7440 & 7443 plus flank LED's for side markers. These LEDS are actually very bright, I purposely underexposed this picture so you could see the actual LED. Also added a 7 ohm resistor in parralel with signal LED to keep blinker rate at proper frequency. Got them from ebay from warden_jp2002.

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Aaaaah...Another thread re the LEDs styling. I just replied in the "Changing Flasher / Indicator Relay" thread.

Outy, I strongly recommend to use those 11Watt cluster LEDs for brake lights. I use two of them (my newer Outlander Turbo model is equipped with other rear and front lamps design, so I use two T10 and two T20/7443 light bulbs in rear lamps, only those 7443s are dimmable / dual-circuit / dual-fillament). Sorry to tell you, but I have also those 3x 1Watt amber bulbs and they are very poor for flashers, I think. And I see you use reds of the same construction for brakes. Switch it!

Regards

Kemo

These are actually very bright and I'm quite satisfied.

I know how bright they are, I just recommend you to go for better and even brighter solution. Of course I do not force you to do it! I was just friendly advise, come on... :gitara:

To be more exact, my target is to get LED solution wchich will be comparable to rear lamps with panels with LEDs. Comparable, not the same - it is impossible without serious lamp rebuild. See newest Audi A8 tail. Means if the amber LED bulb is lit on, you are getting more or less uniform field of bright light from whole area of the lamp. Not just a small point of bright light which can not disperse to sides and reflect from the lamp reflector. For amber flashers I use 18 high-flux SMT LEDs bulb. It is much more visible during the day than those 3x 1W LED bulbs. I know, I got them as well. But still not enough to get higly over 50% of the regular incandescent 7440A light bulb luminance.

I will try to post some short videos. One for day, another for night view. And will post some pictures of my own LED bulb customization.

Here you are with some pictures of my LED micro project:

On first picture in the background you see original amber / orange / yellow LED bulbs as purchased via ebay and one other web-shop. Two 13Watt cluster bulbs (13 x 1Watt LED) with 1156 bayonet socket and one 7443 wedge (T20) socket of 3x 1Watt LED. All used LEDs are the same, a high flux 6-chip SMT LED with small heatsink under, each of them is 1Watt of power drain.



In the front you see my customized product. After some soldering I got the result of 16Watt which I believe can be compared to the original incandescent 21Watt bulb. I removed the 1156 bayonet socket and replaced it with the wedge T20 socket from the 7443 bulb. And the body of the 7443 bulb was used to upgrade the big 13 watt LED.




The diameter of the bigger bulb is too big as you can see just by comparing to the 7443 bulb diameter. Therefore it does not fit into the Ourtlander rear lamp hole. But I removed the chrome cap allready and will grind off a bit from the PCB ring after the cap. And there is a small chance to get some little space even when modifying the lamp hole itself. Will post my results in few weeks.

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Post added by system failure.

Post added by system failure.

Well took your advice got a new set yet again. This one is not brighter but defenitely backlights the reflector a lot better. Here are some pictures, the new ones are on the outside. This one has 30 SMD LED's

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:57:

Well, I believe you are satisfied with new LED bulb set. And I am happy if you are satisfied and if you decided for this change because of my advice! The difference is obvious. Wishing you to get turned this change into higher safety. Not just styling issue...

Unfortunatelly, I still did not have a chance to make any progress in my LED project. Lot of family events and all my remaining free time devoted to my 2 little boys... But it's just about to take the Dremel tool and make small adjustments of the bulb and of the lamp housing. Must find couple of minutes!

The new bulbs have two solder tabs on top which provide a 12 Volt. I might play with this also.

Well, adding another LED source of light to existing LED bulb would be a great chance to increase the luminuous intensity. But do not forget, that there is a resistor and diode pre-soldered. LED bulbs manufacturer's marketing call it "protection circuit". In fact, the resistor is just limiting the current flowing into the LED bulb (but only at nominal/typical forward voltage - peaks in voltage=higher current flow=damage risk) and the diode is preventing LEDs against short reverse voltage (reverse polarity) surges in the car electricity system. And against the situation, when you try to connect the LED in reversed polarity.

