Sidelight failure in Fog Cluster

[Kace]

Not sure if anyone else has had problems, but I have probably had 2/3 sets of LED sidelights fitted over the years. Every one of them has wound up failing in less than 6 months or so.

Every time I have had to go back to the original yellow look bulbs - the same ones that have been in the car since I got it more than 8 years ago. Never had a single problem with these.

Can't understand it - anyone else had any issues with bulb failure like this.

[gfalls]

Not sure if anyone else has had problems, but I have probably had 2/3 sets of LED sidelights fitted over the years. Every one of them has wound up failing in less than 6 months or so.

Every time I have had to go back to the original yellow look bulbs - the same ones that have been in the car since I got it more than 8 years ago. Never had a single problem with these.

Can't understand it - anyone else had any issues with bulb failure like this.

Funny you should say that. I got some last month, and already one of them has failed. I wonder if this is common on all cars, or just the FTO?

[mcgon1979]

sounds like the wrong electrical rating to me... LEDs should be bullet proof really.

[kevinod]

I had sidelight LEDs for about a year and one of them failed. Weren't cheap ones either.

[Kace]

sounds like the wrong electrical rating to me... LEDs should be bullet proof really.

Yeah that's what I thought - but these are fairly standard bulbs on most cars. Just seems strange to me that I have had 3 or 4 LED bulbs fail (both expensive and cheap).

[Kace]

Jesus I must be buying real crap - I installed two new LED sidelights in the Audi last week and they're both gone already.

The same brand that I put in the FTO as well - both gone too.

I'm sick of this.

Anyone recommend a good quality, bright and time proven set of LED sidelight bulbs that match the HIDs well ?

[CJ]

Kace, I bought this set of 4 LED W5W bulbs for the FTO about 2 months ago, they're very bright and are still going strong! Would recommend the seller...

CJ

[Kace]

FYI - for anyone ever buying sidelight LEDs, don't ever purchase anthing that look like these single LED ones. I think they fail quickly due to the fact that most car batteries run on a voltage above 12v (generally 13-14v)






I recently got a set of these high power ones (below) and have been very impressed with overall brightness - durability to be proven yet though, although they have been going for a few weeks so far.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Hi-Power-LED-Xenon-White-501-W5W-Sidelight-Wedge-bulb_W0QQitemZ360119593099QQihZ023QQcategoryZ72233QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262

[giuanz]

All electronic circuits connected to the battery of a car should have some sort of protection from both positive and negative voltage spikes, which are quite common and produced by alternator, ignition coil and relays.

The filament of a lamp has normally too much "inertia" to be damaged by these spikes. Instead a LED is a silicium device and will fry at the first big surge. The resistor in series with the LED won't help protect anything.

The easiest surge protection circuit is to install, in proximity of the electronic device and in parallel with it, a 1A-rated high-voltage diode (e.g. 1N4007) mounted with reversed polarity (which normally is an open circuit but will shunt the negative spikes) and a small 0.1uF 63V polyesther capacitor (which will shunt the positive spikes).

Don't know, I would say that whoever sells you LEDs to replace standard lights should have already thought about surge protection, especially if the LEDs have to replace relay-activated lights - but maybe not...