LED Festoon Bulbs

[Ace12]

i'm looking to replace the interior light in my truck with an led light. It is a 31mm festoon bulb. I want the brightest light i can find. Anyone have any links or can tell me a good place to buy these bulbs?

 

[georges80]

I've been making a 1 1/4" festoon replacement (same as 31mm) for many years now. Latest has a 90lumen/watt rebel (warmish tint).

You can see some pics of it at http://www.taskled.com/dome.html

I originally made Luxeon based ones years ago for my own 4wd - to save the battery when camping etc. Then I offered them up on a land cruiser forum I'm on and have been making them in batches ever since. A couple of years ago I revised the design from a Luxeon Star to a custom board with the Rebel surface mounted directly to the PCB.

It runs at 350mA to the LED to keep heat in check. Still puts out a LOT of light versus the stock incandescent style.

The driver is fully current regulated and reverse polarity protected. Draws around 100mA from 12V.

Anyhow, they aren't cheap, but then they aren't made in China either.

cheers,
george.

 

[sed6]

Diode Dynamics has three different 31mm festoons to choose from. I've replaced all the lights in 3 of my vehicles with them and have been very happy with their lights.

All their bulbs have a good white tint, not warm and not blue. Their lumen ratings seem to me to be pretty accurate.

Their 1 watt 31mm festoon is going to give you plenty of light. A single one will light up the interior of a sedan. The 5050 is a good one if you've got several bulbs to replace. If each passenger in a vehicle has his own interior light or map light, these will be great.

But in the tradition of CPF...buy them all. His prices are great, his service great, his communication is great, his shipping is fast. I've not had a single bulb of his fail me yet.

 

[rushnrockt]

Their 1 watt 31mm festoon is going to give you plenty of light. A single one will light up the interior of a sedan.

That one is sold by many different places. I agree that it does a rather nice job at lighting up the interior. For the price, I like them a lot. It is a bit cold, so if you want something warmer, look around, seems like georges80 offers something of that kind.

 

[kingofwylietx]

I took apart a 9 watt LED landscape light and added just the board/led's to my interior light. It really brightened up the interior. The landscape light was approx $30 (a year ago), but the LED interior lights were just as much or even more [back then].

 

[Ace12]

which would be brighter? The one with a single 1 Watt led or the one with 2-5050 SMD?

 

[Ace12]

Would one with 4 led's like this one over heat if left on for long periods.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/31mm...ptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories

 

[Mkala]

Hello everybody,

I juste have a little question : someone know if and where it is possilbe to buy "metal end cap" (I dont know the real name, can you help me?) of festoons bulbs ?

Thank you in advance

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Hello everybody,

I juste have a little question : someone know if and where it is possilbe to buy "metal end cap" (I dont know the real name, can you help me?) of festoons bulbs ?

Thank you in advance

just take a burnt out bulb and harvest the end caps

 

[Mkala]

This can be a solution yes...

But if I can't find these caps I will buy "china" one, it will be simpler

 

[Lynx_Arc]

This can be a solution yes...

But if I can't find these caps I will buy "china" one, it will be simpler

Not knowing where you are at I would say a local auto parts store would have the bulbs.

 

[Mkala]

Sorry, I was not clear :
If I can't buy ends caps, I will not build festoon LEDs, I will buy them.

(Sorry for my poor english. Here in Europe I can easily find festoons bulbs, too )

 

[Lynx_Arc]

Sorry, I was not clear :
If I can't buy ends caps, I will not build festoon LEDs, I will buy them.

(Sorry for my poor english. Here in Europe I can easily find festoons bulbs, too )

So you are trying to make a bunch of them? I think it will be hard to get ahold of a bunch of end caps cheaply. I somewhat doubt a bulb manufacturer would want to sell you just the caps unless you bought a truckload of them.

 

[Mkala]

Yes, I think the same as you !

If I can found caps in small quantity : I build a few number of bulbs

As I can not find them, I will buy already made LEDs bulbs

Because I dont want to take some time to search LEDs then fit my application, design a PCB, etc; if I can't have ends caps for a small serie ( < 20 bulbs).

I have post my question because today you can buy everything (but not always in quantity you want )

 

[Lynx_Arc]

I once wanted some PR2 bulb bases to make some LED bulbs and looked for them and ended up breaking unused bulbs, scraping out the white epoxy and reusing them instead. I made a few of them but the process was so time consuming that I found when LED lights were put on clearance I would rather buy them instead of buying lights to swap bulbs home made bulbs into. Most likely if you could find well made festoon LED bulbs it would end up cheaper in cost (even with free labor) than buying the parts and making your own.

 

[HMF]

Hello everybody,

I juste have a little question : someone know if and where it is possilbe to buy "metal end cap" (I dont know the real name, can you help me?) of festoons bulbs ?

Thank you in advance

You could try here http://superlumination.com/connectors.htm they have a lot of interesting stuff.

 

[dmd2005]

I replaced all my interior and exterior Halogens with V-LEDS. Kind of pricey but a very reputable company and great customer service. Be wary of stuff you get on ebay as they are not as bright compared to the V-LEDS.