Socket7

So, I bought some LED lighting recently to continue my work on my car without spending lots of cash. One of my main goals was to get some amber 194 bulbs for my corners that are as bright as possible. If I'm going to be dying the corners red, I'll need the bulbs behind them to throw a lot of light to avoid them looking to red.

I bought a set of "9 Led SMT Tower II 194 168 W5W 2825" amber bulbs from autolumination.com, and I'm very disappointed with the amount of light they throw. It's a cleaner amber then the incandescent bulb, but not nearly as bright.

So before I go and spend 20 bucks more on LED's, I'm wondering what bulbs people have found to be the brightest. I'm thinking about getting more of the 'Super High-Flux low profile Leds' ones I used for the interior (with the aluminum heatsink on it and the 6 little surface mount LED's. Shazbot uses them in his puddle lights). They seem to be a fair bit brighter, but I'm not sure they throw their light in a wide enough pattern for the corners.

Suggestions, comments, observations and complaints I should search harder are welcome.

Goddamnit. how did I post this in the media section? Serves me right for posting with blood in my caffeine stream. Could a kind mod move this thread to the interior section where it belongs?

Nopstnz8

iTrader: (6)

You could do what I did and get some 18 LED SMT bulbs in 194 and it will be very bright, but you will have to knock out the reflector. I got mine from V-LEDS and they are extremely bright even with my tinted clear corners.

Aipex8

iTrader: (1)

V-LEDs .5 watt LEDs are the brightest. I've got the white 194 4x.5watt flanking bulbs in my corners and they are super bright. When I'm sitting at a light they completely light the car next to me up with a bluish white glow.

The flanking bulbs work best for the side markers and throw off most of the light to the side and not a lot straight ahead.

In amber they only have 2x.5 watt, but that should still be much brighter than a stock incandescent bulb. I'm thinking of getting these myself and converting the always-on side markers to side repeaters. Here's a link and a pic:

http://www.v-leds.com/Shop/Control/P...id/0/SFV/32481

Socket7

Those look like exactly the same LED's that are in my corners now, just on a different board, but it's impossible to tell from just looking i suppose.

Would it kill these companies to tell us how many lumens these things produce so we can have some clue of relative brightness?

Aipex8

iTrader: (1)

The one's that I posted are .5 watt LEDs though, not the standard SMT LEDs that you have on your bulb. The .5 watt LEDs equal the brightness of about 10 standard SMTs. So it would be like having a 20 SMT flanking bulb. I'm not kidding, you want bright, go with the .5 watt LEDs. Mine are bordering on too bright!

krijpipudht

I have these in.
They won't fit unless removing the reflector.

Socket7

All right Aipex, you've convinced me. So did the sizable heat sink, noticeably absent from mine. Gonna order them now. Thanks for the info.

ferrocene

I just put in a set of the super white "side mounted" V-LEDs for the corners. And I have to admit, I think they're too bright. They're so bright they cast shadows. I'm afraid I'll blind someone or get pulled over. I may take pics tonight.

dmc27

subscribing for reference when the weather turns up here.


move along, nothing to see here.

Socket7

I just got my pair in the other day and tried them.

Still disappointing. Both in terms of amount of light produced, and how it's thrown. Furthermore, the bulb itself didn't look anything like the picture provided, except being mounted on a circuit board. It's actually the same LED setup I'm using in the 194's (the ones with the aluminum heatsink and 6 LEDs on it) in my map lights, just mounted differently. It's a bit brighter then the previous bulbs, but it still isn't bright enough, and worse yet, it doesn't light up the entire corner.

I'm going to buy every damn LED bulb on the planet that will fit in here and post photos of them all I think. End this confusion once and for all.

dmc27

It will be warm enough for me to swap in, say early April. Please have all pics & reviews done by then.


kthxbye!

lepichichi

iTrader: (10)

post some night pics!

ferrocene

The .5W x 4 (2W) V-LEDs for side-markers are extremely bright, but those may just be the white ones. I can't say how bright the amber ones are.

