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Can anyone recommend 501 W5W LEDs for a pre facelift W204 that won't melt ?

vijilants

vijilants

MB Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 23, 2007
Messages
2,586
Location
London
Car
W205 C43 AMG
Folks,

I'm on my second set of side light leds (501 W5W) in my pre facelift W204 and in a very short space of time they appear to burn out due to heat issues in the housing. Probably heat rising up from the headlamp housing below is melting the LED circuitry.

Has anyone experienced this and if so can you recommend a 501 w5w led that is not affected with this problem ?

Many Thanks.
 
The link posted by Avnt is the same as the ones I have in my pre facelift S204. Don't know how they work, but they do, and do not throw an error code, just have to remember to test before pushing the bulb holder back into place, as invariably you put an LED in the wrong way round!
 
Things just got worse.....I went to remove the blown leds and one of then has actually snapped in the hole and I have spent the last hour trying to fish it out without much joy :(

The the plastic cover that covers the bulbs dropped into the engne bay somewhere never to be seen again !

I give up for the day !!!!
 
Chrishazle said:
Don't know how they work, but they do
Click to expand...


That seller is honest because he says they are 6W and that's why they are error free.

They work by drawing the same power or a little more than the original incandescent lamp. Much of that power is dissipated as heat. You can see how they do that by zooming in on the photo of the lamps. They typically have 5 surface mount resistors connected in parallel across the lamp terminals. In the case of the first lamp on the left there are five 182 ohm resistors in parallel which is equivalent to 36 ohms and will dissipate (waste) approx 4W as heat the other 2W goes to powering the LED.

Anyway it answers my question. In order to work so called error free LEDs must draw the full power of the original incandescent bulb. From an electrical engineering perspective wasting 2/3rds of the power as heat is an appalling concept but people do like the look of them.
 
I bought mine from eurocarparts and haven't had any issues, but I don't have the lights on for much longer than 20 mins at a time normally.
 
Hi, vijilants.

I've the same problem, I've been through every set of SMD and COB style LEDs for the "eyebrows" and all last between weeks and months before going out or flickering and some have even melted and been a nightmare to remove.

The ones posted by ChrisHazel were the ones that melted. There's too much plastic on them.

I've had ones that are a single board and less "packaging" that seem to last a bit longer, but even those have failed. I've spent £16 on a set from Amazon that promised to be better quality, but again failed. :(
 
LED's when properly designed should last near forever but they don't like heat. And yet the requirement to make them error free involves the generation of wasteful heat via parallel resistors. Perhaps that's why many fail certainly the ones that melt. In a sense you can blame MB for providing lamp failure detection. Without that we could use ordinary LEDs that would run much cooler.
 
The eurocarparts ones I got were mostly metal, very little plastic.
 
Yugguy said:
The eurocarparts ones I got were mostly metal, very little plastic.
Click to expand...

It was originally this style of leds that I used on the sidelights and they melted and as a result one of them separated in to two parts and the head part where the leds reside are still inside the tube where they fit and I can't get it out. The heat was soo intense that the soldier had literally melted !!!

The leds look great but they are proving to be too troublesome and I am thinking of using a quality Osram led such as these below. For the amount I've spent on different types of leds to solve the issue I could have easily bought the ones below instead :(

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00E3R8OPY/?tag=amazon0e9db-21
 
i-CONICA said:
Hi, vijilants.

The ones posted by ChrisHazle were the ones that melted. There's too much plastic on them.
Click to expand...

Mine haven't - and they've been in quite a while, side/parking lights on my S204 and side lights on my 968!
 
Do you have Xenon lights in the 204?
 
I had this same problem on my Lexus......so.......I bought standard LED 501's the bought the separate canbus resistor the goes outside the light unit. $ years down the line still work perfectly. This will be the solution I will used on my MB in a few weeks when I get round to upgrading them along with the rear number plate ones.

Mark
 
Like this:

image.pn


image.png
 
I've had them, also burnt out. I'll take a picture of all the different types I've tried I've still got them.

That's interesting Norte, if the resistor is what's tipping the heat over the edge, but I'm not sure that'll fit in behind the sealing cap.
 
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