LED bulbs

Can’t tell the bulb size from your picture, i remember my gauges used the sized BA7 bulbs…  and a couple were BA9s.

I purchased mine from SuperbrightLEDs- ,  https://www.superbrightleds.co...e_Number,BA7S,1,455:

they carry all sorts of sizes… pull your bulb out and measure/match to the pictures.

https://www.superbrightleds.co...-subminiature-bulbs/

Here is a handy chart to help you identify your bulb.

Very handy!  This should go in the reference section.  (We still have that, right?)

@Lfepardo thank you sir for posting that useful chart....i will save it in my notes.....i really should have pulled the bulb from its holder to snap a photo...but didn't want to damage it....can any of the group describe the proper safe way to do so?....it looks tightly encased...looks pretty straight forward, but should i use needle nose pliers on the glass or simple pull with my fingers?....i have ordered some LED bulbs EBAY......hopefully they are correct ones

Try pushing it in and rotating.

@jncspyder   Typically ;

- the ba9 bulbs require a gentle push in, then quarter turn, then pull motion to remove.  The pins on the side of the bulb is what keeps them in place.   If you try to just pull out you will damage the bulb socket.  I always use my fingers.

- the ba7 is also a ; gentle push- 1/4 turn and thenpull type of bulb, using your fingers   I just checked.

just as an FYI, it looks like gauges also use a smaller press fit build… depending on the connector you have installed. ( lower bulb/ bulb holder in the picture).

my 536 gauges were rebuilt by Palo Alto Speedo…

@Michael McKelvey @Lfepardo thank for the info guys...i figured they were similar to tail light/ parking light bulbs....just wasn't sure....when in doubt ,seek assistance....keeps from investigating that dreaded rabbit hole 

Also, for awareness, the smaller wedge bulb in my picture is a 74 - mini wedge size bulb… I used them for my warning lights (red for oil temp and alternator. Blue for high beam).  

https://www.superbrightleds.co...ge-retrofit-car/227/

pictured are my spare holders and old incandescent bulbs.  Car now has LEDs… they are much brighter, which I love.

hope this helps

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A caution to go gently into the light.

My gauges are the 105mm Chinese repops that VS (and a lot of other replicas) used to use.

The little plastic sockets for some of the bulbs are extremely fragile (and probably get more brittle with time). A few of them crumbled in my hand as I tried to remove the bulbs.

I repurposed a few of the unused indicator lights in the middle of the combi gauge by stuffing tiny, pre-wired LED's into the recesses that the (crumbled) sockets came out of. So, no need to find a specific bulb for a specific socket.

These are available in quantity for really cheap on Amazon - or wherever crap electronics are sold.

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@Sacto Mitch @Lfepardo you read my mind....not one to leave well enough alone....my investigating of the one removed bulb has found that my tiny little gauge bulbs are wired directly to  2 wires green & black through the plastic socket as a single unit....which i promptly broke the hot lead on it.....oh well....it will have to live with the other 5 little bulbs for now....my issue now is to find the correct 2 prong connecters (that slip into what seems fine sockets attached to the gauges themselves) socket to re-wire to for when my  BA 7 bulbs arrive.....i looked for awhile at ebay and cant seem to find the correct one with all the possibilities available....i can turn a wrench, but electrical was never my strong suit....obviously, more pro SOC advice is in need of....the correct link to the correct part would be awesome!!....again thanx to the SOC pros!!

as well as i'm still on a roll with this LED saga....check out my LED parking lights & LED headlights taken in a dark garage....WOW!....literally NIGHT & DAY!!.....softer shade of bright are headlights...but the parking lights are like...WOW! bright now....no excuse ever again to hit the curb ...a simple update all our cars should have IMHO

The vdo holders  are easy to find- eBay, Amazon, stoddard, pelican.

For BA7 bulbs: this link had dimensions of the holder so you can confirm it will fit your gauge.  

https://www.amazon.com/Bayonet...s-1262/dp/B088JWX8TM

https://www.ebay.com/itm/13371...JEAQYAyABEgLOCPD_BwE

for 74 mini wedge: I don’t have a quick link… but I’m sure a google search will yield some.

Found my VDO catalog… here you go,

for the 74 mini wedge bulb, the socket is the VDO type D-

https://www.ebay.com/itm/25516...kEAQYCCABEgLO9vD_BwE

@Lfepardo dude!...you are the man!....i o u !!! ....looks like that is what the doctor ordered.....not sure about doing the little idiot lights...we'll see how the BA7' project goes....now just a bit of tedious work under the dash to put 12 little female clips on 12 thin wires....might be smarter to remove the gauges i'm thinking 

happy to help.

