LED replacement for 6V, 5.5W Wedge Base?

[Tomas]

OK, the recent power problems in the northeast have made me look more seriously at one of my "emergency lights" here in my apartment.

As it is, factory stock, it has two 6 Volt, 5.5 Watt, Wedge Base lamps powered by a 6 Volt, 4.5 Ampere Hour Sealed Lead Calcium battery.

The battery is kept charged and healthy by a smart charger built into the fixture. The fixture is designed to meet the NFPA fire codes as an auto-switching emergency light providing roughly 12 Watts of lighting for a minimum of 90 minutes.

My objective is to turn this into a sixteen hour (or more) light (roughly .25A load). (That should be adequate light from this fixture, and it is NOT required to meet code.)

What I'd like to do is to very simply swap out the wedge base incandescents with some much more efficient LED units. You know, *unplug* *plug-in* *done* type of thing.

I've looked about and not found anything like that, so am considering trying to make some using bobby pins, LEDs, chewing gum, epoxy, solder, string and a few resistors ...

Unless someone knows of some readily available "wedge base 6V LED assemblies", I expect I'll be looking at three or four white LEDs (5mm Nichia White) per replacement assembly, a simple series resistor (100 Ohm) for each LED (yes, brute force and not elegant, but reliable design), and maybe a couple of simple home-made PCBs. Overall, letting each LED chew on about 25-30MA should let this work fairly easily.

Any suggestions?

Any "plug-and-play" solutions (replacement assemblies)?

Am I out of my mind? (OK, OK, calm down! Let's rephrase that question: Do you see any problems with this?)

Thanks,


(certified non-fluff) [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Chris M.]

Spotted these on Ebay:

Ebay auction for LED car side-light bulb replacements

It`s an annoying ad, but it would seem to me that there`s some ebay rule that says *all* auctions for car accessories have to be as annoying as possible, cos I`ve not seen one yet that isn`t [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif[/img]

They don`t look terribly bright in their stock form and of course are 12 volts for cars, but the moulded plastic wedge base looks the right shape and could be used to host something better (Luxeon LED?). It`s probalby fairly easy to just mod one to run at 6v (change a resistor) if the output is OK for you.

[Tomas]

Wow! Physically (and brightness wise) that would probably work great if it were a 6 volt unit rather than 12. I've dropped the seller a note to see if it is available as a 6 volt unit.

I believe the units are epoxied together, so changing the resistor(s) would be a real hassle, but I may just have to get a couple and try it anyway. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif[/img]

Thanks!