interior bulb replacements

[Captain Obvious]

Yeah, I grew up on the incandescent as well and completely understand. That whiter than white LED thing just doesn't work for me either. I don't know if it's all mental, or age... But I just don't feel that I can see as well with the cool white shade.

The LED bulb I installed is a little whiter than the stock incandescent, but I find the whiter bulb offsets the yellowing old plastic lens of the dome light. End result is that I think it looks like it's "supposed" to look. Original shade, only brighter.

Haha! I don't think my hair brained weird stuff I spend my time on is going to scare MSA or any of the other suppliers.

[TomoHawk]

Maybe MSA will figure out that this is a good product to carry, and get some.

[TomoHawk]

Cap'n O-

Do you know the exact distance between the festoon clips? You can get the LED bulb/panel in several widths like 31mm, 37mm and 42mm.

There are some similar bulbs available (with 6 LEDs) and it is less expensive, but the LED panel is going in the other direction. Do you think it would be about the same? I figure the light would be concentrated towards the center of the cabin. They might be the hyper-white kind tho.

BTW- I think the cheap festoon type LED bulb with the inline LEDs would be great for a high-mount brake lamp. I just don't know where to get the clips, and you need the red one.

Edited October 22, 2014 by TomoHawk

[Captain Obvious]

TomoHawk, The original festoon bulb is what they considered a 31 mm festoon, but that's measured tip to tip, so it's hard to draw any correlations without actual drawings of LED replacements.

I measured the two lamp housings I have here and came up with the following:

Distance between the inside edges of the brass contact clips = 0.67 inches.

Distance between the plastic inside walls of the whole housing = 1.47 inches.

That means in order to fit comfortably into an unmodified location, the wide PCB portion of the bulb must be less than 0.67 inches wide, and the overall length of the whole bulb (tip to tip) must be less than 1.47 inches.

That bulb you linked to on Amazon looks very promising mechanically. It looks like it would fit better than what I used and I don't think you'd need to modify the contacts. If you could get that in warm white, it looks like a winner. I bet the ones on Amazon are cool white though (what you're calling hyper).

The bulbs I used with the PCB turned the other way. You can see from the dwg why I had to remove some material from the clips to get the PCB to fit. I also had to file a tiny bit off the tips of the cones to get it to fit inside the plastic housing, but it was a small amount and very easy to do:

Maybe you could dig up a mechanical drawing for the bulb you found?

[TomoHawk]

I"Ll look into it.

Duh- I have a spare festoon bulb in the drawer...

[TomoHawk]

Higuys,

 

With regards to this LED festoon bulb, would you think that at 12 LED bulb would be brighter?  I found some 3175 LED festoon bulbs on eBay ($4 for 4) and this might be a good time to try one, before I actually need to light up the cabin in the dark.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-X-PURE-White-31MM-12SMD-Festoon-Dome-Interior-LED-Light-bulbs-DE3175-3021-6428-/201019614778?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item2ecdb3e63a&vxp=mtr

 

OTOH, It seems this 12-LED bulb has 54 Lumens and the 6-LED bulb mentioned  earlier has 95 Lumens, so the latter is twice as bright.

 

then agai,  this one is 400 Lumens-  wow.  And 36mm tip-to-tip.

[Captain Obvious]

Those 12 LED assys from ebay are 6000K color temp. Nowhere near "warm white". I know it's all personal taste, but I can tell you that I wouldn't like them.

 

As for the other one that has 400 lumens... Did you leave out a link or something? I'm not sure what you're talking about.

 

Did you ever buy some of those six LED bulbs from Amazon? The ones that were turned sideways from what I used?
 

[TomoHawk]

I've not decided on which LED panel bulb to buy.  I like the 'vertical' board, but I haven't found one that's not too "white" or has enough lumens.  I think the white ones would be fine for testing, but I want to make sure that the light is bright enough to begin with.

 

It's hard to compare the stuff you see on eBay.  I think their "specs" aren't  technically measured (the show the 'brightness' by a picture from a phone in a dark room) so they could say the lamp has 10^6 lumens, and you wouldn't really know unless you buy one.  I don't think the eBay sellers themselves wouldn't even know the difference.  They're counting on the 'stupidity' of the American buyer to keep them in business.

 

The only specs you see on the auction page is the compatibility chart.

 

 

I recently wondered if you could replace the white cabin lamp cover with one that's clear?  maybe there's a clear, circular refraction lens that could be inserted.

[Captain Obvious]

Yeah, I agree on the stuff from ebay and Amazon. It's really hard to know what you'll be getting. The only way to know for sure sometimes is to buy one and try it. I'm more confident in getting something from Superbright. You stand a better chance of getting something predictable.

 

I don't think a clear lens would buy you much. The white lens does diffusion which is also important. If you had clear, you'd have a hot-spot between your strut towers. The white diffusion lens should throw more light up front and back. Maybe you could test that simply by removing your current lens completely and see how it looked?

[TomoHawk]

I did that with the new car when the cabin bulb burned out.  You take off the clear lens (it has the diffraction rings&lines) to change the bulb, and I tried it before putting the cover back on, and didn't like it because you didn't get an even  light as you say. 

 

I will keep this in mind for the next time I visit the JY, to find a cabin lamp with a large  cover that could be transplanted.

 

But this is something for a new topic.

[TomoHawk]

Yeah, I agree on the stuff from ebay and Amazon. It's really hard to know what you'll be getting.

Correct.  Even if you try the link that says 'product details' all you get is some dimensions and weight!  Not even a voltage range, let alone a light output  value.

[TomoHawk]

OK, I'll bite. I ordered this 6-LED festoon panel bulb from Amazon, and we will see how well it works, at least in the basement workshop.  Is there a cheap or DIY light meter calibrated in lumens?