snoopdan

Courtesy Light LED Mod for C4

I wanted to do some LED mods, so I purchased two blue "Festoon" courtesy lamp replacements (www.http://autolumination.com/festoon.htm) for my 1986 Ruby Coupe. I purchased the bulbs at the good price of $6.99 each, a cheap investment. considering it was a drop in replacment LED mod, it was obviously made for people like me who want a quick solution. Since my door panel was on my work bench anyways for fitting some new midbass's I just bought, I decided to put the Festoon LED lamps in my panels while they were outside the car.


The Review.



Im undecided if I would suggest these. They're OK as a replacement bulb, considering they'll last forever. One thing that did bother me is that they didnt label what end was positive/negative. I looked in the bulb assembly and on to one side of it, you could see a couple of SMT diodes, so I knew this most likey was going to be the positive side, since I was always taught that diode positive connections should be shorter to the positive source than the negative. Not that anyone actually obides by this when making electronics, but I happened to have guessed right after dragging out my multimeter and testing the diode function. You'll only get a measurement one way on it, with the positive being the end you measure when you get a value listed. Diodes and LED's dont flow electrons the wrong way I give this product a 4 out of 10, since it wasnt all that bright, which is about what I expected at 9750 mcd @470 nanometers. But for having 9 seperate LED elements, this thing barley squeeked by me just throwing it away. I'll most likely add more led's that ive ordered, which are 57000 mcd EACH..but I dont get those till next week, and I'll write up something then on it. The bulb itself was listed as a direct 3022, 211, 212, and 3175 replacement, which I dont think is right, since the 39mm version almost didnt fit right, and I bet the 44mm would of worked as a better fit. Both the 39mm and the 44mm have the same amount of LED elemets - nine of them. The product is overall well made, except for no polarity marking...If all you want to do is change the bulb color without a cheesy tinted bulb, then this is for you. If you want to blind you and your passender when you open the door, look elsewhere, or build you own hyper bright LED fixture to fit in the door courtesy light assembly.


snoopdan

AGENT 86

Looks cool Snoop. Send 2 this way and i will review your review

rustangkiller

on a 94 would you have to take the door panel out to change the bulbs. or can you just take the plastic piece off and stick it in there.

snoopdan

Ive had a 92, and I never replaced the lamp, but from looking at how my door is put together, and after looking at a few pics of 92-94 door panels, it looks to be pretty much the same design, so id venture to say yes to that.

I did, however, get a really odd letter from the distributers of this device today, explaining their lack of info on the web site due to corporate information theft. Really odd, since my previous email was asking them about a link on how to install the bulbs. But it does seem that they have pretty good customer service, since every question I had for them was promptly replied to as soon as possible.


snoopdan

bill mcdonald

building your own is the way to go.

someone I know wanted a Blue light in thier car. they tried the slip on caps and it made a nasy teal color. I took the bulb and cracked it open. drilled a hole down it. mounted 6 Bright blue leds in it, and soldered in 6 resistors. soldered the leads to the connections on the bulb I broke open. then hot glued the LED's in place on the bulb fixture. I slid it right in and bam... that sucker is bright. but I dont care for the blue look. it really sucks when you are looking for something.

I was going to do 8 bulbs, but it was too big, and would of been way too bright.

I found my LED's on the net with resistors. I think I got 100 bright blues w resistors for $20.00.

snoopdan

Ive got some hyper bright LED's comming in the mail from Ozium, reccomended by scott_fx ... I ordered a bunch of white, blue, and upper UV range ones w/ resistors, and Im planning to add a bunch to my door panels since I have them sitting in my living room right now So im going to mess around a bit, so thanks for the suggestoins. On the LED's you used, do you remember what Mcd they were rated at?

snoopdan

snoopdan

Ok, since the company I bought this from was paranoid about their product, and I really didnt like their product due to the low Mcd (light output values) So I just replied honestly what I how I felt about their product to the comapany in this reply to them :

> Date: 2005/03/02 Wed PM 12:23:38 EST
> To: <superlumination@***.net>
> Subject: Re: Re: Festoon dome lights
>
> Thanks for the reply, I understand your worries about corporate internet
> theft. Overseas sites are probably the worst about this.
>
> Anyways, I tried out your Festoon lamps, but they wernt very bright for
> having 9 blue LED elements in it. I think I misread the specs on it when
> looking through the spec charts, and thought the mcd value was much
> higher/brighter then it actually turned out to be. They're no brighter
> then a white light filiment lamp with a colored lens over it, so I was kind
> of disappointed. But again, im sure I misread the output spec of the bulb.
> Unfortunately, i'll most likely replace them as soon as I get an order of
> super bright element LED single elements, and fabricate my own Festoon lamp
> assembly, which was the whole thing I was trying to avoid in the first place
> by buying your product.
>
> Unfortuntantly, I wont recommend your product to anyone. Maybe if you get
> some made with better Mcd values, i'll consider trying it again.
>
> Thanks
>
> dan


Their reply :

Oh yeah? amusing....wait till I hack on their unit and make my own!



They were still pretty nice about it overall.


snoopdan