L e d s tail lights on my 64

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6469MOPAR

JACKSON, NJ
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Had a little time so I made some L E D lights for my 64, what you think
 

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Looks good. I'm sure others would like to do that as well, if you want to share some details.
 
I tried some of those LED bulbs in my car. Took them out way to dim.
 
Guys, they're not Christmas tree lights, they're safety devices that prevent other drivers from crashing into you. They have to do more than just light up "Ayup, that looks pretty good to me". They have to work all the way right. Most homemade LED conversions don't. Please read this thread and the links from it.
 
When it's mentioned that led's don't meet specifications (whatever spec being referred too) is this today's standards or model year....?????

I have led bulbs in the taillight's of the 64 Valiant and all I can say is they are much much brighter than the stock bulbs (running and brake)....??????

Rickster
 
I don't know about the bulbs, but I do know that some of the LED boards work very well in transportation applications (look at all the semi taillights, Audi's, Cadillac, et cetera). I'll also side w/Dan- be careful and choose wisely.
 
They all look ok at night.

how does it look at Noon? From 4 or 6 car lengths back?

B.
 
Is there a better alternative to the stock 1034's? The 1157' are brighter but will melt the lense if left on too long. Is there a short bulb that will be far enough away from the lens that has the extra candlepower we crave? I'd rather not modify the taillight assy.
 
Cudamark:

It looks like the 3496's that Dan recommends are the ticket for the early A body. They are rated at 14 watts - half the wattage of the 1157, so the heat should not be an issue.

B.
 
Dan:

You are of course correct. I just checked one of them against the 12v power supply - 2 amps.

The Sylvania package SAYS "14 / 8.3 W" So they will generate just as much heat.

Oh well, back to square one.

B.
 
For the '64-'66 Valiant/Barracuda cars that will tend to get a melty little divot in the tail lens where it sits directly above the bulb, I recommend hitting up a professional photographer's supply shop for some heat-absorbing glass and having it cut to fit between lens and bulb. It's used in photo enlargers (darkroom equipment).
 
The Sylvania package SAYS "14 / 8.3 W"

Rilly? That's weird. Two things:

1. Are you sure it doesn't say "14v"?

2. Don't buy these bulbs from Sylvania or anywhere else in the aftermarket -- Chinese junk. Buy from Honda dealership. Part number for the single-filament variety (replacing 1141, 1156, 1073, 7508, or P21W) is 34903-SF1-A01. Part number for the dual-filament variety (replacing 1016, 1034, 1157, 2057, 2357, 7528, or P21/5W in brake/tail or park/turn lights) is 34906-SL0-A01. Don't let the dealer sell you anything but a genuine Stanley-made Honda bulb; everything but the genuine Honda product is junk.
 
No, it actually says 14.1 / 8.3 W :

Bulb1.jpg


Bulb2.jpg


As for buying better stuff from Honda... not in this town. I drove across town to the dealer. Clown came back to the counter with the exact same bulbs in his hand - marked Taiwan. Two loose bulbs, no package. Printed up an invoice for $18.70 I told him to keep his chinese bulbs.

So now that I know they are 28w bulbs, it is a non starter anyway. With a 45c ambient before the direct sun, I don't want to pump 28w into that 46 year old plastic assembly. Even adding glass only saves the lens in one spot - the heat is still bottled up in there.

Looks like I may need to build some boards and do it right. Nothing beats an LED for Lumens per watt. If I move the drivers outside of the housing, the boards will have less heat to shed than the tail lamp filament. At 9w, I can get 450+ lumens easily enough. I can probably put a lot more than that in that housing, I will have to look.

B.
 
No, it actually says 14.1 / 8.3 W

Wow. No surprise, I guess; the quality of Sylvania's automotive lighting line has been dropping in direct accord with their firing engineers and hiring MBAs.

Clown came back to the counter with the exact same bulbs in his hand - marked Taiwan. Two loose bulbs, no package. Printed up an invoice for $18.70

HAH! The guy oughtta be a comedian.

So now that I know they are 28w bulbs, it is a non starter anyway. With a 45c ambient before the direct sun, I don't want to pump 28w into that 46 year old plastic assembly.

That's what the stock bulbs do.

Even adding glass only saves the lens in one spot - the heat is still bottled up in there.

No -- remember the housing and reflector are metal; the heat is conducted away via the metal.

Looks like I may need to build some boards and do it right

Doing it right is beyond most people. Here is hoping you're the exception.

Another option, better and cheaper and a lot easier if you can make it fit: Pick up a pair of these and put them vertically (not slanted or tilted or rotated) behind the stock lenses. If you can't fit those, you might could fit a stack of these:

db_file_img_824_800x800.jpg
 
Dan:

There is no question that the quickest way to destroy quality is putting a Harvard MBA in charge of engineering. However even a good manager will soon find out that managing engineers is like herding cats.

Given that there is no source locally for the stanley lamp, wht exactly makes the sylvania lamp "junk" ? Short life?

Sadly, most of the aftermarket LED lamps are garbage. That first link is typical, and a fine example of doing it wrong as far as LED's go. The second link looks like better equipment - I see an actual heat sink. I don't plan on spending 90 bucks for one to take apart & see if they used an actual driver circuit.

