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Brightening up your evening drive and daylight signalling

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bob hughes

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This may be of interest to those with the 'older' wiring and lighting systems ie anything up to a BJ7 with a Negative earth

I have been ploughing through Ebay again and have come up with some LED bulbs that will plug straight into the rear stop tail lights and the front side lights.

Bought 8 of them from China ( with offset pins around ÂŁ 1.78 a pair delivered) before it dawned on me that my car is positive earth :wall:

But for all of you that have taken the step of putting in an alternator and switching to negative earth they will really show up at night. As a flasher is involved on these lights they suggest that you use a resister in the lines but they are cheap too.

:cheers:

Bob
 
Hi Bob,

One of my primary reasons for going neg ground and using an alternator is so I could run LEDs that weren't $100 each. Would you mind posting a link so I can find which you were speaking of?

Thanks,
Chris
 
Chris


https://www.britishcarforum.com/bcf/images/attach/jpg.gif


try this not sure if it will work as I am a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to this, It has the main search criteria and the sellers name, that should get you there.

:cheers:

Bob


PS wow it works but is not the 'link' still got to master that
 

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Just FYI I purchased positive ground bulbs for my 1955 BN-1 for $27.50 each (red) from www.litezupp.com Nice to deal with, out of Texas (I think)
They carry Neg, Pos ground in white, red, and amber colors, along with electronic flashers.
I am however having some issues with the turn signals, but not related to the bulbs. (I tried standard 1157 bulbs with same problem.)
 
The search criteria "led 1157" yields the above bulbs on ebay. I notice none of them seem to mention the "running light" component - the 5w of the incandescent 5W/20W 1157. However some show the dual contacts on the bottom. They're also on Amazon - read the reviews first, as some seem to have QC issues.
The needed resistor kits are easy to find on Amazon:
LEDresistor.jpg
 
Hi All,

Having often thought of 1157 LED replacements, but found their substantial cost impractical to follow through. So, I could not resist the purchase of (4) 24 LED 1157 replacements for $7.69 (including free shipping), in response to hearing of Bob Hughes’ reported bulbs find.

Today, I installed the 1157 LED replacements in both front and rear lamps of my negative-ground BJ8P1 and also installed a compatible electronic LED flasher at the same time. Although the bulbs performed properly as running lights and reacted to signal actuation, their luminescence seemed less, or equal at best, to the original incandescents as running lights and showed disappointing signal differentiation.

As I have installed an electronic flasher to eliminate the need for resistors, would the installation of resistors and retention of the original heat-actuated flasher produce a different result? As a result of my present experimentation, I question the benefit of these bulbs and have returned to my original 1157 incandescents and flasher.

Ray (64BJ8P1)
 
Thanks for the test results, Ray. I've been concerned that the LED 1157s wouldn't be any brighter. I rarely see any details of light output for these bulbs.
 
Ray

The results are extremely disappointing I must say. I have been expecting better than that based on the indicator light on the dash that I had changed to LED. Absolutely brilliant in all respects especially in the daylight.

BTW, I thought that resistors were required to protect the compute in modern cars?

:cheers:

Bob
 
I'm negative ground, I have replaced the dash turn signals, high beam and generator indictors with a 1watt E10 led. As Ray points out, very easy to see in the daylight.
 
I'm negative ground, I have replaced the 2 dash turn signals, high beam and generator indictors with a 1watt E10 led. As Ray points out, very easy to see in the daylight.
 
Hi Roger,

Viewer position is important to LED viability and with the dash indicators, you are more in line with the emitting LEDs and can more easily perceive the brilliance of the LED. The combination running/signal lights on my BJ8P1 (and earlier Healeys) are situated quite low to the ground when compared to other cars and one reason I would like more emitted light. This low position does not provide a good angle for other drivers to view these LED signals or running lights from and does not present LED luminescence at its best. Add to this non-beneficial viewing angle and low light output is the diminished differential of signal to running light and this experiment is a failure (at least as I see it).

At present I have reinstalled the incandescent 1157s. Maybe I will develop a third brake light that will allow these bulbs to be positioned much higher. That’s what I need, another project to think about.

Ray (64BJ8P1)
 
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