If you have white clear corners, you may want to remove the metal reflector that's in there. I just came across the DIY sticky last night.

Chris

iTrader: (10)

why not just have red turn signals, its not illegal is it? there are many cars that come stock like that

Aipex8

iTrader: (1)

Is it possible that you got sent the wrong bulbs? Kind of sounds like it. Here is a pic of mine from the side, my camera is quite crappy when it comes to night shots, but if you compare it to the rear side markers you can get an idea of how much brighter they are:



But they do throw off more light to the sides than the front. Here is a front shot and you can compare to the parking lights which use the same 4 .5watt LEDs, just mounted forward facing (fogs are LED too):



The corner lights are not turn signals, just marker lights. But to answer your question about signals, you can have red or amber turn signals in the back and amber (or white in some states) in the front.

Chris

iTrader: (10)

Yeah I was thinking about changing the rear turn signals to red, I already have white turn signals in the front so I think the amber in the back is way out of place

alexthejew

I think this looks pretty cool... My corners are completely blacked out, but doing something like this would have been sweet I think.

Socket7

US DOT requires that all side markers are amber. There's a good reason why all US cars come with amber corners instead of clear like the rest of the world.

Clear corners are technically illegal (and even moreso with a white bulb), but it'd take some doing to get pulled over for them. A red corner, with a light behind it that shines red, could qualify as "Imitating an emergency vehicle." Sure it may not be likely, but I just don't want to deal with that kind of crap.

I ordered the right bulbs, they just look nothing like whats on their site now. I'm assuming they lost a supplier at some point and just started making different ones and hope nobody cared.

I took some photos, and I think I like my original bulbs more. They throw a more yellow light then the "super bright" ones, which have more of an orange cast to them.

Looking at the photos, they both seem to illuminate the corner completely enough, but the intensity I'm looking for just isn't there.

Chris

iTrader: (10)

I am not trying to be difficult by any means but what do you mean by, "Imitating an emergency vehicle." b/c almost all domestic trucks and cars use red rear turn signals. I was behind a for explorer today and they dont have any amber lights in the back.

Socket7

Do we have clear corners on the back of our cars?

No. No we do not. Stop staring at my cars ***. It's not the subject of discussion here. We're talking about the front of the car. You know, her bust.

Maybe people are getting confused because the corners in the US are NOT turn signals. they are running lights. According to the DOT, the front of the vehicle has to have an amber side reflector and light that is visible when looking at the car from the side.


This is what I'm trying not to run afoul of. They might think my 8 is a firetruck or an ambulance.

Chris

iTrader: (10)

I was refering to the turn signal just a little ot sorry, but the *** is way worth looking at too

Socket7

You have a good point. I need to get some stealth turn signal bulbs for her ***.

Socket7

Photo time again. So I ordered these bulbs. When they arrived, they were not as advertised.

[/QUOTE]

What I got, is second from the right. Second from the left is the first bulb I ordered, Far right is OEM 194 bulb, far left is the 194 bulb I'm using in my parking lights (super white) This photo also gives some idea of scale for those of you wondering.

I have taken photos of both center bulbs in corners, taken with identical camera settings, so they should give you an idea of relative brightness and color. Other then resizing them for the web, there have been no modifications made to the photos.


Here is the bulb from VLED's. second from the right.


And here is the original LED bulb I got, second from the left.

Aipex8

iTrader: (1)

Hey, Socket7, you were definitely sent the wrong bulb. The bulb that were sent is a bulb that they used to sell on their site that they don't any more. The bulb that you ordered is one of their newer bulbs (they just recently started selling the really bright .5 watt LEDs). I would contact V-LEDs and let them know, I'm sure they would be more than happy to replace them. I've ordered tons of stuff from them and one time got the wrong item and they were really good about replacing them with the correct item. Trust me, the bulb you ordered will be much brighter than that!

Socket7

Interesting indeed. I will contact them today about my order.