Philips bulb incan recommendations?

Example: my reverse lights take a P21W, the philips website lists Standard and Longer Life bulbs,
but despite there being a P21W Vision Plus readily available, it is not listed as compatible?
My understanding from Google'ing around, no thanks to Philips own site btw, is that..

"The clever people at Philips have developed a gaseous mixture inside the Vision Plus signalling bulbs, which enables
the thicker filament to light up more quickly without burning more energy or shortening the life of the bulb."

The only reason I can think of them not listing this bulb for my application is heat generation, but thus far I
don't see any evidence that the bulb runs significantly hotter than any other 21w bulb. I have zero, none, nada
interest in melting my not easy to come by new taillamps I finally got in from Europe last week, but I want the
best bulbs I can put in them and not have to remove them for a long time.
So...

What am I missing?

Welcome to the CandlePowerForums! That is to say, welcome to your first post after years of lurking!

The Vision Plus packaging does say "faster illumination", but only on PowerBulbs and eBay do I see:

"The clever people at Philips have developed a gaseous mixture inside the Vision Plus signalling bulbs, which enables
the thicker filament to light up more quickly without burning more energy or shortening the life of the bulb."

Click to expand...

A 21W bulb is a 21W bulb. It's going to be about as hot as any other 21W bulb, maybe even slightly less hot if it's more efficacious (not that you'd ever really notice).

Reversing lamps are definitely ones I would put as bright and well-made a bulb as I could get. It might mean more frequent replacements, but it's better that than a dimpled bumper.

For very infrequent bulb replacement, the Philips white X-Treme Vision LED could be the way to go.

Re: Philips bulb incan recommendations?4726

Hi Alaric, I was afraid to venture into LED land after reading and searching a bit here, my application is
relatively ancient so there aren't any approved LED's that I have found for my housing. Am I being overly
cautious? There are a ton of LED bulbs that will fit and all claim to be the best thing ever..

Re: Philips bulb incan recommendations?4726

Any P21W fits and works in any application that specifies a P21W. There is no incompatibility issue with the Vision Plus P21W, but neither is there a big advantage to using it. It lights up a little faster, but its lifespan is much shorter. You can do better.

You don't mention what kind of car you're working on, which makes a difference. Philips (and only Philips) makes some excellent LED retrofit bulbs; you'd do well to read this TTAC piece on the subject.

If you want to stick with incandescent bulbs, there are two good and cost-effective options to safely get more light than the original P21W. There's
the Honda 3497 which will give you 45 candlepower instead of the P21W's approximately 32, and there's the #796 bulb (can't find a reliable link for them -- Dan Stern and Candlepower both sell them) which will give you 62 candlepower.

The Honda bulb also comes in a dual-filament version to replace P21/5W and 1157, that is the 3496.

Be careful if you buy the 3497 or 3496 -- make sure to get genuine Honda parts, and when you receive them look carefully at the metal base to verify it is stamped "STANLEY", because all the non-Honda (non-Stanley) versions are poorly-made dreck.

Very cool info, thank you and I'll read up from there.

These are in an 82 VW Rabbit (Caddy in Europe) Pickup.
Philips has this table here and I thought it was curious that some series of
non-LED bulbs were approved and some were not.
http://www.philipsautolighting.com/bulb-lookup.php?make=128&model=2165&year=1982&trim=NULL




There is no 3rd brake light so brighter brake lights would be welcome (within reason)
and brighter reverse lights are equally welcome. Being such a small low vehicle it's easy to be
missed backing out of a parking spot between two tank-like modern trucks or SUV's.
I've also ordered some small rectangular Porsche side lights for the fender as I can't count
how many times in the last twenty years someone has nearly t-boned me from not noticing
the relatively small turn signal on the front edge of the fender.

I'd love to go all LED, but some initial reading and searching around the
auto light forum here produced a ton of posts stressing that a reflector assembly
not intended for an LED bulb was a bad idea, that coupled with the plethora
of available LED replacements for my bulb types pretty quickly put me off
LED's honestly. I always try to be informed and buy quality parts, but I really
don't have weeks to spend reading up on taillight bulbs(and much respect to you
folks that are up to date on such).

Thanks again for the advice.

Alaric Darconville said:

For very infrequent bulb replacement, the Philips white X-Treme Vision LED could be the way to go.

Click to expand...

Philips has finally released repackaged versions of these as part of the Vision line (12898B2) in the U.S. Unlike the red versions, these are the older dual Rebel-based design with the metal heatsink, and not the multi-emitter plastic design.

They come in a blister pack instead of a box, and are a few dollars cheaper. More importantly, the Vision line has a "12-year guarantee." How good that ultimately is is open to question, but it's something that the more expensive XTV line lacks.

wolf_walker said:

These are in an 82 VW Rabbit (Caddy in Europe) Pickup.

Click to expand...

Oh, very cool little trucks with primitive taillights...which is not meant as an insult, because it means Philips' best LED bulbs work quite well in them.

Put these in the brake lights, and these in the rear turn signals and the back-up lights. You will need to install a different turn signal flasher (this one) or else the turn signals won't flash at the correct rate.

