Have any of y'all used these LED tail lights????

[EZFEED]

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=93263

I'm thinking about scrapping the originals because it seems no amount of buffing or polishing with Brasso will clear them up and also because LED is so much brighter and when I'm running the roads during hurricanes God forbid someone runs into me.

The starter is 24V but the rest of the electrical system is 12V so these should wire right up. Have any of you tried these out yet? Are they total junk or do the work pretty well?

I plan on taking extra measures to seal them up so hopefully that wil prolong their life. I'd like to wire a single LED in for each front turn signal too and if any of you know where I can find something that would work please let me know. I was thinking of gutting one of those LED trailer/truck clearance lights if possible.

 

[ssgtwright-usmc]

RE: Have any of y

I dont know a thing about LEDS lights except that I hate halogens esp... on vehicles in oncoming traffic with their high-beams on with Halogen lights.
GOD, talk about blinding someone.
Wish I could answer your question here but lights I am not to familiar with unless I need to change it.
Guess Im not to bright in the light dept.

 

[EZFEED]

RE: Have any of y

Nah you may just not specialize in that area, thats all! Thanks for the reply and I hate those super bright lights too! I think the projector beams are what you mean cause Halogens are often times OEM equipment. I in fact had one of those little speed racer rice burners jerks behind me the other evening while I was out in that truck making a test run. It was getting dark (I'm out in the country so it does pretty quick) but not dark enough to warrant the use of his high beams. He was checking me out and getting all up in my a*s so I hit the brakes a little to try and get him to pass and I had to da*n near stop to make him go around me. The dude did in fact almost plow into me and no doubt a contributing factor besides his tailgating was that he could not see the brake lights because of the lenses being excessively faded out.

I thnk I need to freshen these parts out and doing it in LED would not only add a little modern style but also be quite a bit safer too.

 

[ssgtwright-usmc]

RE: Have any of y

Sometimes I wish I had those reverse spot lights on my truck like on tow trucks.
Someone with high beams on who is tail gating you, pop the switch and blind the SOB!!!!!
Must be a James Bond hidden gadget if I put one on my truck thou!!!!

 

[ARMYMAN30YearsPlus]

RE: Have any of y

I have installed LED lights on all my small trailers similar to this from HF but in a trailer mount rectangular not the round one. I really like the instal and forget they allow you to maintain

 

[Elwenil]

RE: Have any of y

I think the headlamps you guys are talking about are HID (High Intensity Discharge) headlamps. They come stock on a few high end sedans, sports cars SUVs and I think even some Volvo road tractors have them. They are a very popular swap item for the import crowd. They are the ones that appear to have a rainbow of color at the upper edge of the beam itself. They are a special bulb that works similar to a mercury bulb and are used with an optically ground projector lens. Don't knock them until you try them as they are probably the best lights that have been invented for a vehicle. True they can be an annoyance when oncoming but that is usually due to a poorly installed retrofit kit for an import car that do not have the beams focused or aimed correctly. When done right, the intense beam is literally cut off at a certain point and only rarely shines onto oncoming traffic. Occasionally you will get hit with them when the car is topping a hill and is at a higher elevation than you, but otherwise the beam should be much lower.

As for halogens, not many can complain about them. They have been factory on just about every vehicle since the mid 1980s. Every vehicle that uses a plastic lamp housing with the small replaceable bulb is a halogen lamp as well as many sealed beams that are marked halogen. There are also many halogen projector lamps used as either headlamps or fog lamps. They are better than sealed beams and normal plastic housings since they focus the beam better and shine less light in unwanted areas such as in oncoming traffic and up in the trees where the light energy is wasted.

On the LEDs, they are the best thing for tail lamps, bar none. The only disadvantage is the price.

 

[cranetruck]

Yes, LED tail lights are a plus. Also reflector strips are a good safety factor.
If you can't afford the factory LEDs, make your own, cost me about $17/light and have had them on the deuce and M105 for several years....

http://steelsoldiers.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=7392&highlight=led+tail+lights

 

[EZFEED]

Sweet I remember when you first posted that conversion Bjorn. What is the purpose of the circuit board in the back though? I don't seem to recall seeing one of these when I last handled those LED's from Harbor Frieght????

I also did some digging around at AutoZone today and found these bulbs below that will swap out in my headlamp buckets. Has anyone used these before with positive results or are they not much better than regular bulbs??????

 

[EZFEED]

Re: RE: Have any of y

I have installed LED lights on all my small trailers similar to this from HF but in a trailer mount rectangular not the round one. I really like the instal and forget they allow you to maintain

So have they been fairly reliable David or have they ever given you any trouble?
These are an almost exact overall size to size match to the original Czech lights I have now so it would be a perfect swap!

