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This is copied and pasted from a post I made on T'Bricks a few days ago. The discussion was more about instrument lighting but I tossed this in...
For anyone thinking about external lights, I've tried some. I found the H4 120 SMD LED lights were ok for daytime running lamps but they produced no light for night time vision. They did look cool...close to HID color without the glare. I had one last me 2 days before it died. I've also got some of the 5 SMD variety and while they are a much better built item, it would seem they are wired in the wrong polarity and won't work in my H4 slots.
I've tried the 1156 bulbs in my trailer. While they produce enough light, they get hot pretty quickly in that small enclosure. I found that after being on for about 30 minutes the LEDs were already starting to fail. I don't think it was actually the LEDs failing, they were getting hot enough to melt the solder holding them in place and actually fell off when I went to twist the bulb out. Not quite up to the task. Keeping them cool is key.
I've got some H3 SMD LEDs in my fogs and they seem to be holding up. However...the H3s I linked to are huge. They will not fit through a normal H3 bulb slot and often will be too deep for the housing. Since my unobtanium fog lights were pretty much wrecked I didn't feel guilty taking a die grinder to the bulb socket and JB Welding the bulbs in place.
The key with the external ones is keeping them cool if they're lit all the time. For flashing they would work fine although I imagine they'll throw your flasher relay for a loop. I've got a 12V chip mounted 10 watt LED coming. It's mounted to a heat sink. Not sure what I'll do with it yet but I'm interested to see how bright it is.
For anyone who was watching the 24 hr Le Mans on the weekend, I heard them saying the lights they are running now are all LEDs and they are astounded with how bright they are. The commentators mentioned how they had to keep them cool...
The "links" mentioned were to eBay listings of the actual bulbs I was using...
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Dale
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