Thinking thought the setup you describe, one would assume the connection from the car wiring harness to the gauges has to be back there… the hard wired bulbs may have 6” -10”pigtails leading to the connection clips to the cars wire harness, ( the cars wiring should be thicker/ of a greater gauge’’).

If you can remove the gauges from the car you will be able to retrofit in the confort of a work bench or kitchen counter … likely be able to decide how to best tackle fixing this one bulb/holder comfortably, and decide how to best address the rest…. Then after all is done, just reconnect back to the car.

@Sacto Mitch

Mitch, I've done the same as you. Replaced difficult to find gauge lights (on my Speedster, Vanagon & Range Rover Classic) with those pre-wired LEDs. Easy and inexpensive fix with significant improvement in night time visibility.

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@MusbJim , I couldn't see my high beam indicator in daylight. Whenever I flashed my lights during the day (usually as a greeting to oncoming sports cars), I never knew if the lights were now in low-beam or high-beam mode.

So, I added a second high-beam indicator, using an LED in one of those unused slots on the combi gauge. Now I know.

Another use: an indicator light for when the oil cooler fan is on.

Useful stuff that is easy to do, but adds no clutter to the dash.

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When I rebuilt, I set up all of my dash lights with LED bulbs (except for the alternator, of course). I think I got the bulbs from SuperBrightLEDs.

The only complaint I have is that the high beam light (blue) is so bright I can't see anything else at night. One of these days I'll throw a resistor in series, but for now, I just put on my welding helmet.

Geez, with a name like SuperBright, I should have known.

Mike, I actually did use an LED for the alternator idiot light. I believe I used a resistor in series to get it to "excite" the regulator into charging. I also used a relay and a backflow diode in order to get it to NOT glow all the time(I think?).

It was 5 years ago, so you'll have to forgive my lack of memory. And no, I didn't add it to my car schematic. Sue me.

Mitch: great usage of un-used lights.

@Michael Pickett posted:

When I rebuilt, I set up all of my dash lights with LED bulbs (except for the alternator, of course). I think I got the bulbs from SuperBrightLEDs.

The only complaint I have is that the high beam light (blue) is so bright I can't see anything else at night. One of these days I'll throw a resistor in series, but for now, I just put on my welding helmet.

Geez, with a name like SuperBright, I should have known.

Normally with LED's isn't there an issue with stepping down the brightness and you need a special chip, forgot what it is called, but a normal resistor I was told does not work well.  I know that when I did my cruise control we tried putting in a way to reduce the brightness and we were not very successful at it.

I have a few of those LED'S that drive me a bit crazy. .. tape helps ;

An LED drops about 1.8v across it(to as high as 3.3v depending on which LED). But the important thing is to control the current, that is what controls whether the LED burns out or not. This is done with a series resistor of the correct value to drop the current where you want depending on the requirements of the LED.

The best way to dim LEDs is with a rapid on/off circuit. This uses what is called duty cycle to vary brightness. 50% percent duty cycle equals 50% brightness. The frequency needs to be at least 60Hz so you can't see the flickering. Higher frequency is better, to a point.

"PWM LED Dimmers. PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) LED Light Dimmers, give your LED Lighting products the ability to dim using a variety of control options."

Just remembered that it is a PWM unit that is needed to do the best job.  Not my area of expertise but my EE friend that helped me to draw up the schematic for my cruise control set up kept mentioning that it was easier said than done

If you want to use an LED bulb for the alternator you will need to install one of these exciters… in parallel to the bulb.  http://auto-hub.com/faqs/.  Has been working great for me since 2017.  You can build your own… but I purchased from the linked retailer. http://auto-hub.com/type-1/

I personally like the brightness of LEDs for warning lights/high beam… My warning lights on both my VDO repos and original 356 gauges are #74 mini- wedge vs Ba7… so not as bright ( lower wattage) , but MUCH brighter than incandescent bulbs.

The diameter of the bulb holder is the same, so putting the #74 side were I wanted them was easy. ( the Chinese repo gauges came with mini wedge size connectors for the warning lights/ alternator/battery lights.).

you can see the holders in my picture above. Reach out for any Q.

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Uh, Dr. KISS checking in here.

If the LED is too bright, use one that is less bright. They're rated in lumens. For example, 200 lumens is less bright than 400 lumens. Do the math. No Pulse Width Macarena. An added plus is that the less bright ones cost less dinero (keeping the Macarena meme going).

And Dr. KISS' suggestion for how to use an LED for an alternator light?

Don't !

You can put up with a few incandescent bulbs in your life. C'mon, this car is supposed to have an old-school soul, right?

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As soon as I heard Macarena, my mind started to sing it .... Good Idea Sancto will have to check it out.

Mitch, my goal was to have:

Every, Single. Bulb. LED.

