[TR] LiteZupp LED lights

[scotts junk]

Not the particular brand mentioned, but our club did an informal test on a few
1156 and 1157 LED lights. Findings were:



1) There is a lot of variation in brightness among the various brands. The
bulbs we tested ranged from less light than the regular filament bulb to
significantly brighter at certain places (see 2 below)



2) Regular filament bulbs throw off light around almost 360 degrees (at least
in the roughly horizontal plane where they are normally viewed). A lot of this
light hits the reflector in the taillight assembly, is diffused and reflected
back out through the lens. This gives a relatively even brightness when viewed
from anywhere behind the car, even at right angles to the cars long axis (this
of course varies with the lens type and rear ligt layout, but is generally
true). The LEDs we tried (and from appearances, the ones on the website
referenced) directed all their light away from the reflector, so there was no
diffused, reflected light going through the lens. This leaves only a few very
small, very intense light sources. The result was, as you walked around behind
the car there were some very bright spots and some very dim places. The light
was especially dim away from directly behind the vehicle, with almost no light
visible when looking from the side of the vehicle. The lenses on our cars were
designed for a diffuse light source, not point sources, so the light
distrubution is quite poor. I have seen an LED bulb built with rings of LEDs
aimed to the side and base of the bulb but we haven't tested them.



3) Some vehicle's flasher units use the resistance in the filament to time the
flasher  - these will require a replacement non-restance flasher unit if going
to LEDs.



Based on our trial (we were looking at a mass buy) we decided that LEDs
weren't yet developed to the point where they were an improvement on the old
hot filament bulbs and didn't install them.



cheers

Scott



> Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2009 09:55:54 +0000
> Subject: [TR] LiteZupp LED lights
>... LiteZupp (url below) has LED
> units that are direct plug-in replacements for the usual 1156 and
> 1157 light bulbs. They claim the units are much brighter and, of
> course, take much less current. I'm tempted, but the $25 price per
> unit isn't trivial. Has anyone tried these out?

> http://www.litezupp.com/Litezupp.Com/Welcome.html
>


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