Club 80-90 Forums

Today I swapped out the 5 watt sidelight bulbs for 10mm LEDs. I merely smashed the original bulbs, soldered the resistor inside the old bulb casing, one leg of the led to the other end of the resistor and the remaining leg to the edge of the casing.

Wow - what a difference! White side lights instead of dull yellow and in theory they could be left on probably for days with no noticeable drop in battery power. Obviously you have to be mindful of polarity but well worth the effort in my view - a mere fraction of a watt now.

The next challenge is those indicators. I discovered they make flasher units specifically for LED lights so I'll have to get one of those first I guess. My hunch is indicators will need ultra-bright LED clusters to ensure even spread and sufficient brightness but I'm sure its dooable.

Incidentally you can make 10 sidelight bulbs for around £2.50 and they last for years and years and don't blacken like normal bulbs so that probably answers the question of cost.

Update on LED conversion.

I have now replaced all external bulbs with LED replacements. Indicators require a different flasher unit as the load on LED bulbs is so low but an alernative flasher shouldn't be too much of a problem. Much brighter lamps all round (particularly tail light bulbs which always were crap on a T25) and very little consumption. Clearly headlight bulbs have to remain as they are though.

Its now a month since I started this LED swap thing. I've now progressed to the inside. Check out the subtle blue mood. I LOATHED that horrible yellow glow from the courtesy lights and the fact I had to rummage around the floor in the dark. To give you some idea of how low the power consumtion is, my LED courtesy lights no longer trigger the alarm so I had install area sensors to get around that one.



I have (thankfully) resisted the temptation to have lightup wheel arches. Really not my scene, but theres a lot you can do to improve the look of the interior AND I can find the gear lever in the dark - lol. Total cost around £30. Includes under seat lighting for the back of my caravelle - that IS handy in the dark. The gearknob is powered from the dash lights and to hide the cable running down the gear stick, I simply used shrink tubing to tidy things up.

fantastic....I knew it would make a difference