LED indicator bulbs

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Palfrem

MB Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 11, 2005
Messages
2,965
Location
Solihull, near Birmingham
Car
W124 E36 AMG, G 300 GEL his, SLK 200 hers
581 BAU15s PY21 Amber/Yellow/orange 24LED indicator bulbs PAIR | eBay

2x 1156 BA15S P21W 9 LED 2W Orange/Amber Car Tail Turn Indicator Back Bulb Light | eBay

4x Amber Yellow 50 LED 1206 Bulbs BAU15S Front Indicator 581 PY21W Turn Signal | eBay

I know they are only a few quid but I'm a bit tight.

Ordered some clear indicators for my G so I need some amber bulbs now.

Anyone any experience of these please or shall I just buy a normal bulb. The car is a 1994 vintage so no error issues I suspect!

Thanks
 
Front LEDs are never a straight swap, you need to run a load resistor along side aswell. should work on the rear though however.
 
I've had a fair few issues with cheap LED bulbs from ebay- mainly for use for brake & tail lights. When it came to buying indicator bulbs I went for these Osram ones-
Osram LEDriving Yellow Indicator Lamp Bulb 12V 4W LED 2pcs. Blister pack | eBay
more pricey, but much more dependable quality. I didn't pay anything like that much, and they were from a UK seller, but that listing's the only one I could find with a quick search.

If price is the main thing, just stick with regular bulbs- as kHz says, you're going to need to factor in the cost of ballast resistors and the time to install those. Without the resistors, your indicator relay will think the bulb is blown due to reduced load and flash too quickly. Not heard that this isn't true for the rear indicators before- I put resistors on all four corners, but not on the side repeaters (also got Osram LEDs in those)

The other thing to watch no matter whether you go filament or LED is that the orange bulbs normally come with offset bayonet pins- you can just about get these to fit in a holder that isn't designed for them, but it's a fiddle.
 
Yeah, was hoping I could pop the orange plastic top off the Osram LEDs and they'd be orange emitting LEDs underneath so I'd lose the egg yolk effect at the front corners, but sadly they're white so you need the orange filter with white indicator lenses.
Crazy that they're filtering out a large portion of the light that the LEDs are producing. Why don't they use the right colour LEDs? Much more efficient.
 
I took this while I was changing my back bulbs to compare LED with filament-

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Frame by frame you can clearly see the LEDs lighting up faster than the filament bulb- particularly good for brake lights.

28292590025_4b1ed9da97_b.jpg
 
Loads better! - Are they aftermarket Xenons? RHD?

Thanks.

I was told the headlamps were MB items .

Definitely RHD. Passed an MOT OK at my local indy too.

Looking to swap the dodgy fog lamps in the bumper next. NOT MB!
 

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