So please do not forget about these factors. You can overload a small built-in resistor (you can find it inside the bulb body together with the diode), cause it is designated to some power limit (1 Watt usually). And, if all those small 30 LED emitors are connected in paralell, the resistance of the resistor is calculated based on nominal voltage of one of those smal SMT LEDs (let's say 3,3 Volt). So adding another LED with lower typical voltage requirements (e.g. 2,2 Volt) will damage it sooner or later. Yes, those SMT LEDs are usually not for 12 Volt directly.

Watch my pictures again and you will see, that I used the diode and the resistor to connect the "upgrade bulb" in parallel with the original one. And the junction is made inside the LED bulb base / T20 wedge base, means before original resistor and original diode.

It would be good to use your original 3x1Watt brake LED bulb for high circuit only, means it is lit only when brakes applied. I figured out, that the difference in luminuous intensity of dimmed and full operation of dual-circuit LED bulbs (7443, 1157 etc) is lower that it is in case of regular incandescent dual-fillament bulbs (5Watt for low circuit, plus another 21Watt for the high circuit). That is causing effect of lower chance to note that the car is braking and deccelerating (for drivers behind you). Adding your previous bulb only for the high circuit would increase this difference dramatically, I believe.

Do not forget, that in dual circuit LED bulbs you will find 2 diodes (one for low and one for high circuit) and often 2 resistors (sometimes, based on the construction, the high circuit is without resistor and only dimmed low circuit is using the resistor to lower the current flow at low operation). I assume that it's possible because of connecting leds in series, means their nominal voltage sums and therefore for full operation they do not need a resistor. It is like: "How many 3,3V LEDs do you have to connect in serie to exclude the resistor?" Car Volatge is 13,8 Volt, so by connecting 4 LEDs you get 4 x 3,3 = 13,2 Volt. It is too low, so you will add another one and you will get 16,5 Volt serie which will causing the LEDs are underfeeded and do not lit at highest possible power, but this circuit is quite immune to surges in the voltage. But it is defendless against reverse voltage peaks. Sou you have to use a regular diode (1N400x or simillar), which does not allow the reverse current to flow. But the diode drops the voltage (normal voltage loss - diodes nature) by appx. 1 Volt. So it would be enough to connect just 4 of 3,3V LEDs and one diode in case that those LEDs can survive short voltage surges like +20%. Or you connect another diode to drop the volatge by another 1 Volt... Yep!! Not easy to assemble own LED bulb without knowing exact parameters of used LEDs and without at least poor electronics knowledge, like mine is...

Well these last ones I purchased do not use a resistor in series with the 5 LED's it uses instead a little integrated circuit called current limiter it is set at 30 ma per each strip of 5 Led so current can never exceed the nominal curent no matter the voltage to a certain extent. I imagine there is a breakdown voltage. There are 2 of these small current limiter per set of 5 LED's. Even the circular circuit board on the end has 2 soldered to the back of this board. I did not take it apart to fallow the circuit but I presume the other current limiter is set to a lower current for a lower luminosity when not applying brakes. These do have a greater difference between brake and tail.

I've ordered amber for my blinkers I will take a closer look before installing them and let you know more if I find more.

Well, current limiting circuit is the real protection circuit. As I said allready, some manufacturers say that combination of resistor and diode is a protection circuit. I bought such LED allready.

But anyway, adding another LEDs after the current flow limiter may overload it. It keeps the constant current at more-less whatever voltage, but like every electronic device is limited to some power (Watts), even this one must be. I mention this just to not be surpised by damagiong the original LED bulb after using it with another upgrade. I wish you great outcomes!

Re my pictures posted above and my 13Watt amber LED: damned, It could be inserted into rear lamp only at the price of devastating the fastening shape in the hole for the T20 socket. I have to make a choice: devastating it with no way back, disassembling the rear lamp using heat to melt the glue and put the bulb to the hole from inside the lamp or to construct my own LED bulbs each with 4 x 3Watt LuxeonStar high output LED. I think I will go for melting my lamp in the oven :grin: :blush-anim-cl:

The tail lamp housing is over 300$ X2. I think I would re-design the lamp instead.

My newest amber lights backlight the lens a lot better.

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Yep, the difference is signifficant!!

I changed my rear amber bulbs for bigger. I got this one and this one. The luminous power is more-less the same, the ability to spread the light to enlighten whole reflector is the same as well. I am gonna combine each of those 2 bulb types to construct a combo-bulb with even more power.

Till this weekend I used this LED bulb and even when it is good in dark at night, it is allmost invisible in shiny day...