Goal achieved. I'm stubborn that way. Now that I think about it, I used the coil of the relay as the "exciter" load, and the LED is switched on and off by the relay.

Dead simple.

Almost.

Mitch, I also used the extra Combi gauge lights, but as a sequential rev limiter.

Luis, I didn't know they sold an LED wired especially for that purpose, COOL!

I too have Every, Single. Bulb. LED.

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A sequential rev limiter!

Danny, I am just non-plussed by that wizardry.

But hey, can we talk about this semi-conducting gimcrackery to keep the alternator light LED from ‘glowing all the time’ ? I’m thinking you don’t need that as the LED is itself a diode and thus should not light when reverse biased, no?

Most LED’s with a non-polarized base (like the little glass bulbs with two symmetrical prongs sticking out of the bottom) come with warnings about maintaining polarity and switching the orientation around if they don’t light. The pre-wired ones have color-coded leads that identify the ‘anode’.

Another thing. The cheapo pre-wired LED’s I found on Amazon DO incorporate load resistors in their leads as pictured here (the resistor is actually covered by shrink wrap as supplied):

Look, LEDs can be useful (as I’ve suggested in other comments), but at heart, these cars are supposed to be champions of the old, the outdated, the impractical, the anachronistic. Their drivers are mostly old, outdated, impractical anachronisms themselves who insist that the ancient way, if not better, is still alive and kicking.

My car and I remain stubborn, unrepentant relics of an age of incandescence.

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Did you say incandescent or effervescent.  In any case, yes these cars have something old and something new most times and behind the wheel is the something old.

I have maybe four LEDs in my Speedster; tail and stop lights, third stop light, heater on and that’s it, mostly because they were semi-easy to change.  I’m fine with that unless one of the other regular bulbs poops out and then I’ll change it, but even for a couple of weird, hard-to-find regular bulbs, I have a lifetime supply of spares - OCD people do stuff like that - so the chance of needing an LED replacement is damn close to zero.  

Besides…….  That list of things I gotta get done on the car “eventually”?  Changing to LEDs doesn’t even show up.

@IaM-Ray posted:

Did you say incandescent or effervescent.  In any case, yes these cars have something old and something new most times and behind the wheel is the something old.

An Alka-Seltzer bulb might be pretty cool, but it sounds more like a problem...

Like I said, Mitch, I can't remember exactly what I did, but the diode was most probably inline with the relay coil, this prevents back-feeding 12v into the ignition circuit for run-on.

I'd have to a) get under the dash and b) want to to get the answer. All I remember is I messed with it until I got it to work then made it permanent by soldering and heat-shrinking the whole mess under the dash. The relay I used was a micro-miniature 12v, about 1/2" long and skinny with solder terminals on it. The whole thing fit neatly inside of shrink wrap right by the gauges.

And RE: sequential rev limiter? That's not all that difficult. The Megajolt ignition I had has 4 user outputs that can be rpm-triggered, so easy to do. My new Speeduino ECU also has a bunch of user outputs. It was easy to wire that up. Since I now have Speedhut gauges, I had to use other lights, there aren't unused lights in the combi gauge. I found some older-looking small LED lights with brushed bezels which I installed around the tach. So all the wizardry and sorcery was not me.

@DannyP shift lights!!!...that's F1 & IMSA stuff!!..tooooo kewl! @Gordon Nichols i'm not gonna fool with ALL the dash lights either....but i'm already GEEKING OUT about my LED speedo, tach & multi gauge lights when installed once parts arrive

LED instrument light project complete... @Lfepardo thanx for all your great info truly literally night & day difference

need 1 additional holder for the blue high beam light....oh well

@Sacto Mitch posted:

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Uh, Dr. KISS checking in here.

If the LED is too bright, use one that is less bright. They're rated in lumens. For example, 200 lumens is less bright than 400 lumens. Do the math. No Pulse Width Macarena. An added plus is that the less bright ones cost less dinero (keeping the Macarena meme going).

And Dr. KISS' suggestion for how to use an LED for an alternator light?

Don't !

You can put up with a few incandescent bulbs in your life. C'mon, this car is supposed to have an old-school soul, right?

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Through math, trial and error, and some shopping, I discovered the perfect resistor to use with an LED alternator light. 30 ohms, 25 watts connected in parallel across the LED lamp. My first attempt was with a 2 watt resistor I had on the shelf. I heat shrank it into the harness pigtail for the lamp. It worked well until I left the key on with the engine stopped to troubleshoot what I thought was an ignition power issue, but turned out to be a failed Pertronix pickup module. A minute or so was all it took for whisps of smoke to roll out from under the dash near the alternator lamp. So I found these 25 watt aluminum heat-sinked bad boys. They dissipate heat fast enough that nothing smokes. I linked to Amazon, but they're available from lots of other suppliers.