LW ES300

I know this is a very old thread that was posted by awhiteguy in 2002, and I am looking for the life expectancy as I am not able to figure that out. Warden_jp2002 is choosing not to reply to my inquiry placed 3 times since my purchase. I bought 10 pieces of 286 "spark blue" wide angle LED's (5mm wedge base bulb working at 12V) & 10 pieces T5 twist lock wedge base.

They fit perfectly and light up great, but I am trying to determine their life expectancy and figure if I should order some extras to have in the bull pen for if/when these new LED's burn out. Will they last 5,000 hours or 648,732 hours as shown in the eqaution/formulas below? Any info that anyone can provide would be appreciated. Thanks

As an example, lets say that the original backlight bulb is 8v and 0.4 MSCD. You don't want to pay $5 for the original bulb, so you find one on topbulb.com that is 12v and 0.5 MSCD, with a life of 5000 hours. Now this is where the bulb derating equations come into play.

The brightness of the new bulb is as follows: MSCD = ((8/12)^3.5)*0.5 MSCD = .12. Since you are running the bulb on less volts is is going to be only 25% as bright as the original! BUT look what it does to the life of the bulb: LIFE = ((12/8)^12)*5000 LIFE = 648,732 hours!

Now the bulb will outlast the car (even a lexus). But that bulb probably isn't going to be bright enough. So, maybe we could try a 6v bulb. It should be plenty bright running on 8v, right? Lets say you find a 6 volt bulb that is rated for 20,000 hours:
LIFE = ((6/8)^12)*20000 LIFE = 633 hours

Night time photo, daytime pic soon to follow.........For those of you in a far off land, odometer reading is in US miles

heorung

Nice ... I also changed mine cluster using blue LED as well... so far it been running good for about 1 year now...you should stop worry about when the damn thing going to burn out ..when they do .. replace the suckers... they are cheap.

Dont worry .. be happy....otherwise you will be growin white hair faster than you can understand why

LW ES300

I'm not really worrying, but am pretty pissed that the seller couldn't just tell me "500 hours, 7,500 hours 25,000 hours" or anything after I made the purchase. I emailed 2 or 3 brief inquries of lifespan, no response.

I agree 100% to just replace them when they go bad, and you are correct that they are very inexpensive. I'll order 8 or 16 more (1 or 2 pair) for backup if I had a clue of the life so I could just feel a little more confortable.

Lexucan

Generally speaking, LEDs last much longer than incandescent bulbs. So, if you figure your original cluster bulbs lasted 10 to 15 years, then the LED replacements should theoretically last 20 to 25 years....or longer. But having stated that, it also depends on the quality of bulb. For example, I bought some LEDs from superbrightleds.com for my licence plate lights about six months ago. Already one of them is flickering on and off. So, I contacted them and asked if they would send me a replacement. They said they'd be happy to but I gotta ship them back the defective one first before they will send me a new one. Not great customer service, IMO. They want their dying $4 LED back before they'll replace it. It would cost me that much to ship it to them so, forget it. I'll just take my business elsewhere from now on.
Anyways, the morel of the story is: You pays your money and you takes your chances.

heorung

Check mine out



I put 2 additional blue LED in on the bottom to shine directly on the fuel / temp needles before when I couldnt find the replacement to see better .. but since got 2 replacement... I decided to leave it as is.

I'm going to find fluro orange and paint the Speedo needle and attach another LED pointing to it to see if that will give it more brightness at night without going to do the needle fix.



By the way ... check out my Kms ... still going strong and kickin azz!

LW ES300

Lexucan:

What is your thought on these I bought on eBay 2 weeks ago from Warden_JP2002 in Hong Kong? I know you gets what you pay for just wondering your opinon. Thanks for your input, have a great weekend!

10 pieces of 286 "spark blue" wide angle LED's
(5mm wedge base bulb working at 12V) & 10 pieces T5 twist lock wedge base.

Think you got someone else's faulty LED's that were refurbished and then sold to you? Mine cost 5.70GBP for 10 and also 10 5mm wedge bases for (I think) 1.70 GBP totaling like $12.63 US dollars incl. freight from Hong Kong. I just looked on eBay and they are now 9.30 GBP ($17.02 US $) just for 10 LED's, so Warden_jp2002 sees that he is moving these things and raised the price about 30%. Common sense for any business, but still afforable for the average car owner.

LW ES300

Heorung:

Dude, no doubt on your km, that is like 190,000 US miles. Awesome! Change that oil regularly and she'll run forever. I have 151,000 US (like 245,000 km) and am babying this thing. Was my Mom's for 7-8 years and the last 120,000 miles (190,000 km). I painted over my needles with black felt tip magic marker to only leave what I think are equal distances on the speedo/tack and shorter on temp/fuel. I think it looks wicked cool and when/if the factory lighting blows out behind the needles that's when I'll put in one or two red LED's. Other threads here talk about doing this → Low Budget DIY Solution for Burnt Out Needles or RED TIPPED Speedometer Needle

