I have seen, not just the ones I ended up choosing

Thanks

Jeremy

[belfert]

Pretty much all of the transit buses here have LED lights.  I am constantly seeing lights on these buses with burned out LEDs.  Either they are using inferior LED lights or the failure rate on LEDs is higher than the manufacturers like to admit.

[FloridaCliff]

Any of the problems I have had with LED lights have been with the bulb conversion plug ins.

The molded LEDs do not seem to  be affected and I believe it is due to vibration issues

I just ordered some molded bulb replacements and will try them out.

Cliff

[JackConrad]

    I was mistaken. The LED marker lights I used were $7.60.  The tail lights were the ones from this link. http://order.waytekwire.com/CGI-BIN/LANSAWEB?WEBEVENT+L0D22013E50348500A38B012+M37+ENG]

    I have also purchased LED exterior lights on Ebay, but do not remember the seller's name. 
    Here are a couple photos of our tail lights.  The bottom light is tail/brake, the 2 center lights are brake only (using both tail & brake LEDs). The top light comes on in Amber for turn signal.  Jack

[WEC4104]

The life of LEDs will depend on how hard you "push" them.  They operate over a voltage range, and the higher the voltage, the brighter they are, but with a shorter life.  Many individual LEDs operate at relatively low voltages (2.5 to 4 volts).  Since vehicles have 12 and 24 volt electrical systems, the manufacturer builds resistors into the lighting fixure, or chains the LEDs together, to drop the voltages down to the proper levels. A manufacturer can build brighter taillights simply by not dropping the voltage levels as far, but that would be at the cost of longevity.  Quality manufacturers achive the brightness by using more LEDs together, or by getting higher performance LEDs.

One more caution regarding the tailight conversion.  Some vehicle electrical systems want to "see" a certain amount of resistance from the standard taillight bulbs.  If the taillights are replaced with LEDs, it can cause issues (incorrect blink rate for signals, error messages, etc.)

[DrivingMissLazy]

Jack, I tried to use this link and could not get it to work.

I also tried to make it a clickable link and it would still not work.
Please see if you can get it to work.
Richard

[H3Jim]

I had a turn signal fail after a short amount of usage.  It was $80 fro PRevost, and since it had been over a year since I bought it, there was no guarantee.  Probaby had less than 5 minutes of usage since new.  So they do fail.  Too bad is was a turn signal, it had such little use, and also took me a while to notice it.  Dang it.

[TomCat]

It does not seem to be economical to keep replacing whole fixtures.

I feel the same way, so I'm considering these instead... http://www.superbrightleds.com/specs/115x-xLX3.htm

Jay
87 SaftLiner

[compedgemarine]

I know that on our boat trailers with LED lights if you have one go out it has to be replaced with an LED. if you put a standard light any where in the system it all goes haywire. I would assume it has to do with the changes in resistance on the circuit? dont know if this effects the lights in the bus or not.
Steve

[Jeremy]

One more caution regarding the tailight conversion.  Some vehicle electrical systems want to "see" a certain amount of resistance from the standard taillight bulbs.  If the taillights are replaced with LEDs, it can cause issues (incorrect blink rate for signals, error messages, etc.)

For what it's worth here are a couple of products designed to overcome this issue:

LED light load resistor:



Replacement flasher relay for use with LED lights:



Jeremy

[Ncbob]

Jeremy, I have a question...but don't I always?  I'm going to be mixing LED's and incandescents when Fred Hobe installs my custom rear lights (all LED) this fall.  For the turn signals I'm still going with the incandescents for the front and the LED's in the rear.

I have the option of using LED's in the front then I suppose I would need the LED flasher...but unless I do will the current flasher trigger both the fronts and the rear's?

Bob