Date:         Tue, 29 Jul 2003 11:12:04 -0400
Reply-To:     David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject:      Re: Alternative signal lights
Comments: To: Gnarlodious <gnarlodious@MAC.COM>
In-Reply-To:  <BB4B60EF.1BE30%gnarlodious@mac.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 01:23 AM 7/29/2003, Gnarlodious wrote:
>Has anyone experimented with LED turn signal bulbs, the "twist & lock" 2
>filament type? Is such a thing made? Seems like a good idea . . .

Much easier to design an LED signal lamp from scratch than to retrofit a
bulb into an existing fixture.  LEDs well established in traffic lights and
truck lighting (e.g. http://www.led-r-us.com/ ) -- point there being that
they can make about four standard lights and cover the industry.  Auto
lighting where each fixture is unique depends heavily on the auto mfr to
make it happen.

Retrofit with LED involves building a bulb that looks like a porcupine,
LEDs sticking out all over to try to approximate the light distribution of
a bulb; or abandoning the whole idea and using an LED array on a flat
surface to ignore the lamp optics and simply shine out through the
lens.  The latter kind are available at
http://www.lightlens.com/coloredbulbs.htm -- I would expect
less-than-optimum (maybe less-than-adequate) results with either kind,
especially off-axis.

If I seriously wanted to do this, I'd mount truck lights on the vehicle and
abandon the original setup.  Among other things they're DOT approved which
I am absolutely certain the aftermarket bulb replacements are not.

david

--
David Beierl - Providence RI USA -- http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
'85 GL "Poor Relation"