LED bulbs for gauges

Seeing as how it's such a PITA to change bulbs in the gauges, I'm planning to replace mine with LEDs.

Anybody here tried it?

www.superbrightleds.com/BA9S6_specs.htm

Hey Guitargeek, there was a post on LED's here is the link for the place that had them and a cross reference to help you get the right ones. autolumination.com/

They had pretty good prices to from what I have found.

I have used LEDs for idiot lights. I bought them at Radio Shack and they were 12VDC. I couldn't see them and ended up replacing them with incandescent bulbs. Perhaps the ones I used weren't powerful enough... not sure but I didn't like them.

All the galesburg bikes are going to LED tail light replacement bulbs becase they are about 75% brighter and they dont blow when your tail moves during burnouts. :woohoo:

I bought a set of LEDs to replace a few bad ones I had. On this bike it's a hit and miss thing though.

For the most part they really blaze - and since they each hold 5 LED emitters, it's gonna be a *long* time before I need to go into the gauges again.

On the other hand, even before I replaced the "high beam" lamp, it barely glowed. With an LED in there, it barely lit at all, so I left a normal bulb in there.

Overall I highly recommend them - I work at a powerplant, and we've replaced all the indicators on our switchgear with them. It's always nice to *know* the status of a breaker and not have to wonder if the lights aren't just burned out again, again, again...

Geek, yes, I did it.

Go to rat shack, and buy a standard 5VDC high intensity white LED. On one of the leads, solder in a 470 ohm resistor. This will provide a sufficient voltage drop to allow the LED to run off of the 12VDC system without burning up.

The ideal way to do this is to take the dead bulb and cut the glass off of the base. Solder the anode lead (the longer one) to the filiment holder that connects to the center pin of the bulb base. Connect the cathode (short end of the LED) through the 470 ohm resistor to the filiment support that connects to the shell of the bulb base. Now just pop it into place. It helps to cover all of the components with shrink tubing so that you can smush things around without worring about a short.

Check out the picture for a visual.

Post edited by: philcsand, at: 2005/10/28 03:24

You can also play around with other colors of course. I think a blue LED could make for some really interesting effects. One thing to note, the way I advocate is tricky, and takes an experienced solderer to put together, just because of the fine pitched involved.

Before soldering this all together, I would suggest you pot the bulb base with epoxy so that the filiment holders don't get moved around and broken off. Once the soldering is done, go ahead and pot the rest of the assembly in epoxy so that none if it moves around, and the components are waterproofed. If there is a large demand for LED replacements, I could probably be persuaded to make some for people (for a nominal fee that would be determined at a later time)

wiredgeorge wrote:

I have used LEDs for idiot lights. I bought them at Radio Shack and they were 12VDC. I couldn't see them and ended up replacing them with incandescent bulbs. Perhaps the ones I used weren't powerful enough... not sure but I didn't like them.

There is no such thing as a 12 volt LED. What you most likely got was either a standard LED with a current limiting resistor in series with it, or something else, like a neon indicator who's packaging was misrepresentitive. LED's run off of 1.6 to 4.5 volts, depending on the design, size, and chemistry.

www.mouser.com/index.cfm?&handler=data.l...SField&N=0&crc=false

OR

www.digikey.com
enter 'led incandescent replacements' in search

I order electronc parts from both companies.
Fast shipping
Small orders not a problem

Good source for odds and ends if you're doing a megasquirt electronic fuel injection controller conversion as well.

-Duck

Do you have to add diodes to the led system, or is that only on multiple bulbs? I read some where that you had to.:dry:

LED = Light Emitting Diode

So I guess you could say you have to add diodes, since that's what an LED is

Maybe you are thinking of resisters, and that's mentioned above.

Phil, Radioshack has a wide variety of LEDs they sell as 12V (12VDC). They work fine in a 12VDC negative ground system. I doubt they are neon as they are sold as LED but can't vouch for Radioshack and I don't know electrically how they are made to work in a 12VDC system but they do... have a look at an example:

www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?pro...ed&parentPage=search

Sorry for the long link... suspect you will have to cut n paste it into a browser... You could also find it at www.radioshack.com by looking up the model or catalog number: Model: 276-209 Catalog #: 276-209