Switching to LEDs in the interior

[AlabamaDan]

I went crazy the other week and ordered a bunch of LED bulbs from various Chinese eBay sellers.  Hey, it was only a few dollars in total, so what's the harm.  I received my first ones and the results are disappointing.  Not sure if this is how all LEDs are or it is because they are cheap Chinese LEDs.  Anyone have any experience with these?

 

My first arrival was the map lights.  Here is the package I received in the mail - two weeks from the order day.

 

Here is the original OEM incandescent bulb lighting the interior.

 

I installed one for a comparison

 

Here is how the interior looks with the led

 

Final opinion, it changes the lighting to a more white light, but it isn't as bright.  Ironically I think I like the old ones better.

 

[mjotrainbrain]

I've had excellent luck with superbrightleds.com LED's.

[AlabamaDan]

2 minutes ago, mjotrainbrain said:

I've had excellent luck with superbrightleds.com LED's.

 

They probably cost more than 77 cents!  LOL.  Are the ones you bought significantly brighter?

[onespiritbrain]

I would like to know as well MJO.

I think I’m going to do either red or green for my map lights and whatever is the brightest for the dome and rear lights.


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[mjotrainbrain]

1 hour ago, AlabamaDan said:

 

They probably cost more than 77 cents!  LOL.  Are the ones you bought significantly brighter?

 

They do generally cost more than that, but not unreasonable.  Of the orders I've done so far, I'd say $1.75 is a fair estimate of the average per LED.  Comes with neat-o stickers too, for those horsepower gains.  

 

31 minutes ago, onespiritbrain said:

I would like to know as well MJO.

I think I’m going to do either red or green for my map lights and whatever is the brightest for the dome and rear lights.


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I would suggest red, I'm planning to swap one of my map lights to red (one still white for when I REALLY want to see).  From what I've read, red doesn't hurt your night vision, hence why many headlamps and flashlights have a red light mode.

 

 

I have pics of either my QX4 or 4Runner from the outside at night with LED's somewhere, but it'll be easier to just go take a new one than to find those, as well as some from the inside to give you an idea of how much you can see.  It's a drastic improvement.  I hope I see similar results with the bulbs in my climate controls, as the orange bulbs that come stock from Toyota really suck...

 

The map and light bulbs I used were actually by another company now that I think of it, I'll try to track down who that is exactly via my Amazon history.  I haven't used superbrightleds for anything significant yet, but for what I have used them for I've been pleased.

[mjotrainbrain]

OK, so the LED's I used for my map lights and dome lights are by Yorkim and are extremely bright in my 4Runner, my QX4, my dad's Tacoma, and my mom's Escape.  Highly recommend them.  Can't say for sure about superbrightleds, however I have been very happy with their bulbs in other applications.  Unlike many cheaper bulbs, I haven't had any bad ones from either of these companies.

 

This pic is taken with all interior LED lights on from the backseat, as you can see, you can see!  Very well in fact!  It's almost annoyingly bright, haha.  Stock I could hardly read a map, now I could just about do surgery (if you're crazy enough to let my meathooks on ya!).

 

[mjotrainbrain]

PS, don't mind the nasty fabric.  Previous owner is responsible.  Really need to clean it, but I can't really justify effort on seats with cigarette holes and foam coming out...

[onespiritbrain]

Yeah those really light it up! I want to get white also and have the color in the glove box for when I’m in the woods.

Thanks man


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[Guest]

I purchase all of my bulbs led/hid from ddm tuning. Fortunately for me they are based in Southern California so access to them is easy. I did once buy led bulbs from ebay for comparison and they are not very good. They are dimmer and there is a glow from them once they shut off. For reference, my map lights from ddm are about 2x brighter than the stock incandescent bulbs.


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[RainGoat]

I’ve LED’d 6 cars over the past 3-4 years. In the end, the cheap ones are unreliable & burn out in 1-2yrs. They can also cause odd electrical issues-persistent light, flickering & did some irreparable damage to my Mom’s JGC.

Diode Dynamics are fantastic but cost the most (they are warrantied 3yrs but mine have lasted longer than that). They make a little light that fits the glove box & ash tray.(Diode Dynamics 194 HP5 (92 lumens)) Also have vanity light replacements (28mm SMF2 (too bright) & SMF1)

DDM Tuning-good & reliable. Really like my map light & considering their Sabre Headlight LEDs for my high beam once my JDM headlight units are in. BTW, I’ve gone with red as well but military friends tell me the military now uses alot of green instead of red at night because you can still read maps
(DDM Tuning BA9S-5 X 5050 SMD, Red LEDs 1w(60lm)2 Year Warranty. Beam Angle: 360 Degrees, Polarity Sensitive

iJDM Toy & JDM Astar have also held up well

I’ve heard good things about Xtreme LED as well & I’ve used a couple Sylvannia & Phillips LEDs which I’m sure are fine but probably cost more than they’re worth.

