All SMD bulb conversion...

[congerz83]

Has anyone converted to SMD rather than LED? I've seen this topic, but it never seems to cover strictly SMDs. I just need a "shopping-list" of SMDs I can use for the whole car.

MOST importantly the Instrument panel, but I want to do everything in SMD. I want to use the brightest SMDs, with the most led-bulbs you can fit in all areas of the car.

I'm going to go the cheap route on eBay. If someone could provide links, I'd consider naming my first born after you..

- Rick

[congerz83]

http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?1019-SMD-LEDs-for-the-Binnacle-Dash-Lights

That covers the instrument panel. What about the rest of the car though?

[congerz83]

I still need help with this. Finding the part numbers are not so bad, but I need to know how many little LED lights I can fit on SMD bulbs. I want to go as big as possible that can fit properly.

For example, are ALL 1157SMD's the same LENGTH no matter how many LED's on it? I want the biggest and brightest possible.

[Farrar]

I believe all of the festoon-type bulbs are the same length of 44mm.

Have you seen this blog entry (http://delorean2109.blogspot.com/2011/07/going-100-leds-on-your-car-is-good-idea.html)?

Farrar

[congerz83]

I believe all of the festoon-type bulbs are the same length of 44mm.

Have you seen this blog entry (http://delorean2109.blogspot.com/2011/07/going-100-leds-on-your-car-is-good-idea.html)?

Farrar

For sure! That's what's motavating me to do this in the 1st place. I'm just trying to go the brighter route with SMDs. I'm also trying to go the cheaper route, by buying on ebay. That's why I'm looking for original bulb measurements so I can get the tallest SMD bulbs with the most bulbs as possible in every socket. I suppose I can pull my OEM bulbs myself, I just havent had the time. I haven't even had the time to adjust my carb.

[Farrar]

I'm also trying to go the cheaper route, by buying on ebay.

For what it's worth, I bought some 12-SMD bulbs off of eBay and they were noticeably dimmer than the six-SMD bulbs I got from Superbright! Puzzled, I looked carefully at the bulbs. It looked like the Superbright bulbs had some electronics soldered to the back, whereas the eBay bulbs (cheap and direct from China) did not. Also, the ends of the eBay bulbs did not seem to be as well-soldered-on as the Superbright bulbs: one of them broke when I removed it from its socket. "Buyer beware," and whatnot.

Farrar

[aludden]

I just bought some 18-SMD bulbs for the tail lights and front lights from Premiertek/hid-lights.com and they are not as bright as the incandescent. They do sell some 68-SMD lights (obviously the SMDs are smaller) so I will exchange for those and see if they are better.

[sdg3205]

The ebay seller Ozzie was talking about doesn't seem to have anything online at the moment. All the prices on the website are about double.

What's the difference between the 1156-R18-T from Superbright.com and the 1156-SMD-R18 from premiertek's site? They're about $18 per unit from Superbright.com but only $10 per pair from premiertek. Just a quality thing?

[Kenny_Z]

I purchased some LEDs for my Mustang from V-LED. I was impressed with their brightness but of the 8 bulbs I ordered one of them was defective. I couldn't use it in the connector since one of the side pins were bent inward. I couldn't fix it.

I read this write-up on LEDs for Deloreans just yesterday. http://delorean2109.blogspot.com/2011/07/going-100-leds-on-your-car-is-good-idea.html

[Ozzie]

The ebay seller Ozzie was talking about doesn't seem to have anything online at the moment. All the prices on the website are about double.

What's the difference between the 1156-R18-T from Superbright.com and the 1156-SMD-R18 from premiertek's site? They're about $18 per unit from Superbright.com but only $10 per pair from premiertek. Just a quality thing?


Drinking my own medicine, so to speak, I decided last Summer to replace the ('85) Supra's rear tail lights with LEDs (4 required). Since I was not in a hurry, and they were cheaper, I decided to order them from ebay straight from China (slooow shipping).

I too was concerned that these would be lower quality, especially as they did not have the phosphorous coating, the typical light yellow dome, on each individual SMD. Anyway, here are results about having them in use for five months:
- Overall functionality worked well, bright with parking lights, brighter with brake light.
- Similar electrical load performance, in that we now do not see the battery dip below 12.3V at a stoplight (we run a digital voltmeter on accessory plug) with the headlights on.
- In December I had to replace one of these LED bulbs (I had a spare), as they went bad, others were fine. Note this car is a daily driver.

As for sourcing from China versus permiertek or SupraBright - guess where those two are sourcing from? Hint: there are many LED bulb makers in China, but much, much, less fewer LED SMD manufacturers.

Perhaps SupraBright buys higher quality LED bulbs, and that is the cost difference. I have been buying LED bulbs from China (in China or through eBay) and ...well.. it is "like a box of chocolates". Sometimes you are buying equal or better than Suprbright, sometimes they are the ones that "fell off the truck", and sometimes they are factory rejects (not atypical for really inexpensive China products). Often it is not so easy to tell from just looking at the product alone.

I have noticed four cost structures, from the different LED bulb sources. In increasing product cost order: China, Hong Kong, permiertek, Superbright.

Note: None of the bulbs I installed on my DeLorean, which are a combination of Superbright, premiertek, and GPTHunder have gone bad, but my car is not a daily driver. EDIT: Wait I did have the engine bay light fail once (from Superbright) but the replacement has exceeded the life of the first one.

[dvonk]

i mentioned it in this old thread (http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?152-Cheap-basic-LED-interior-lights), but i bought some SMD bulbs for the interior of my DD from DealExtreme.com (https://www.dealextreme.com/c/car-led-light-bulbs-712). they carry a wide vareity of SMDs and LEDs and they are very inexpensive. they come over on the 'slow boat from China' (literally), so it takes a couple weeks for them to arrive, but hey, the shipping is free. :smile: