Rear LED Bulbs

[Marvel]

Fitted the new style LED bulbs a little while ago to improve the brightness of my rear lights. Popped them in, nice and easy, checked my lights to see if they were working. Two thumbs fresh, thought I.......
Until last week, when a friend was following me home and pointed put that my brakelights weren't working. So I checked the bulbs by putting on my lights, all OK.
Checked the fuse, OK. So getting a little confused. Then crawled under the bus to check the switch on the master cylinder. Looked a little old and rusty and one of the blades was loose so replaced with a brand new one from GSF. Still nothing! Much scratching of head ensued.
Then today I decided to check the bulbs again with a multimeter, ay ok.
So, went and found the old bulbs, popped them in and hey presto, brake lights. While I was sitting there on the garage floor scratching my head some more, I read on the back on the packet (which I had kept) something about the bulbs not working, something, something, as the sticker from JK was in the way, 180degrees.
So got the new bulb tried to put it in the other way round, which you can't do due to the offset pins on the side of the bulb. Switched the wires around on the fitting and HEY PRESTO arty0046:
Un-frickin'-believable!!!!!!!

 

[nora]

Are they a lot brighter than standard bulbs?

 

[Matt_B]

Lucky a mate pointed it out, and not a 10 Ton lorry ploughing into the back of you.

Do the lights look ok? They're on my list of "upgrades"

 

[71Westy]

Have you checked that you have still got sidelights?

I take it these are relacement for the twin filament bulbs. Turning them 180* will only mean that you are using the sidelight filament for the brakelight and vice versa, surely? (So dim brake lights, bright side lights).

LEDs do only work one way round, but the earth connection of twin filament bulbs is the outer holder. The +ve feed will be the two "feet" at the bottom of the bulb - one each or side and brake lights. So you can't really get them the wrong way round in terms of +ve and -ve. Unless you have a +ve earth chassis, of course.

Or am I missing something?

Nick

 

[curly head]

i took delivery of my new led lamps yesterday and keenly fitted them today. worked first time round (a first :lol but to be honest they are ****, worse than the filament bulbs. they are bright but as they are only forward facing you dont get any reflection from the reflector :lol:

they are now packaged up again so i can get a refund :evil: cost me £40 odd quid, what a waste of time. we live and learn ...........

 

[Doris]

I bought some for my bug ages ago but thought they were a bit wasted, as like you say,they only shone directly in front of the bulb so there was no light showing at any angle other than directly behind.

 

[Marvel]

I probably notice the difference cos the "reflector" on mine is poop.

 

[lard]

Could always try emery cloth on the leds as this will frost them up and dissipate the light rather than totally focused on one spot....though it will also take out some of the luminescence...and void the returns policy! - but a thought anyway? This is what I do to interior LED lighting in my cars to soften them and stop them from acting like spot lights!

 

[ProfessorWheeto]

Mine have a ring of outwards facing LED around the base as well as the rearward facing ones, although the real difference in brightness came from when i did this...

 

[Guest]

ive got some super bright orange 10mm leds (2 for each side) which i wired with a resistor myself. They are going into the reversing light housing and the reversing light will stay in place so i dont have to touch the solid red US indicators.

Ill post some pics when i get round to it. hopefully they will make the MOT.