The problem is very basic. LED's are low voltage devices, with a narrow operating voltage range. The standard cheap answer is a series resistor. That does not work well at all in an automotive environment. With a fixed voltage coming in to the resistor, you get a fixed voltage out to the diode junction. Great in a computer or home stereo. In an automotive environment, the voltage can swing from 15v on a cold start to 11.5v on a very bad day. So what value do they pick for the resistor? Well, one that will give 10k hours of life @ 15v of course. That means that light output suffers under normal conditions, and really sucks when you need it most.

What is missing is a driving circuit. If the LED needs 3.3 to 3.5v @ 20mA, and you use a resistor of 680 Ohms, you get 17mA @ 3.4v from a 15v feed. Great. The LED will last 30k hours. But when the system voltage drops to 13v with that resistor, the junction current drops, and you give up some light. You should really have a 480 ohm resistor at 13v But that would provide too much current to the LED at 14v

You also piss away quite a bit of power in that resistor. In the above example @ 15v, the LED dissapates 58mW, but the resistor dissapates 198mW - as heat.

A proper driving circuit can provide a stable 3.4v with an input range from 9 to 18v Moving the driver outside of the housing leaves any heat it generates outside of the housing. A 3W LED can be very bright - around 120+ lumens. Incandescent lamps just can't match that. Even a 10W incandescent driven at the 1000 hour life rate is not as bright. With more sophisticated driving, that LED can be driven to make it appear even brighter.

Should be a fun project.

B.
 
I've read that you need to use a different style flasher with an LED conversion. I don't remember what the difference is or why it's important. I don't know if the source was accurate either. Anyone heard of this?
 
There is no question that the quickest way to destroy quality is putting a Harvard MBA in charge of engineering.

…and most MBAs don't come from Harvard.

even a good manager will soon find out that managing engineers is like herding cats.

Well, sure. One reason why the first-generation Chrysler minivans were such a good product was that Chrysler was in such dire financial straits that whole, entire levels of management were absent. The engineers were relatively free to do their jobs without "helpful" guidance from management. Of course, it is also very easy to go too far in that direction. I have often said -- and I think I'm right -- that GM and VW vehicles are junk for equal and opposite reasons: VW's engineers are allowed to run amok and commercialize ridiculously, needlessly complex and intricate designs with quadruple the necessary parts count. Their systems are fascinating to look at, but it's impossible to keep them working reliably for anything like a reasonable cost. GM, on the other hand, has a lot of really talented engineers, but all their best ideas get beancountered, focus-grouped, and managemented to death and so never see the light of day; the result is an endless stream of mediocre GM vehicles.

Given that there is no source locally for the stanley lamp

Try another Honda dealership…! The Stanley-made bulb cannot be bought through any other channel.

wht exactly makes the sylvania lamp "junk" ? Short life?

Poor quality (filaments not where they're supposed to be, gas fill not what it's supposed to be --> --> low performance and short life), fudged tests (bulbs don't actually meet spec). I must say these Taiwanese ones in your photo look a lot better than the Chinese ones Sylvania was hawking last time I looked. It is possible to get decent bulbs out of Taiwan. It's even possible to get good bulbs out of mainland China, but that's a much taller order.

Sadly, most of the aftermarket LED lamps are garbage.

Having (formally) tested a great many of them, I wouldn't go that far. Certainly there's plenty of garbage on the market, most of it off-brand stuff from China. But most of the name-brand items (Truck-Lite, Peterson, Grote, Speaker, Hella, Signal-Stat, Perei, and a few others) are good to excellent.

That first link is typical, and a fine example of doing it wrong as far as LED's go

Can't agree with you. It was not a random "try something like this" link -- it was a link to a very specific lamp unit I have tested and used. It's quite good in terms of performance (including photometric maintenance at elevated operating temperatures), reliability, durability and cost-effectiveness. What is it about this lamp you think is "wrong"?

The second link looks like better equipment - I see an actual heat sink

Remember, you can't always see the heat sink! It's not always going to be a big obvious finned aluminum thing. Have you seen what's out there in heat-conductive polymer materials nowadays? We really do live in the future.

The problem is very basic.

Please as you proceed with this discussion keep in mind you are speaking to the Global Editor of the automotive lighting industry's trade journal, and long-term veteran of the vehicle lighting industry. I, ah, do know a leetle about this topic.
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standard cheap answer is a series resistor. That does not work well at all in an automotive environment.

A simple resistor isn't adequate, but there are some extremely reliable resistive driver circuits for vehicle taillamps. They have some advantages over PWM strategies. Of course, as with anything else, a thoughtless design or a cheap build is going to be problematic.

What is missing is a driving circuit.

I can't tell if you are speaking generally or still referring to the first lamp I linked to, the one you consider to have been done "wrong" -- which in fact, like all its name-brand competitors, has very good driver circuitry that does a good job of maintaining proper output across a broad range of operating temperatures. There are tests for this in the certification and type-approval protocols lamps have to go through to be legal for use on public roadways.
 
Just go to the local AutoZone / Kragen /O-really? / type chain store, and buy an LF12 Tridon flasher.

Two terminals, direct replacement. It will flash any combination of regular bulbs & LED's. It will flash 20 regular bulbs. Or one.

Only down side is you need to check your lamps on a regular basis. It will still flash with a dead bulb, so if you have a front out you will never know it. On the up side, the rear will still flash with a dead front...

B.
 
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