I've also ordered some small rectangular Porsche side lights for the fender as I can't count
how many times in the last twenty years someone has nearly t-boned me from not noticing
the relatively small turn signal on the front edge of the fender.

Click to expand...

Not a bad idea. The correct-for-application side repeaters would be these; whichever ones you ordered are probably similar. Use a 2886X bulb (that's the wedge-base type; if the repeaters you ordered take the bayonet-base bulb, use a 3886X) so they are bright enough to really "pop" for people's attention. You've got some options in how to wire them up; they can be wired purely as turn signal repeaters, or as combination side marker lights and turn signal repeaters; there's good info on the various options here. If you choose to make them do a side marker function (with or without turn signal flashing) they should be mounted just behind each existing turn signal, a la the early Audi 4000. That's a good location for them even if you choose to make them only side turn signal repeaters, too, because if you mount them behind the front wheel, you have to pull forward much farther before cross traffic can see them.

I'd love to go all LED

Click to expand...

It's not yet possible. There are no good LED bulbs for the front turn signals (yet...eventually there will be).

TheIntruder said:

Philips has finally released repackaged versions of these as part of the Vision line (12898B2) in the U.S.

Click to expand...

What do you mean "finally"? I've been buying these in U.S. packaging for at least six months.

Unlike the red versions, these are the older dual Rebel-based design with the metal heatsink, and not the multi-emitter plastic design.

Click to expand...

The dual Rebel design (which is also available in red, as I just linked for the OP) produces much more light than the plastic multi-emitter design.

More importantly, the Vision line has a "12-year guarantee."

Click to expand...

I prioritize maximum safe and effective lamp performance as More Important than a 12-year warranty, myself.

The multi-emitter LED bulbs won't work effectively or safely in the OP's truck -- at least not until the multi-emitter LED bulbs are upgraded at the design/production level, which will happen eventually.

-Virgil- said:

What do you mean "finally"? I've been buying these in U.S. packaging for at least six months.

Click to expand...

When Philips updated their warranty registration form at the beginning of the year, it referenced the 12898B2, which had yet to appear and literally returned nothing aside from the form in terms of search results.

I haven't kept tabs on when they actually appeared, but now I see that Amazon's SKU, which is where most people would find, or stumble upon them, became available on 2/27/15. So, four months may fall outside the bounds of "finally," but still less than six.

I prioritize maximum safe and effective lamp performance as More Important than a 12-year warranty, myself.

Click to expand...

Well, you can pay ~$30 for the ones in XTV packaging and no have no warranty, or buy the same bulbs in the Vision packaging for $24 with the warranty, which seems like an easy choice to me, and the point I was making. I never made any reference to safety or performance, nor suggested that the OP opt for any non-existent plastic version of the reverse bulbs, which is what Alaric spoke of, and I quoted.

Excellent info, thank you very, very much guys. Virgil, those are actually the same lights Porsche used that I ordered, I sell P stuff for a living so everything is sorta P-centric in my world lol...
I was hoping to put them between the front wheel and door on the fender but that is a good point about the nose poking out into traffic for turning, I'll ponder it some. There is a decent amount
of the front turn signal on the nose of the fender but despite that people have been trying to run into me for years and all I can figure is they don't see the signal blinking, usually as I'm slowing down
to turn into a parking lot of such. I think it's partly because I drive slow anyway, it's an old diesel.

I'll continue to homework with the excellent info from you folks, much thanks!

Re: Philips bulb incan recommendations?4726

-Virgil- said:

Any P21W fits and works in any application that specifies a P21W. There is no incompatibility issue with the Vision Plus P21W, but neither is there a big advantage to using it. It lights up a little faster, but its lifespan is much shorter. You can do better.

If you want to stick with incandescent bulbs, there are two good and cost-effective options to safely get more light than the original P21W. There's
the Honda 3497 which will give you 45 candlepower instead of the P21W's approximately 32, and there's the #796 bulb (can't find a reliable link for them -- Dan Stern and Candlepower both sell them) which will give you 62 candlepower.

The Honda bulb also comes in a dual-filament version to replace P21/5W and 1157, that is the 3496.

Click to expand...

Speaking of P21/5W bulbs, are these GE Nighthawks any good? Any kind of improvement over stock '08 Honda Civic bulbs?

Re: Philips bulb incan recommendations?4726

bandits1 said:

Speaking of P21/5W bulbs, are these GE Nighthawks any good? Any kind of improvement over stock '08 Honda Civic bulbs?

Click to expand...

They're fine. Nothing special, and also no empty promises. They do what they do.

Of course, if the Civic actually came with the 3496, then these'd be a step down, so check the original bulb first.

Re: Philips bulb incan recommendations?4726

bandits1 said:

Speaking of P21/5W bulbs, are these GE Nighthawks any good? Any kind of improvement over stock '08 Honda Civic bulbs?

Click to expand...

They're not as good as the Philips upgrade P21/5W, but the previously linked 3496 is considerably better still.