View Single Post
Old Sep 11th, 2017, 19:06   #35
Jungle_Jim
VOC Member
 

Last Online: Yesterday 12:53
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Brighton
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by rtbcomp View Post
To broaden the topic slightly, what about LEDs in side, tail & brake lights?

Especially side/tail if you park up with the sidelights on.

rtbcomp
Are you asking about whether LED lights work, or whether they are road legal for these purposes?

Headlights are a slightly different topic, because beam direction and shape is so specific, and an MOT tester might fail LEDs for these reasons, as opposed to them simply being against the regs.

But LEDs in tail-lights, indicators etc would probably pass an MOT, because the tester might generally see a working light, pass it, and won't have reason to start checking the bulb type. The 'legality' of them would probably only be an issue if there was an accident.

As tail-lights etc, LEDs work well - other than triggering the bulb failure light on the dash (because they have different resistance/current draw to a normal bulb). But having said that, due to the risk of dazzling other motorists, you wouldn't want lights which were too bright, or a quality of light which affected their vision. Equally you wouldn't want lights which were too dull.

There just doesn't seem to be any industry regulations with automotive LEDS, and this might be a big reason why they haven't been authorised. For instance where as any normal 21w/5w tail-light bulb will generally be similar in output to any other, these rules don't apply with LEDs. You can buy LED replacement bayonet bulbs for a 21w/5w, and they could have 16 or 24 or 40 individual LEDs, whose arrays may be arranged differently, and the LEDs themselves may be red, yellow-ish white, blue-ish white etc etc. There is huge variation. I know because I bought several pairs off ebay to experiment.

Perhaps if VOSA/DVSA decided on standards in LED replacement bulbs, which the manufacturers had to adhere to, then perhaps that could pave the way for their use in older vehicles. If that happened it would be a no-brainer to convert over to them because they use 20% of the power and last indefinitely.

John
Jungle_Jim is offline   Reply With Quote
The Following User Says Thank You to Jungle_Jim For This Useful Post: