Played around with LED 1157's (brake lights) and adjustable flasher

[dyeager535]

Had not had good luck in the past with "cheapy" SMD LED 1157's from ebay in the past. Not interested in having to rewire things to add resistors, etc. People have reported good things with Superbright (the company) LED's, but the price of those bulbs, for what benefit I would receive, wasn't worth it for me. Not sure what the benefit is for me, but hey. Back when I used to scrounge the wrecking yards weekly I used to grab all the incandescent bulbs I could...I'm now down to my last one, so figured if I had to spend some money, why not try to make the LED's work? Plus, I like to experiment.

The previous bulbs I've tried to use have been too dim, and resulted in weird flasher behavior. I thought the turn signal flasher I was using was designed to handle things like LED's, but I bought an adjustable solid state flasher on ebay (search adjustable flasher, they are $.99, orange colored, two pin, adjustment on the underside of the flasher) to see if that would solve the hyperflash issue I'd see at times.

Happy to report that with this style bulb ($1/ea on ebay), and the adjustable flasher, mixing incandescents and LED's seems to work fine! One side affect that may or may not bug people is that this flasher, because it's not a relay, does not make the turn signal clicking noise. I didn't spend any time getting the adjustment "just right", the first LED/adjustable flasher segment in the video is as the flasher came out of the box, I just turned the adjustment 90* and called it good enough for the last segment.

FWIW I don't think this style of bulb is anything really special, I am pretty sure they take regular SMD LED's and cover them in epoxy(?). IME/IMO however, whatever they are coated in, does a better job dispersing the light. I have some of those used in the dome lights, and they are far better at lighting the cab than the standard SMD LED's.

And because everyone loves pictures or video, I present to you...

As you can tell by the production quality, I was able to get my neighbor Steven Spielberg to produce it for me. Actually was far less dramatic a problem and solution than I expected...I wouldn't have video'd all this if I knew it was that anticlimactic. Not sure if it was this bulb style that I had not used before or what, but the different flashing rate was the only "problem" I saw. That surprised me.

 

[imiceman44]

For $1 I would switch to LED.
Did you say the adjustable flasher is also $1?
Looks really good.

 

[nvrenuf]

Wouldn't a white bulb be brighter?

 

[dyeager535]

For $1 I would switch to LED.
Did you say the adjustable flasher is also $1?
Looks really good.

Yep, crazy how cheap this stuff is.

I know this will date the post, I don't like putting links in I know will die, but perhaps it will be pertinent as long as the thread isn't a week or so old. I know not everyone spends as much time searching ebay as I do, might save anyone interested some hassle.

Flasher (edit: link died, this link should be the correct search, as of May 2019, the correct one is first, and it's an orange two pin unit) https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=adjustable+flasher&_sacat=0&_sop=15&rt=nc&LH_BIN=1

1157's (again, link died, this link should bring up some results that physically are the same looking as those in the video):
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fr...leDesc=0&_sop=15&_osacat=0&_odkw=1157+led+red

Few caveats though. First, the bulbs are just held together with solder. For high mileage rigs, I'm not sure if the solder joints will hold up. I assume there isn't a lot of mass there, so maybe they will, but, chinese.

Make sure to buy bulbs that are the right color...they should match the lens color. With LED's its important, otherwise you end up with washed out colors through the lenses. Red LED's for brakes, amber for markers/turns, etc.

Any of the LED's sold that clearly have individual LED's tend to show through the lens as individual points of light, instead of lighting the whole housing well.

I'm not sure of the flasher dependability either, long term. The way I look at this, for $2 invested, it's not like you are out much. And as much as 1157's are locally, why not? Yeah, you'll wait ~2 weeks for them to arrive, but if you aren't in a hurry, who cares. You can probably pay more to get them in the US, I wasn't in a hurry.

Oh, and I suspect YMMV on success. With the wiring in these trucks, who the heck knows. I've had all sorts of problems with one socket in the past, so something like that could cause problems I didn't have. Weird things will happen with weak grounds, etc. Heck, my taillight ground randomly went bad about a month back. Using left turn signal made my backup camera turn on and off with the flasher lol.

 

[imiceman44]

Yep, crazy how cheap this stuff is.

I know this will date the post, I don't like putting links in I know will die, but perhaps it will be pertinent as long as the thread isn't a week or so old. I know not everyone spends as much time searching ebay as I do, might save anyone interested some hassle.

Flasher:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/12V-2-Pin-...ash=item362e60cda8:g:plkAAOSw32lYq-m5&vxp=mtr

Two of the bulbs:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2pcs-Red-1...ash=item4410006605:g:uzUAAOSw~HBaBqMp&vxp=mtr

Few caveats though. First, the bulbs are just held together with solder. For high mileage rigs, I'm not sure if the solder joints will hold up. I assume there isn't a lot of mass there, so maybe they will, but, chinese.

Make sure to buy bulbs that are the right color...they should match the lens color. With LED's its important, otherwise you end up with washed out colors through the lenses. Red LED's for brakes, amber for markers/turns, etc.

Any of the LED's sold that clearly have individual LED's tend to show through the lens as individual points of light, instead of lighting the whole housing as well.

I'm not sure of the flasher dependability either, long term. The way I look at this, for $2 invested, it's not like you are out much. And as much as 1157's are locally, why not? Yeah, you'll wait ~2 weeks for them to arrive, but if you aren't in a hurry, who cares. You can probably pay more to get them in the US, I wasn't in a hurry.

Oh, and I suspect YMMV on success. With the wiring in these trucks, who the heck knows. I've had all sorts of problems with one socket in the past, so something like that could cause problems I didn't have. Weird things will happen with weak grounds, etc. Heck, my taillight ground randomly went bad about a month back. Using left turn signal made my backup camera turn on and off with the flasher lol.

Yeah I know about all the issues.
I look at it this way, they will not die faster than incandescent, the old wiring will work less hard, and I will not have the annoying flasher noise.
Some are so loud they drive me nuts.

 

[dyeager535]

Yeah, I never really thought about whether the flasher noise was because of how they worked, and/or if that was a "design feature" to somehow try and remind people to turn them off. Some are very loud, some are pretty quiet. Guess I've never had them irritate me that much, but if it bugs you, the solid states are silent. I believe I read somewhere the solid states may not handle as much current as the relay-style, but of course none of this stuff I saw had any rating listed. The metal cans might though? I know there is something written on mine. If someone was really worried I'm sure switching to all LED's would preclude any issues.

 

[imiceman44]

Yeah, I never really thought about whether the flasher noise was because of how they worked, and/or if that was a "design feature" to somehow try and remind people to turn them off. Some are very loud, some are pretty quiet. Guess I've never had them irritate me that much, but if it bugs you, the solid states are silent. I believe I read somewhere the solid states may not handle as much current as the relay-style, but of course none of this stuff I saw had any rating listed. The metal cans might though? I know there is something written on mine. If someone was really worried I'm sure switching to all LED's would preclude any issues.

That's my plan all LED for turn signal and brake light

 

[dyeager535]

If you go that route, if you don't mind, update this thread or start a new one, and let us know how it goes. I don't think I have enough to do all the bulbs, and I know I had some issues with the front and side markers since polarity reverses to make them blink...I got some weird issues going on at that time, but may be worth trying again with this new bulb style and the adjustable flasher.

I hate the front marker/turn signals though (in the grille) as the grill has to be removed to access them to change the bulbs. A pain if the LED's don't work lol.

 

[imiceman44]

If you go that route, if you don't mind, update this thread or start a new one, and let us know how it goes. I don't think I have enough to do all the bulbs, and I know I had some issues with the front and side markers since polarity reverses to make them blink...I got some weird issues going on at that time, but may be worth trying again with this new bulb style and the adjustable flasher.

I hate the front marker/turn signals though (in the grille) as the grill has to be removed to access them to change the bulbs. A pain if the LED's don't work lol.

On my 89 should be easy enough to try.

 

[Big Ray]

I like the flasher noise...I got hooked on it as a kid messing around with our 69 chebby. Back when my family was still reasonably sane... Good info, gonna try this on my babies.

 

[diesel4me]

I like the flasher noise...I got hooked on it as a kid messing around with our 69 chebby. Back when my family was still reasonably sane... Good info, gonna try this on my babies.

J.C. Whitney sold a "extra loud" flasher for those drivers who,as George Carlin once noted "Are going around the world--to the left !"..
I guess it helped elderly or hard of hearing drivers to remember to turn off the directional signal..
They also had a flasher that played "Love Me Tender" too..

Maybe its just my eyes,but to me the LEDs and regular bulbs in the above video looks pretty much the same ?...

 

[imiceman44]

J.C. Whitney sold a "extra loud" flasher for those drivers who,as George Carlin once noted "Are going around the world--to the left !"..
I guess it helped elderly or hard of hearing drivers to remember to turn off the directional signal..
They also had a flasher that played "Love Me Tender" too..

Maybe its just my eyes,but to me the LEDs and regular bulbs in the above video looks pretty much the same ?...

They do look about the same which is good in my opinion, they should just last longer

 

[dyeager535]

Maybe its just my eyes,but to me the LEDs and regular bulbs in the above video looks pretty much the same ?...

If you can't tell by the truck the LED's are attached to, I'm not out to make a fashion statement. lol

I agree...I like that they are hard to tell. These are as close to looking like incandescent's *I* have achieved with LED's in these housings. Normally LED bulbs look like a few dots behind the lens, instead of the whole lens being lit like with incandescents. Now if you still scrounge the wrecking yards for bulbs like I used to, I guess you can beat $2 to replace the two bulbs in the rear ($3 if you want to include the flasher), but if you go price incandescent bulbs of any type, it seems nearly like highway robbery. Hold on, I gotta go yell at some kids on my grass. When I'm back, you young 'uns can gather round and I'll tell you about twenty five cent candy bars and how gas used to be under $1.

 

[RootBreaker]

so links are dead... well the bulbs...
can you find a new link? I'm going to do led as I have multiple bulbs out and why go incandescent...