LEDs: Where to buy 'em?

[DeLorean03]

This is really good to know. My luck on eBay has generally been pretty good so maybe I'll see if I can save a bit that way

A bit ...? More like a flipping fortune.

Here's a good example:

So, tail light LEDs, 1156 Red - will need 6 of these for the tail lights.

So here's SBL's version at $18 a piece (or $108 before shipping):

http://www.superbrightleds.com/morei...led-tower/396/


And here's an American company in Georgia selling LEDs on eBay at $15 for a pair with free shipping ($45 total for 6 lights):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GP-Thunder-P...item5887e405e0

Now, two things here:

1. Those are what I use on my car. I am happy with them. Not everyone is happy with my choice, but I love them. No one's rear-ended me yet, so going into 3 years now with them installed - so I am going to assume they're bright enough for the average driver behind me. Now whether I get rear-ended for another factor is out of my control.

2. I bring this option to light to help others. I am NOT doing this to poo-poo on Ozzie's work. He went through quite a bit figuring out the bulbs and putting together a reference guide. He did an outstanding job. I just wanted to try something different, and I wanted to "stray elsewhere" and try other things than what was documented in his pdf file. Some people love the convenience factor, and heck yes, he sure has delivered on that.

I strongly encourage people to try things out for themselves. If we are willing to pop $400 for a binnacle, $3000+ for an EFI conversion, or $700 for Toby TABs - I find it hard to believe that we would "hesitate and turtle shell" over a $15 pair of bulbs.

That's just me.

[RIUM+]

One other thing you're paying for with superbrightleds (and the dealbreaker for me) is you know exactly what you're ordering. They list the power consumption, voltage tolerance, lumen/candela output, peak colour wavelength, spread pattern & a complete rundown of all the dimensions. On eBay, you get a description of just "9 SMD, 12V, cool white T10 bulb" or something similar. A couple sellers provide more information than that but superbrightleds has it all. If you're trying to match the stock setup exactly you're often shooting in the dark with eBay.

It's possible to match the existing system almost exactly by carefully picking superbrightled bulbs, though I had a few changes from Ozzie's fantastic list... I should send him my findings!

Here's a photo of my before/after with superbrightleds, with each bulb within 8% of stock brightness according to my lux meter (except for my reversing lights which were out by 16% but I wasn't too concerned about them, and my indicator is brighter thanks to the way it instantly switches on to full brightness). Note that the left indicator is darker than reality because it's hard to take a photo of the indicators at peak brightness since my stock incandescents just pulse up/down in brightness, rather than actually turn on/off. So much resistance & induction in our old, thin wires. Photos taken with a proper DSLR camera, calibrated with a colourimeter & tagged with an ICC colour profile so this image looks true-to-life (at least, it does if you're not using an old version of Internet Explorer).

[AugustneverEnds]

A bit ...? More like a flipping fortune.

Here's a good example:

So, tail light LEDs, 1156 Red - will need 6 of these for the tail lights.

So here's SBL's version at $18 a piece (or $108 before shipping):

http://www.superbrightleds.com/morei...led-tower/396/


And here's an American company in Georgia selling LEDs on eBay at $15 for a pair with free shipping ($45 total for 6 lights):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GP-Thunder-P...item5887e405e0

Now, two things here:

1. Those are what I use on my car. I am happy with them. Not everyone is happy with my choice, but I love them. No one's rear-ended me yet, so going into 3 years now with them installed - so I am going to assume they're bright enough for the average driver behind me. Now whether I get rear-ended for another factor is out of my control.

2. I bring this option to light to help others. I am NOT doing this to poo-poo on Ozzie's work. He went through quite a bit figuring out the bulbs and putting together a reference guide. He did an outstanding job. I just wanted to try something different, and I wanted to "stray elsewhere" and try other things than what was documented in his pdf file. Some people love the convenience factor, and heck yes, he sure has delivered on that.

I strongly encourage people to try things out for themselves. If we are willing to pop $400 for a binnacle, $3000+ for an EFI conversion, or $700 for Toby TABs - I find it hard to believe that we would "hesitate and turtle shell" over a $15 pair of bulbs.

That's just me.

I hadn't looked at the prices yet; you're right, "a fortune" definitely fits better than "a bit"

[Bitsyncmaster]

Some of those EBay bulbs are worthless. I bought a couple cheap ones that I planed to use on my Malibu but they barely had any intensity. Could not use any LEDs on the Malibu because the flashing is ECU controlled and it would fast flash.

[DeLorean03]

Some of those EBay bulbs are worthless. I bought a couple cheap ones that I planed to use on my Malibu but they barely had any intensity. Could not use any LEDs on the Malibu because the flashing is ECU controlled and it would fast flash.

Did you buy them from the seller I listed as an example? Just curious.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Did you buy them from the seller I listed as an example? Just curious.

Don't remember but they were shipped from China.

[DeLorean03]

Don't remember but they were shipped from China.

Gotcha - mine came from CA and GA.