LED upgrade for brake, turn, and tail lights

[lostagain]

I am thinking about making my lights brighter, so I will be seen on the highway better. Should I just replace the bulbs with LED ones? Would they make it brighter? Looking at bulbs online, I see 130 lumens, 250 lumens, etc... How many lumens does it take to be brighter than the old incandescent bulbs? And if a LED bulb is rated 12 volt, but the data sheet says 8V to 30V, could it be used in place of a 24V bulb?

Or should I replace the fixtures? My bus is a 5C, same lights as a MC8. 7" stop lights, and 5" tail and turn signal lights.

I would prefer just replacing the bulbs if doable.

JC

[gumpy]

I don't recommend the LED replacement bulbs. I tried a couple in my upper corner lights in my rear cap. The problem with bulb replacements is that they are uni-directional, which means
basically they have a limited angle of output, so if you're not looking directly at them, you can't see them. While this might work ok for rear tail lights, I think it's quite limiting. Also,
the replacement bulbs have a limited real estate where LEDs can be placed, so the brightness is limited. I recommend replacing the whole fixture which will have LEDs over the entire
real estate of the light surface.

This was about 10 years ago, so maybe the bulb replacements have changed. I ended up building my own boards to replace mine. They are very bright, but still have a limited angle. I
left incandescent bulbs in the upper corners where the limited angle was a problem.

[mung]

I am confused as to why people can't see a huge bus going down the highway.

But anyway, if the spec sheet says it will run at 30v it should run at 24v.  I say get one and try it against the others to see how it does.  Hard to determine if it will be brighter than the old bulbs because there are a lot of factors with the old bulbs that can impact the brightness and without knowing what the actual lumens are of the old bulbs, in your old fixtures, with your old wiring, on your old bus, it is hard to say how many lumens you need to be brighter than that.  

[TomC]

They make what is called a tower LED light that has LED's all around for 360º coverage. You can try them-I like the dedicated LED fixtures better. Good Luck, TomC

[RJ]

JC -

If you notice, a lot of skoolies nowadays have the big 7" LED brake lights, so that should be an easy swap.

As for the tail and turn signals, if you clean the cans real well and paint them with a bright white paint, you'll be amazed at the difference in the brightness once you put the lenses back on.  One rattle can of paint should be more than enough.

You might need new lenses for the LH side, as IBME w/ MCIs that those darken over time due to the constant diesel exhaust soot.

If you want to spend the $$, you can pull the old tail & turn cans and replace them with the new sealed LED units truckers are using that are suspended in a rubber trim ring.  Not sure what the voltage rating is on these, but a search of Truck-Lite or Grote should come up with some specs.

FWIW & HTH. . .

[goutoe]

I am making the change to LED inside and outside of the bus, replacing the 7" round fixtures they are much brighter, there are several available on line, I am going with Doran brand they sell several different styles.>>>> John.

[bevans6]

When I did mine there was one company that made 28 volt 7" dual running stop lights, I bought a set.  They are very expensive and a special order.  They are marginally larger in diameter than the old style sealed beam stop lights, so I had to spend an hour grinding them down a bit, and grinding the ID of the MCI base a little larger.  They work great.  Now I see there may be a couple of other choices.  example http://www.etrailer.com/Trailer-Lights/Optronics/STL90R24B.html

No one makes LED upgrades for the stock MCI 5" lights.  It's not legal per DOT to put LED lights in a fixture that was designed for incandescent lights, the radiation pattern and colour mix won't meet the FMVSS rules.  What you can do is put 4" diameter LED lights in with a trim ring to make them out to 5".  http://www.etrailer.com/Trailer-Lights/Optronics/STL23R24B.html

If you put the 7" LED lights in they won't draw enough current to turn on the tell-tale light in the dash, which is there to let you know if one of the stop lights is out.  There is a work-around possible, but I didn't bother.

Brian

[Oonrahnjay]

JC -

If you notice, a lot of skoolies nowadays have the big 7" LED brake lights, so that should be an easy swap.  

     Guy near me just found some (roughly) 7" X 5" rectangular amber turn signal lights from a Thomas school bus (it's good to be in NC sometimes) - he's going to use them on a trailer but they'd be fine for a bus.  They have a board in them so you can just feed them power and the flash is internal.  Yeah, there is some NICE LED stuff out there.

[TomC]

I changed out the 4 red 7" lights in the back for the 7" LED. The only problem was, since the LED stop light (2 of them) draws so little electricity, my King Cruise would not pick up the stop light. Installing a 100ohm resister (grounded) to the circuit cured that. Good Luck, TomC

[opus]

[lostagain]

Thanks for all the replies and info guys. I ended up taking RJ's advice and this afternoon I washed all the lenses in hot soapy water with a brush. Cleaned up the cans and spray painted them gloss white. They were a bare sort of shiny metal, starting to look rusty. The bulbs get dusty. And sooty on the left side above the exhaust pipe. Noticeable difference. Didn't cost me anything either! LED fixtures is now a project on the bottom of the list...

JC

PS: looking for a new bus. Must be cheap. And in like new shape.

Just kidding... ha, ha.

[Ace]

I changed all of my rear lights to LED's but mine are rectangle. I also changed all the red and yellow running lights to LED's and have gotten many compliments on the brightness!


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[lostagain]

Ace did you replace just the bulbs, or the whole fixtures?

JC

[Ace]

The whole fixture! Remove old, plug in new and install. Done!


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[lvmci]

Hi JC, cleaning and painting the reflective surface is definitely important, led or incandescent,  don't forget the color temperature, daylight (appears bluer) seems brighter with the same lumins, go to a hardware store and look at the Phillips display with the 2 or 3 different color led bulbs, they use so little electricity,  they can cause problems, with heat and amperage based relays, merry christmas, tom...