Sold on LEDs

[dcoop46]

Was looking at the website & it says most of the bulbs (67 series) you have listed are discontinued.  Doing an LED search.  Any ideas?

[TomoHawk]

I tried the matching colour LED and it was not to my liking, beacause it was a deep colour, but not as bright as regular bulbs.  I am using white LEDs for everything.   You only need coloured LEDs if the lense is clear, which is usually jest the front turn signals.

 

[SteveJ]

You can source them on Amazon or eBay. There is a lot more variety than 5 years ago. For the corner markers, the issue tends to be the shoulder at the top of the socket. The side markers aren't that wide at that point.

[TomoHawk]

Be careful about the construction of your LED lamps.  I have some that have small circuit boards soldered into the base, and they don't hold up to much force during installation or removal.  The little boards just pulled right out leaving the base stuck in the lamp socket.

 

[Captain Obvious]

Most of the LED's I've messed with are somewhat fragile.

The one you pictured is interesting for another reason as well... If you look around on the web, you'll find a very similar bulb in wedge base as opposed to the bayonet base in your pic above. But now that you have pulled the base of one of your bayonet versions, under close scrutiny you'll notice that one side of the wedge shaped base is actually ground down (probably on a belt sander in China) to fit inside the bayonet collar.

It's the exact same bulb as the wedge base modified to fit into the bayonet.  One side has a solid wire to the positive connection, and the other side is soldered (sometimes not too robustly) directly to the bayonet base.

If you want more mechanical stability, I recommend mixing up some epoxy and dripping it down into the base. Fill it all the way up to the top of the metal bayonet collar. That will help keep it from rotating in the future and breaking the soldered connection.

[TomoHawk]

That's what I thought;  that little circuit board looked like t would fit into a wedge socket, but the Zed gauges don't use wedge sockets.  I usually like to get stuff made in the U.S., because it  seems to be of better  (man-style)  construction.

Or is there a way to convert to the wedge sockets for the gauges?

BTW-  I've also pulled (twisted) the upper "tower" part from a BA9s tower LED bulb, but it took more effort even though it was accidental.

Edited March 25, 2016 by TomoHawk

[Captain Obvious]

I'm not aware of any easy to convert to the wedge sockets for the gauges other than stripping wedge sockets out of something else and splicing them into your dash.

Out of curiosity, why would you want to? Just to get rid of the flimsy bayonet base on those LED's? If that's the case, epoxy would be a lot easier. Lot  easier.  It's not like you have to do a thousand of them. You only need seven. The HVAC is already wedge. Use the one you "broke" in the HVAC position. Problem solved? 

[TomoHawk]

[oops- double post]

Edited March 26, 2016 by TomoHawk

[Captain Obvious]

10 minutes ago, TomoHawk said:

 I've also pulled the "tower" part from a tower LED bulb, but it took moreeffort even though it was accidental.

Haha!! You mean like this?

[TomoHawk]

Yeah, that's about it.  The chips came off in a big chunk, with the two leads hanging off. That's too bad, because I think those tower-style lamps will do the trick to illuminate gauges- with a bit of hand-painted white paint around the sides.

Edited March 25, 2016 by TomoHawk

[TomoHawk]

26 minutes ago, Captain Obvious said:

If you want more mechanical stability, I recommend mixing up some epoxy and dripping it down into the base. Fill it all the way up to the top of the metal bayonet collar. That will help keep it from rotating in the future and breaking the soldered connection.

Do you think superglue would work?  I have "thin" glue which has the consistency of water.  You would drip it in to fill it, then give it a shot of the accelerator, or let it sit for a while to cure.

[TomoHawk]

Automobiles are going towards the wedge bulbs now, and so the supply of bayonets bulbs might decrease.  Plus, it might be easier and better to use the wedge sockets.

 

Edited March 25, 2016 by TomoHawk