Re: Lamps, Lights and Bulbs . . .

[DMCVegas@xxxx]

I've thought about an LED conversion before. As a matter of fact, 
there is a DML member here as well who has successfully performed a 
conversion on his lights (minus the rear ones). I can't remember the 
URL to his home page where the pictures are, but perhaps he can 
explain the details of the conversion himself.

I've looked into possible sources for LED's, and have found some that 
do cross-over for automotive use. Turn signals for the front and side 
marker lights shouldn't be a problem. You could of course use either 
a solid state relay to brighten/dim the lights as they flash. Or you 
could skip every other lamp, and wire them into a 2nd circuit to 
activate when flashing.

In the end, I decided against an LED coversion. I do have legal 
concerns about them. Someone could rear-end me, and I could lose a 
court case because my car is NOT running DOT approved safety lights 
for highway use. Which is the exact same case with clear aftermarket 
lenses. When I've seen them for sale, I've never seen a set that 
says, "DOT Approved". They mostly say things like, "Check with local 
regulations before use.", and "For show purposes/off road use only." 
Even on the Lexus SUV's that come with those "Euro-style" tail lamps 
where the outer lense is clear, but the housing has individual lenses 
inside. Even on these lamps, the inner lenses are coloured. NOT just 
the bulbs.

Granted, clear is not my thing (I came close to rear-ending a Honda 
Civic one day with clear lenses who had his turn lights wired over to 
his brake lights. and they were green at that). I would perfer a 
smoke tint to the lenses, with really birght LEDs behind to shine 
thru brightly. But in any case, untill someone sells an individual 
LED lamp that is specificly DOT approved for extierior safety use in 
a vehicle, a conversion is out for me. When you see a vehicle that 
has LEDs in use for clearance lights, or a CHMSL, the cluster itself 
as a whole is what has been approved for highway use. Not the 
individual LEDs that make the light up.

-Robert
vin 6585



--- In dmcnews@xxxx, "dan g." <copper_trace@xxxx> wrote:
> I was thinking...
> 
> What if you wired in some Varad Hyper LEDs in place of
> the bulbs?
<SNIP>