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LED turn sigs not bright enough during the day

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Old Jun 28, 2005 | 09:52 PM
  #16  
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Originally Posted by O. L. T.
I'll give you guy's some free advice from someone who works with LED emissions patterns all day.

Buy the cheap led unit that stinks at radiating energy evenly and stick a small reflective dome over the top to redirect the light back to the reflector plate. Idealy, it would be spaced about 1/2 inch from the led's and overhang by 1/4 inch on all sides.
So that means you wouldn't see the LEDs directly. Sounds like the same way the HIDs are set up. Also sounds like it might be tough to get a good reflective dome, maybe have to yank them out of something else. You try this yet with tails?
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Old Jun 29, 2005 | 07:37 AM
  #17  
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technically you'd still see the led's directly.......... through the reflection. When you mirror image something, you don't lose light if you don't refract it and simply reflect it.
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Old Jun 29, 2005 | 11:05 AM
  #18  
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so... does that mean, cheap led's with reflective dome will be as bright as led towers with 20 bulbs flashing light towards all directions?
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Old Jul 1, 2005 | 09:38 AM
  #19  
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LED TOWERS =
I just found out last night that LED Towers don't blink with my headlights on meaning.. When my headlights are on, my turn signals are on too but not as bright as when blinkers are on. Then when i turn, turn signals on, it lights up brighter. BUT led towers don't light up brighter. I contacted the seller about this..

"We are working on a fix for this and we will have some bulbs that we can swap that should work in a few weeks."

So for now, im stick with halo bulbs.
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Old Jul 5, 2005 | 03:13 PM
  #20  
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Originally Posted by thirdmotio
LED TOWERS =
I just found out last night that LED Towers don't blink with my headlights on meaning.. When my headlights are on, my turn signals are on too but not as bright as when blinkers are on. Then when i turn, turn signals on, it lights up brighter. BUT led towers don't light up brighter. I contacted the seller about this..

"We are working on a fix for this and we will have some bulbs that we can swap that should work in a few weeks."

So for now, im stick with halo bulbs.
Let us know how it turns out (No pun intended)

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Old Jul 5, 2005 | 03:47 PM
  #21  
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Originally Posted by thirdmotio
LED TOWERS =
I just found out last night that LED Towers don't blink with my headlights on meaning.. When my headlights are on, my turn signals are on too but not as bright as when blinkers are on. Then when i turn, turn signals on, it lights up brighter. BUT led towers don't light up brighter. I contacted the seller about this..

"We are working on a fix for this and we will have some bulbs that we can swap that should work in a few weeks."

So for now, im stick with halo bulbs.
So it's the 1157 bulbs that have this problem. Thanks for the heads up...I guess no LED brake lights for now.
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Old Jul 28, 2005 | 10:56 AM
  #22  
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Very interesting thread, pics are great.

I'm currently looking at replacing the front / rear turn signals and tail / brake lights of my '97 SC with LED's. According to Sylvania, what I need is:

Front turn signal
1157A

Rear turn signal
7440

Tail light
2825
7443

Stop light
7443

The 1157 for the front seems to be no problem. I could replace them with the halo refractor with 32 outward firing LEDs. But for the 7440 / 7443, I can't find a similar option. It appears there are only halo refractors available with 6 outward, and 9 forward pointing LEDs. No idea if that's bright enough compared to the ones with 32 LEDs. Or I could go with the towers from autolumination.com, with 16 LEDs (12 outward, 4 forward). I don't know if they fit though and according to the headsup they seem to have some issues (btw, any updates on this?).

Any recommendations for my situation? Anyone know of any "bigger" 7440/7443 LED's? Which route would you go?

Thanks
Diego
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Old Jul 28, 2005 | 09:29 PM
  #23  
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Originally Posted by engin_ear
Sorry, not true, assuming you have yellow turn signal lenses and not clear.
First, I have the yellow LED bulbs from superbrightleds.com in my front AND rear turn signals, and I have the same problem - they are not really eye-catching during the day. Regular bulbs are better, but you'll notice that even they get washed out during the day in the sun. LEDs just don't have the multi-directional brightness of bulbs.
Second, it is strictly the luminous intensity of the LEDs that matters to visibility, NOT particularly the color (ignoring the direction of emission for a minute). White emits all colors, so if a white LED's emission is greater than a yellow led's in the range of wavelengths that are passed by the yellow turn signal lens, it will appear brighter. In other words, you can't just say that yellow will be brighter than white, it depends on the particular LEDs that you're using and their emission characteristics. Then you can add back in the angles of emission and any reflective characteristics of the lens housing, and all that will determine the final brightness.
PS: White light = Yellow light + Blue light. Your yellow turn signal lens is a decent blue filter, so when you pass white thru it, it will appear yellow anyway.
Sure, you can justify it like that and what you said is true but yellow is just more visible than white color in bright sunny days. It's not how "bright" but how visible and that's important when you want to get the attention of other drivers when you are trying to change lanes.

I am sure white leds are way brighter than yellow colors but we are not trying to light up the road with it, it's made to get the other drivers attention. I just hope the folks who have those lights won't start complaining about cops harrasing them while they are just minding their owning business driving on the road. Not.
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