For the dome lights you can use adapters & SMD Panels. I tried a set that are RGB changed with a remote but the “white” is really too blue for me.

[AlabamaDan]

Thanks guys.  Looks like LED is good, but I need to order some good ones.

[Slartibartfast]

Those bulbs in the first pic look like the wedge-base bulbs my friend picked up for his Chevy instrument cluster. I think he got them off eBay. They lasted a while, then the chips crapped out and started flickering and we put the 194s back in.

 

I've got little fleabay LED panels in my dome lights that have held up great. I went for the warm white, and not the largest I could fit, after fitting the largest cold white panel I could in my '95 and just about burning my retinas out when opening the door at night. Looks about like the stock bulbs, but doesn't kill the battery, which is what I was after.

[Guest]

They can also cause odd electrical issues-persistent light, flickering & did some irreparable damage to my Mom’s JGC.

No bueno. What sort of damage was done?



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[RainGoat]

No bueno. What sort of damage was done?

Well, first off, remember it was a Jeep('05 Jeep Grand Cherokee Overlander). While a VERY capable off-road vehicle & a comfortable tourer, it was nearly impossible to service & broke all the time-until it dropped it's #4 valve seat, ruined the engine & turned a $13,000 value vehicle into a big piece of metal that we ultimately had to pay to have towed off to a junkyard (it was in Kansas City & there's just no market for off-roaders or we would have given it away to someone interested in replacing the engine).

From the get go, the lights would flicker when on & stay persistently lit. No similar problem in the Path or my wife's MDX with the same lights. I did the replacement on one of my Mom's visits to Seattle hoping to make it brighter for her to see inside. As she left, she got just on the other side of the Cascades before, at night, almost all of her dash & center console went out, including intermittent radio - though HVAC still worked. A guy in a campground in Eastern WA helped her check all fuses (no simple feat as just replacing a fuse on that truck was one of the most difficult maintenance operations I've done-requiring breaking your back, not being able to see, cutting your wrists, cracking the fuses & often not getting them out even with all that).

Ultimately, the cause was never identified (despite my trying to track it down in my brief KC visits) & she drove it like that for another 1-1.5yrs. I never could figure out what it did but then that Jeep never made sense & it was obvious the lights weren't working quite right from the beginning. I pulled them from my other vehicles as I did't want to chance it - though I think it was an American car thing as the Japanese vehicles seemed to manage it fine. Needless to say, I was VERY unenthusiastic about repairing the Jeep when the engine blew, especially as my Mom is in her 70s & goes remote & solo in the West almost 2 months a year. I convinced them to let me go in with them on getting a 4Runner which I expect will replace my Path in 8-12 years.

[AlabamaDan]

I got some recommendations on bulbs from this thread:

 

 

I ordered the dome lights and map lights from Amazon the other day and they arrived today.  Amazon really wastes a lot in packaging, but they arrived safe and sound.  The packaging from the seller was pretty awesome.  I felt like I had bought jewelry.

 

 

Here's what the original bulb looks like compared to the OEM.  You can see my cheapo eBay bulb earlier in the thread.

 

 

It works well and is brighter than the OEM.  But, I can't decide if I like it.  It is a bright white where as the OEM is warm and yellow.  So the choice is warm and dim or bright and white.

[onespiritbrain]

I definitely do not like the neutral white either (and it’s really not neutral but falls slightly on the cool side- maybe 4700k). The only reason I got it was because they didn’t have warm white in that high quality brand. Superbrightled’s map lights looked like they wouldn’t have been bright enough with so few emitters, however they had every color available so I grabbed red from them (I wanted the red to be on the dim side anyway). So then I wanted the brightest possible passenger map light LED to make up for not really having one in my driver side since 99.99999% of the time I won’t be needing the red.

 

I’m sure there is probably another good brand that has high quality bright warm white BA9S LEDs and I just didn’t do enough research..

[RainGoat]

https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/led-vehicle-replacement-bulbs/ba9s-led-bulb-1-led-ba9s-retrofit-car/3/4359/?utm_source=googlebase&utm_medium=base&utm_content=BA9s-x-x-xVAC-CAR&utm_campaign=GoogleBaseChild&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIj7rhxbCk3gIVjNlkCh1suweMEAQYBCABEgIIDfD_BwE

[AlabamaDan]

I definitely do not like the neutral white either (and it’s really not neutral but falls slightly on the cool side- maybe 4700k). The only reason I got it was because they didn’t have warm white in that high quality brand. Superbrightled’s map lights looked like they wouldn’t have been bright enough with so few emitters, however they had every color available so I grabbed red from them (I wanted the red to be on the dim side anyway). So then I wanted the brightest possible passenger map light LED to make up for not really having one in my driver side since 99.99999% of the time I won’t be needing the red.
 
I’m sure there is probably another good brand that has high quality bright warm white BA9S LEDs and I just didn’t do enough research..

It is bright and really lights up well.


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