L e d s tail lights on my 64
…and most MBAs don't come from Harvard.
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.
Try another Honda dealership…! The Stanley-made bulb cannot be bought through any other channel.
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.
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.
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"?
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.
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.
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.
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.
…and most MBAs don't come from Harvard.
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.
Try another Honda dealership…! The Stanley-made bulb cannot be bought through any other channel.
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.
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.
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"?
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.
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.
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.
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.
