mx5cartalk.com

After a failed attempt at enhancing my centre high mount stop light (other than fitting an LED - see separate thread), I decided money would be better spent replacing the park/brake bulbs with LEDs. I settled on http://www.usa.philips.com/c-p/12836B2/vision-led-exterior-lighting, and thought you may be interested in how they look compared to a filament bulb.

Below photo is with one installed on the RHS only, just parking lights on. I was surprised how much better the LED bulb evenly lights the entire lens, more so than is obvious from this shot. The brightness and colour temperature look just right to me.


This one is with the brakes engaged (obviously), there is little difference to the standard bulb on the lefthand side, and a good match with the CHMSL (also an LED unit).

Something does not look right. A stop light is red and rear park light on the rear of the car are red as well. They dont look red ? The Philips spec is clear enough these LEDs are direct replacements for 1157 bulbs i.e. same base and output must be the same for certification. LED CHMSL have been used for probably 20 years and I suspect that some makers stuck with the incandescent lamp merely because they were using a lamp that was already available to them rather than having to re tool new lamps.

Mr Morlock wrote:They dont look red ?

These photos don't do them justice.

Red is one of the harder colours for digital cameras to render, so often shooting red items isn't perfect.


As for he lights, it looks good.
My only concern (and it may be the photo more than anything) is that the brightness difference from just parkers to braking doenst seem that much on the led side.

hks_kansei wrote:My only concern (and it may be the photo more than anything) is that the brightness difference from just parkers to braking doenst seem that much on the led side.

I looked again at the rear lights this morning and agree the LED bulbs don't have as much a difference in light output between park and brake as the incandescant bulbs. However, IMO there isn't any doubt that the brakes have been applied. See the following video (sorry for the smartphone quality) where the LH side is incandescant and the others are LED. Park lights go on first, then the brakes are applied twice. I didn't expect to so clearly see the delay on the incandescant side, which measures at about 0.1 second looking at the timing on the video.

Yes about the difference in light up time . If anyone looks at rear lights on many cars this will be readily noticed. The CHMSL with LED lighting has been around at least 20 years ,long before it became common on rear combination lamps. So thousands of cars still on the roads have an led CHMSL and conventional incandescent bulbs and you will see the centre light illuminate before the combo lights. We know the speed of light so the difference is noticed. I am not sure that I would feel any safer with led and it probably makes little practical difference i.e. the car behind should not be on your bumper.

True that if the following driver Is following too close, a difference of 0.1 second in reaction time isn't going to be much help. But if not, and they are actually paying attention, that time equates to almost 3 metres travelled at 100 kph, if my maths is correct. I think that's worth the $26 I paid for the two bulbs.

Btw, while I recognise that a number of cars have LEDs as standard in their CHMSLs, like my 2003 Astina, others - including my NA, and my daughters 2006 Lancer - do not.