Gauge Bulbs - MotorsportAuto's new ones versus discontinued

[Zed Head]

Here are some pictures of the Eiko bulbs, and a comparison. My only "small-form" bulb is labeled LIFE 12V3.4W. The Eiko bulb is labeled 12V4W3E. My camera can't capture the look of the filament, only the size of the glow. The Eiko filament gives a nice wide glow, compared to the LIFE bulb. I don't know if LIFE is a Nissan vendor or aftermarket from the past, I pulled it from an old gauge. So it's old v. new which could also be a factor in brightness. The Eiko bulb slipped right in to the fitting, no issues.

One possible down-side to the Eiko bulb is that it does not have a supported filament. Apparently that can affect longevity in a vibratory environment. Who knows... I won't be installing these for a while. The dim 1 watters will do until I have some reason to remove the gauges.

The Eiko bulb is on the right in the attached picture.

[SteveJ]

I just bought some 5 LED bulbs through Amazon (Cutequeen LED Car Lights Bulb Green BA9 BA9s 5050 5-SMD BA9S, 53, 57, 182, 257, 1895, 6253, 64111, 64113 (pack of 2) : Amazon.com : Automotive). I had to remove the green filters in the gauges, but the light output is great. I'm going to buy some more to put in the speedometers and tachometers of my cars.

There is one caveat, though. The polarity is reversed on these bulbs, so I had to reverse the positive and negative. IIRC some of the sockets ground on the gauge, so these bulbs would not be appropriate for those gauges.

[Zed Head]

Looks interesting, that's a lot of pieces in a small unit for ~$2.50 each. Do you know if the LEDs are in series or parallel? Probably series so that they can use one resistor, maybe? I hope the longevity is good. I was describing my LED bulb fabrication to my dentist and he said that he had bought some LED lights for his shop with a twenty year guarantee but they didn't last near twenty. Three, I think he said. Not to be a downer but new technology always has its issues. Those look like they'd work great for the Z's though, with the potentiometer control.

[SteveJ]

I can't tell if they are series or parallel. I looked more carefully at SuperBrightLEDs' website. They say whether or not their bulbs are polarized. Also consider that for applications like our cars, there won't be too much stress on the bulbs. After all, how often do you drive at night?

By the way, with Amazon Prime, you can get them for $2 per bulb when you buy at least $25 worth of Amazon Prime merchandise.

Edit: My bad. It's the white LEDs available for $2 per bulb.

Edited February 23, 2014 by SteveJ

[Mikes Z car]

In my understanding a problem with short lived LEDs is that the designer typically selects too low of a series resistance so the LEDs are driven with too much voltage (and therefore too much current) shortening the life quite a bit. That doesn't help much as there isn't an easy way to know which LEDs are being overdriven as far as I know just from reading the specifications. LEDs are supposed to last 100,000 hours similar to a transistor life if not overdriven though I would enjoy seeing a response from fastwoman or anyone else with possible alternative viewpoints on that.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Mikes Z car
Fix spelling