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        General >> Give/Need advice to/from others >> Instrument light LED conversion
        
(Message started by: TaperOne on Dec 12^th, 2008, 9:40pm)

Title: Instrument light LED conversion
Post by TaperOne on Dec 12^th, 2008, 9:40pm

HI Guys,

seeing as I am going to replace the heater matrix tomorrow :'(. I thought I might as well replace the failed instrument bulbs (again). Does anyone know if there are now LED alternatives, and if so, where to get them from.

Many thanks

Pete

Title: Re: Instrument light LED conversion
Post by Highlander on Dec 12^th, 2008, 10:04pm

Hmmmm Leftofcentre did this a while back, will have a search for the thread

Title: Re: Instrument light LED conversion
Post by mr._floppy on Dec 13^th, 2008, 4:59pm

Maplins and E-Bay have LED replacement 12v bulbs.

They are are a fair bit dearer and some say that the resultant LED illumination is much inferior to good old fashioned 20th century tungsten bulb technology.

Title: Re: Instrument light LED conversion
Post by pinto on Dec 13^th, 2008, 11:19pm

LED's produce light that is analagous to that made by a laser - its very intense, but its directional - thus isnt very good at all at producing "puddle" illumination that a dashboard requires.

You'd be far better off installing slightly higher wattage bulbs of the same type - but dont exceed 5w as you'll melt adjacent plastic components !

3w is ideal :)

Title: Re: Instrument light LED conversion
Post by Snoopy on Dec 14^th, 2008, 7:44am

Try HERE (http://www.fordscorpio.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=Advice;action=display;num=1215671951;start=0#0) which gives some ideas
And THIS (http://www.fordscorpio.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=Advice;action=display;num=1138480530;start=7#7)
BUT i think THIS (http://www.fordscorpio.co.uk/ledbulbs.htm) is what you really want to read.

Title: Re: Instrument light LED conversion
Post by tlundkvi on Dec 17^th, 2008, 10:37am

on 12/13/08 at 23:19:47, pinto wrote:

LED's produce light that is analagous to that made by a laser - its very intense, but its directional - thus isnt very good at all at producing "puddle" illumination that a dashboard requires.

Agree. Did a complete conversion on a Golf (the one my scorp replaced) last year. The motivation was mostly that many bulbs were dead. On the scorp I will probably not do a conversion.

First you need to get as powerful leds as you can get a hold of. The best 3-5mm leds right now produce up to 30000mcd, but with a distribution angle of 20 degrees. You can get omnidirectional leds that give out a pattern of 180 degrees, but this means the same amount of light is shared using a lens (this type is used on christmas lights you put in your windows), but the light power is usually < 1000 mcd. If there are light guides in the switches, they kill a lot of the power, you need more than one led to make up for the bulb. The beast leds are almost never sold in sockets, thus soldering resistors is a must to get the best results, unless you find good 12V versions.

The glass socket imitations that can be bought on ebay often lack rating, and you can't trust if it's crap or not. I bought all my leds from www.led1.de. They're cheap and free delivery over 10 euros and accept credit cards. And they're professionals, they give pretty clear specs of anything they sell.

What also needs to be taken into account is that the dashboard illumination regulator works poorly with leds. Switch on minimum, is half light power. This is because these sliding switches work on resistance, but the power needed by a led is often 0.02 ampere. Leds need current regulation-based switches (the type home dimmable lights have).