 

[cranetruck]

RE: Re: RE: Have any of y

The individual replacement bulbs pictured above may need a resistor in series to drop the voltage also, they have, at least used to have, a very limited viewing angle. Very bright straight on, but not so good from an angle.
The circuit board is the voltage regulator, permitting a user voltage of about 10 to 30 volts....

 

[EZFEED]

Gotcha boss! So do I need to look into finding a resistor to wire into them? If so would you have an idea of what voltage? As it they are now, it's 12V to the socket, would this resistor help with with the brights?
Do you reckon they will work on a positive ground system too? Hmmmm

 

[Elwenil]

The resistor is required for the flasher. Since the LEDs have much less resistance and most flasher systems work off of the resistance in the circuit, the signals will not blink properly. I would not use the bulb style LEDs. They have come a long way from what they were originally, but they are still VERY hard to see in the daylight unless you are looking at them straight on. By straight on, I mean dean into the lamp. The elevation change from sitting in a car or truck is normally enough to make them barely visible. Either buy some normal LED lamps that are DOT approved (I don't think any of the bulb replacements are DOT approved) or go with a retrofit like Bjorn's tail lamp mod using a DOT approved LED.

 

[cranetruck]

Gotcha boss! So do I need to look into finding a resistor to wire into them? If so would you have an idea of what voltage? As it they are now, it's 12V to the socket, would this resistor help with with the brights?
Do you reckon they will work on a positive ground system too? Hmmmm

Here are the left-overs from my experiment, the resistor I used was a 100 ohm/10 watt one for each LED light.
This resistor will not help the flasher problem mentioned above, but if you keep the incandescents in the front, there will be enough of a load for a thermal type flasher. The transistorized flashers will work for any load up to the limit of the switching transistor.
Positive ground will not work with the LED shown below, I just tested it, so you would have to isolate it from ground and run it that way. Incandescents don't care about polarity...

 

[EZFEED]

The resistor is required for the flasher. Since the LEDs have much less resistance and most flasher systems work off of the resistance in the circuit, the signals will not blink properly. I would not use the bulb style LEDs. They have come a long way from what they were originally, but they are still VERY hard to see in the daylight unless you are looking at them straight on. By straight on, I mean dean into the lamp. The elevation change from sitting in a car or truck is normally enough to make them barely visible. Either buy some normal LED lamps that are DOT approved (I don't think any of the bulb replacements are DOT approved) or go with a retrofit like Bjorn's tail lamp mod using a DOT approved LED.

Ah, I see where I will run into problems with this now I know what you mean about the angle of the lights now, I recall overhearing something about this concerning these bulbs froma customer that was purchasing them at AutoZone. Would they make good headlights though?????

 

[EZFEED]

Here are the left-overs from my experiment, the resistor I used was a 100 ohm/10 watt one for each LED light.
This resistor will not help the flasher problem mentioned above, but if you keep the incandescents in the front, there will be enough of a load for a thermal type flasher. The transistorized flashers will work for any load up to the limit of the switching transistor.
Positive ground will not work with the LED shown below, I just tested it, so you would have to isolate it from ground and run it that way. Incandescents don't care about polarity...

Crud...so I may be rewiring my harness for these I guess. That's cool and not hard to do, I will just cut the negative wires and run a + 12V lead to the lighting circuit in the fuse box and then that ought to cover the whole thing I think (unless you think the + ground to the frame at the batt's will interfere?).

I was thinking of using that LED bulb for the main headlamps and the HF units for the tail lamps.

 

[steelsoldiers]

They almost look like Unimog taillights like I had on my 404. I don't have a set to measure or I could tell you for sure. They are still available NOS for around $30/pair. Just a thought.

 

[wjruth]

For marker lights / turn signals you could use the same lights they use on trailers - we use them at work and they are bright and compact.

http://www.truck-lite.com/webapp/wc...10001&storeId=10001&productId=32152&langId=-1

 

[wjruth]

That site actually has a whole page devoted to military lighting -

http://www.truck-lite.com/webapp/wc...0001&storeId=10001&categoryId=10857&langId=-1

 

[EZFEED]

Wow I like those LED headlamps but I cant use them cause they're 24V

 

[EZFEED]

They almost look like Unimog taillights like I had on my 404. I don't have a set to measure or I could tell you for sure. They are still available NOS for around $30/pair. Just a thought.

I would acually opt for thos or if they just sold the lens and it fit then I'd use my old buckets. I really wanted to get away from the incandescent bulbs because they just dont seem to pierce the darkness in rain and stormy weather like the LED's do and this truck will get allot of roadtime during storm season clearing the roads and such so it seems the brighter the better and shock resistant in case I back into a tree or hit something is what I'm striving for.
Am I wrong about this? Would LED's not be the more viable solution for this purpose?