best 5mm red LEDs for tail light ?

[gentlegreen]

I'm looking for 50 5mm red LEDs for a bicycle taillight - so want the best compromise between intensity, beam angle and price.

I find published specs very confusing, so any assistance would be gratefully received.

The ones I'm currently using claim the following spec :- 5,000 mcd, 25 degree.

So for my new light I would like to improve on this.

 

[Cemoi]

I bought these from besthongkong, and I am pleased with them. Rather narrow beam, but if you use as many as 50 you can manage to orientate them differently to get a wider angle.
I used them to upgrade a basic $5 tail light, it is incredibly much brighter now.

You may want to check the thread where I asked a similar question and got this recommendation.

 

[gentlegreen]

Those look very sexy indeed - thanks
It's about time I bit the bullet and ordered some LEDs from the part of the world they come from....

Not that I'm very serious, but I wonder if one could modify the beam angle by carefully drilling into the tip, or roughening them ?

I'm planning to fit them in one of these in place of the white ones :-

 

[JohnR66]

5mm REDs at 20ma, 5000mcd, 25 deg, don't sound like a bad spec to me if the LEDs are truly outputting that much light. 50 LEDs seem like a lot of light. You don't want to go down the road looking like a motorcycle rider riding on the brakes!

50 narrow angle LEDs shooting back into traffic would be worse.

Is this all one taillight? I've seen cruiser motorcycles with six taillights. I think splitting them up into two or three lights would make your bicycle more visible to traffic.

 

[gentlegreen]

In reality it isn't that impressive.

I used to use a 12 volt, 21 watt car "fog light"

My plan is to duplicate what I have now done at the front :-

It should look pretty distinctive.
.

 

[R33E8]

I think you would want to use Red-Orange Lumiled Superflux's... You can get about 1200 for about $50 on ebay... It's a bit harder to get less at the same price per led. The only problem I see is the fact that they are not 5mm. But I am pretty sure they are brighter than red 5mm LEDs.. They are used in some LED taillights for OEM cars..