More than you might think.
Of course, it’s the hanging by ones ankles from the rafters to get the best angle for reaching the sidelight bulbs that requires a video.
Most cars probably have one or two difficult bulbs to access. I had a Mark 3 Focus, and the passenger side was an air filter removal as I recall. Might be wrong, on which component it was, but it took longer than it should have.
Thanks Richard.
While we are talking about bulbs…Has anyone replaced a headlight bulb?..Now that does look impossible!!!
Mazda use 2 smaller LEDs rather than one larger one for their passenger air bag warning lights. When asked why, they said “Because smaller ones last longer”.
Agreed. On mine the passenger side Dip is obscured by fusebox and wiring loom, as is the Indicator. Not even a child with enough strength could reach. The wheel arch liner has to be moved out of the way.
Driver’s side Indicator needs a child inserted, or the Dip lead out of the way, or the washer bottle removed and wheel arch liner moved a bit, because my hands are just too big to get past all the wires etc.
But the Main Beam is accessible for my hands on either sides, and driver’s side Dip is possible too, but would be much easier without the washer bottle.
After a couple of weeks the bulbs I ordered have finally arrived, two types from Hong Kong. None are satisfactory. There are several reasons, not necessarily common to all the bulbs, but from having looked at what else is available from various sources I think there is a theme appearing. The problems first.
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The orange LED indicators. The patch of light was weedy in the extreme, from only a 1/4Watt on out-dated directional LED chips (instead of the modern Hi-Eff wide angle ‘Quantum Well + phosphor’ devices) the narrow little pool was swamped completely by the flood of light from a standard 21W orange painted filament bulb. 2*
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The W5W/T10 sidelight bulb was the worst possible electrical design and also cooked by the CANBUS cheat resistors, amazingly inefficient considering it used decent 5050 LED chips. Just lying on the workbench it reached 90C after only two minutes and eventually melted the solder on one of the two CANBUS shunt resistors after about ten minutes. Now imagine putting it inside an enclosure. 1*
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The 36mm Festoon bulb with a heat-sink was just about OK for intermittent use as an interior light inside the car, but forget about enclosing it for something like a numberplate lamp. It reached 75C in two minutes and topped out at 90C after ten minutes. 2*
I’ve reviewed all of them on Amazon.
The main problems seem to be a consequence of adding the CANBUS ‘error cheat’ resistors. Without the 150 Ohm one cooking the festoon lamp it would have been OK, using a sensible configuration for the three LEDs (in series for 9V) inside a full-wave rectifier (so not polarity sensitive).
Having looked at some generic ECU functions in some ancient how-to guides on the web, it seems there is usually a look-up table for the various test resistances for the lamps etc. This makes me think the table could be re-programmed with more relevant values for the efficient LED type bulbs which do not have the wasteful and damaging ‘error cheat’ resistors. If the engine can be re-mapped why not the lights?
I’m not going to bother with any more tests for a while because I think the LED car bulb market is not yet stable and there is too much cheap and very nasty junk flooding it at silly prices.
Oh well.
on the basis of (a) everything you’ve said echoing my own experience and (b) you get what you pay for, these really do the job and are reassuringly expensive
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00OYT1322/ref=pe_385721_51767431_TE_dp_1
I should add that this is my third attempt to find good side light bulbs and I am now, finally satisfied so I’d be glad of your theoretical observations on why these do the biz
Interesting 6000K bulbs. They look just like the Osram 6800K ones but with a proper decent diffuser instead of a clear cover.
However, according to the Phirips packaging they are still not road legal for exterior use -.
If they don’t have the CANBUS cheat resistor then they only need about a quarter of a Watt in the LED to produce the 50 Lumen they quote. And therefore because of not being cooked they should last much better.
The estimated 12 year lifespan is not so good when translated to only 2400 hours (12 years at 10,000 miles a year at 50mph) which is about the same as an ordinary filament bulb in a car. So I guess they are expecting them to be running rather hot because of the confined working space. (Osram quote 2000 hours for their version.)
The CANBUS will need to be retrained to believe the lower current bulbs are actually still in working order…
If they glow very dimly in the dark when they should be off, then the CANBUS system is checking them.
These alternative 4000K bulbs from Phirips should be passed (not noticed as LEDs) by the MOT tester because they are not too blue.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-127994000KX2-X-tremeVision-4000K-CeraLight/dp/B00OYT11RE/
Thanks for the useful link.