Lexucan

There are so many manufacturers of LEDs these days it's really hard to say which are quality products and which are well...junk. To look at them, you would think, hey, they are just light bulbs, what could go wrong in making them? But I think the vast majority come from Asia where they are pumped out by the gazillions, so you have to figure some of them (maybe a LOT of them) are going to be duds. Do you think each individual LED is tested to make sure it works before it is sold? I highly doubt it. So, in the end, it's a crap shoot, which supplier the seller buys from and then resells to you. The fact that you can't get a response to your questions from the ebay seller you bought from might mean he's reluctant to put a number to the lifespan issue because he has no idea himself. He probably buys his LEDs from whomever he can get the best price. As for superbrightleds.com, I expected better customer service from them because their prices are usually 2 or 3 times those of most ebay sellers. They do offer a warranty on their products BUT when they demand that you return a $4 LED to them that has stopped working before they will send a replacement, you have to wonder. I could understand that policy if you wanted replacements for hundreds of dollars of worth of product, but one measley little $4 LED?....come on! So in effect, at that rate, their warranty is worthless. But like I said, you pays your money and you takes your chances. In my case, I was dissatisfied so next time I'll buy from someone else. Had superbrightleds.com coughed up and sent me a new LED no questions asked (I had even emailed them a copy of my sales invoice to prove what I bought from them and when, AND I did buy about $35 worth of their products at the time) I'd still do business with them in the future but not after I discovered their warranty policy includes shipping a $4 item back to them before they will send a replacement. I guess they figure I was trying to scam one new little LED from them LOL...whatever!

I doubt that I got someone else's refurbished LEDs. I doubt that there is even a way to "refurbish" a defective little chunk of plastic like that. Like an ordinary light bulb, when it breaks it's pretty much toast. So my guess is, all the defective ones they have just get tossed in the trash where they belong. And that undoubtedly is where mine would have ended up had I returned it to them. LEDs have become very popular in recent years, probably due in part to the fact that they are very energy efficient, and partly due to the fact that they are just plain cool! So, like any savvy business man, if Warden_jp2002 sees he's getting tons of orders for a particular group of products, he's apt to want to increase his profits on those products while the feeding frenzy lasts!

Anyways, you asked for my thoughts, so you got 'em....hehehe. Have a good weekend yourself. And good luck with your LEDs!

heorung:

Your cluster looks awesome! Those two outside LEDs aimed at your temp and fuel gauges really add a neat effect. Hope your idea for your speedo gauge works. Hey, I just noticed all your gauges are reversed! Mine (from left to right) are temp, then tach, then speedo, then fuel. Where did your ES originate from??? And just for the record, my ES has about 440K kilometers on it so far, so I'd say yours is just nicely broken in now...hehe And it's nice to see another B.C.'er on the site...howdy neighbour! LOL

LW ES300

>> The fact that you can't get a response to your questions from the ebay seller you bought from might mean he's reluctant to put a number to the lifespan issue because he has no idea himself. <<

This is probably a solid reason why I got no response. But, how hard is it to say something like "Due to our not knowing your intended use for these LED's we are unable to give you an accurate answer as to life expectancy. However, when used properly the lifespan can range from anywhere between 10,000-50,000 hours." Or something like that.

If they are marketed as this, the seller should have an indication of expected life. "You are now bidding brand new 5 pairs(10bulbs) of Spark Blue LED conversion bulbs. Each bulb is composed of a Wide Angle LED. They can be used to replace the dashboard bulbs on most cars. The part number these replace is 286 which is a 5mm wedge base bulb. They work at 12V."
This is further supported if they sell these things in the gazillions because I'm sure some of the clients buying LED's have had the same question(s)

>> So, like any savvy business man, if Warden_jp2002 sees he's getting tons of orders for a particular group of products, he's apt to want to increase his profits on those products while the feeding frenzy lasts! <<

Absolutely! He'd be dumb not to raise the prices if he recognizes a sudden increase in sales. This is ecomomics 101 - increase in demand = increase in supply and ergo increase in product cost. But, come on, $12 or now $17 for 10 LED's, these amounts are throw away $ because a blue dash does look real cool. Hell, I'd almost be more confident in the product if they were $5 a bulb as that price would illustrate the sellers confidence in their product.

Just my $.02 on a lazy Sunday morning...

tuan92129

Ebay LED's have questionable quality...on top of that, the life of the LED is degraded by the head from the dash heating up from the sun. (It gets really hot during the summer)

Lexucan

That's a good point. LEDs are more prone to failure from heat than incandescent bulbs, so this too has a bearing on their longevity. If they are used in a cool environment they'll last longer than if they are exposed to high temperatures. So it really comes down to where or how they are used. And like tuan92129 said, being inside an enclosed box (like an instrument cluster) that generates quite a bit of heat on its own, not to mention the added heat of the sun beating down on the dashboard in hot weather, most if not all LEDs will suffer some decrease in their life-expectancy. So, this too is probably why your ebay seller didn't give you an answer to your question. But, he should have given you SOME sort of response, if even to say "sorry, but that all depends on how you plan to use the LEDs"...or something like that.

heorung

If u dont mind buying from where i am .. Australia that is .. this is the website i got mine from ...http://www.ledshoponline.com/.... they shiped to me in another state within 5 days... but the numbnut send me 20 blue led instead of 10 superwhite & 10 blue . but i didn't want to make a big deal because blue is ok.

Goodluck with your mods people.

LW ES300

The funny thing is that I was going to buy my LED's from ledshoponline, but I saw they are in Australia. I chose to buy from warden_jp2002 because they claimed to be from West Virgina in the USA. Alas, the LED's shipped from Hong Kong and took 8 days to get here.

They work great and blue looks real cool but I am trying tio figure out their life expectancy. Did ledshoponline give you any idea of an expected lifespan (10,000 hours/25,000 hours)? Thanks

LW ES300

Here it is in the day.................For those of you in a far off land, odometer reading is in US miles

heorung

looks sweet when u got all of them red tip... im going to experiment abit more until i get even light spreads on all the gauge... and no .. i didn't bother to ask ledshoponline... it nearly 2 year since i bought it so im happy.

Do u know if the needles/assembly from the 3rd gen can be fit into ours' 2nd genat all? let me know and i'll hunt around the wreckers for 1 if it not too expensive.