LED lights in Original light sockets - tail lights

[Roy in TO]

April,

Just an oddball thought on your two bulbs. Is the small one is a single filament and the larger one a two filament 1157? You have 3 wires running to the bulbs plus the white to the ground.

If so the small bulb might be wired as your tail or running light - always on when your lights are on. And the larger bulb is for your brake and turn signals. If it was wired that way all 3 could be on at the same time. Your brakes would show as being brighter without affecting the signal. Adding the signal would make it even brighter. (I don't know if I explained that right)

It would give you the following light patterns:

none
tail
brake
signal
tail + brake
tail + signal
brake + signal
tail + brake + signal
(signal could be 4 way emergency flasher too)

[Alan Weinel]

Certainly worth a quick measure what ELSE is there to do over the winter. hahahaha.

And from what I recall reading last nite, it is ball socket to the END OF THE COACH, ##NOT## to the end of the bumper - which COULD be the small but oh-so-important difference.

Not to mention that if i am REALLY close, there is the metric conversion thing....

On the 19 isn't the "ball Socket" set back in a couple of feet under the overhang and not out on a tongue. If you measured from the "ball socket to the back wall" you might be pretty close. Maybe that is how the one fella got it through.

[April Wilcox]

If it were me, I'd change out the entire fixture like Greg A did, and not try to retrofit components into the old housings.

I think we are going to try hard wiring the LED panel and bypass (or remove)the main socket all together. If all goes well, it should look something like this photoshop image...




I am hoping to make do with what we already have on hand before we go buy new light fixtures. I also like the idea sticking with the original look. I will report back when we get the work done, which should be soon because we can't take any trips until this is fixed. Thanks for all the advice!!

[Donna D.]

April, et al... for what it's worth, this information found on this page at SuperBright LEDs

Which Color LEDs should I use ?
For best results the LED color should be the same as the lens color. As an example: a red lens will filter out all but the red portion of the light so if the light is all red, none or very little light will be blocked by the lens. The light from a White LED contains very little light in the red portion of the visible spectrum so most of the light would be filtered out by a red lens.

I had friend that ended up replacing his white light LEDs to red, and there was a huge difference.

[ddayton]

On the 19 isn't the "ball Socket" set back in a couple of feet under the overhang and not out on a tongue. If you measured from the "ball socket to the back wall" you might be pretty close. Maybe that is how the one fella got it through.

Don't have it anymore so not able to measure it for you but from this picture I would say the hitch is 12 - 18 inches ahead of the front wall.
Don

[April Wilcox]

Update,
we ordered the correctly wired 36 "super white" led to install in the tail lights, and they were a big let down.



They looked blue, instead of super white as shown in the picture, and they were dimmer than the regular 1157 bulb. So we are having to scrap our plan and start again. I did find the wire that leads to the other upside down bulb is not connected to anything, so when we upgrade our pigtail, we will hook that wire up to see if those lights work. At this point we are thinking of just replacing the socket with a new one and going with this style red led bulb...

[Kevin H.]

I have an extra socket in mine as well which wasn't hooked up. I connected it into the signal/stop wire and added a cheap 12 led red bulb to boost the 1157 bulb, but it didn't help much either.

I've added a direct ground wire by soldering a new wire directly to the outside of the socket so it's not relying on the riveted connection through the base. I even ran a temp. wire outside the trailer directly from the van back to the bulb to double check the ground. I think I've narrowed the problem down the the tail light converter, it's only reading about 11.8 volts so I'll double check it's wiring or get a new one.

One thing to note with those white superbright LED lights, the wavelength of LEDs is very narrow and white leds have very little red so once the red lens filters out the rest, you just have a dim light. They recommend you get actual red LEDs to go behind a red lens.

This photo is before I added the extra ground wire.

Kevin

[Roy in TO]

Someone previously posted using a stock round 4" LED tail light inside the wedding cake with pictures. Supposedly an almost perfect fit. I bought some but still have to get a round tuit.

Alternatively others have stated the 7" is a straight bolt on.

[April Wilcox]

Someone previously posted using a stock round 4" LED tail light inside the wedding cake with pictures. Supposedly an almost perfect fit. I bought some but still have to get a round tuit.

Alternatively others have stated the 7" is a straight bolt on.

I was looking at those, thanks for the idea! I might just have to go that way.

[Kevin A]

I just put in the red LEDs shown in April's message for our lights this past weekend. They are at least as bright as the old bulbs. I also put in the amber LEDs at the same time and put small red and amber LEDs in the running lights. It also helped to use a plastic lens restorer to get more light through the tail lens.

[Francis McDermott]

I have been following this LED bulbs in original sockets thread with interest but my investigations come up with little price difference between the LED sealed light units and these LED bulbs, in fact most of the bulb types seem even more expensive. Has anyone found good LED bulbs for good prices? Somewhere in the $10 each range would be nice...

With thanks,

F

[Frederick L. Simson]

If it were me, I'd change out the entire fixture like Greg A did, and not try to retrofit components into the old housings.

Low cost and ease of install were major factors in my previous recommendation.

[Lisa H.]

Today I finally visited the wonderful world of Walt's Surplus RV in Fontana, CA, and purchased two Bargman-like double bulb dome lights for the interior of my Campster. They use #1141 bulbs, which can replaced by the 1156 LED type bulbs. However, I'm curious to know if I need to make any modifications to the housing or bulb receptacle. The light fixtures I purchased are simular to the ones on this website but have a white lens:

http://www.dyersonline.com/Products/Thin-L...ght__19198.aspx

My next question is whether you think replacing the 1141 bulbs with the bulb-style LED would be best for this type of fixture or if the 36 flat in warm white would generate more light and be easier on the eye?

Thanks for any and all input on the subject!

[peterh]

. . . My next question is whether you think replacing the 1141 bulbs with the bulb-style LED would be best for this type of fixture or if the 36 flat in warm white would generate more light and be easier on the eye? . . .

I've tried both bulbs and the flat panels, and I'd definitely go with the flat panels. You loose a fair part of the light that bounces off the back reflector when you use a "bulb" shaped replacement. With the flat panels all the light is directed outward into your trailer.

I use the 48 LED "Warm White" flat panels from V-LEDS. (Make sure you order the "Warm White" version, not the blue light "HID" ones.) They pull 2 watts (1156 bulbs use 18 watts) and are as bright or brighter than a conventional bulb.






I taped mine in using fiberglass tape. This works well, but I don't think it'll last. I'll use double-sided foam tape next time.

[Lisa H.]

Thanks Peter! Those lights look great! I hate to ask a stupid question but. . . do you just snap the plastic piece joining to two wires from the panel into the bulb base and insert the base as usual into the fixture? As you might have deduced by now, I'm not the least bit versed in electronic circuitry!

[peterh]

Thanks Peter! Those lights look great! I hate to ask a stupid question but. . . do you just snap the plastic piece joining to two wires from the panel into the bulb base and insert the base as usual into the fixture? As you might have deduced by now, I'm not the least bit versed in electronic circuitry!

Yup, that's exactly how they work. The panels ship with a bunch of adapters: you plug the one that fits into your light socket, then plug the LED panel into the adapter.