I replaced one of these bulbs today, I think they called a wedge bulb, and considered an LED, but at $18 ea it seemed pricey.

Has anyone put LEDs here that are cheaper and work OK?
thanks

yep.. search up CREE... a lot brighter than LED:

http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.Xcree+ red+brake&_nkw=cree+red+brake&_sacat=0&_from=R40

I use 7W T10 cree's for reverse light and its damn bright.. if you're going to get lights for brake lights then get them red instead of white so you don't lose light from red filtering.

Cooper, are you talking about the normal brake lights or the high-mount on the rear windscreen which are already LEDs? I have a set of T10 wedge brake/tail LED bulbs which I no longer use. They are from the US and are called V-LEDs which are very bright. Most if not all brake/tail combo LEDs are not bright enough and don't have enough distinction in brightness between the tail and brake modes. If you are talking about the main brake/tail combo then they are the T20 7443 brake/tail combo ones like these (http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/EPISTAR-RED-7443-W21-5W-T20-Cree-LED-9-5W-Car-Light-Bulb-Brake-Stop-Tail-/121136276594?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item1c3448e472). You can, if you want, test mine out to see what the V-LEDs are like.

I have played around with a few leds and suffered from the lack of distinction between tail and brake, though found some very bright ones. Vlad, are you suggesting the Vleds have a strong distinction between the two? Otherwise, what do you think about putting a PWM inline to lower the brightness of the tail light...

I have played around with a few leds and suffered from the lack of distinction between tail and brake, though found some very bright ones. Vlad, are you suggesting the Vleds have a strong distinction between the two? Otherwise, what do you think about putting a PWM inline to lower the brightness of the tail light...
I have spent over $150 testing out LED brake/tail combo lights and V-LEDs were the only ones with a clear distinction and matching if not slightly brighter lights in both modes compared with normal bulbs. Also, I am not sure if the cree one I posted above has a markedly different brightness between the two modes (the description of super bright and brighter is not very confident making).

Following pics were taken a while ago in full daylight in summer:
Mine:
http://i856.photobucket.com/albums/ab124/vbednikov/Rear%20Lights/my-rear-lights-2.jpg

Standard (mates ralliart):
http://i856.photobucket.com/albums/ab124/vbednikov/Rear%20Lights/ralliart-rear-lights-2.jpg

Both:
http://i856.photobucket.com/albums/ab124/vbednikov/Rear%20Lights/together-rear-lights.jpg

I noticed that the brake light is on in the rear windscreen of the verada with the led brake lights.. Is this light always on and does it get brighter when the brake is applied? Only asking cause I've replaced my tail lights with led's and its messed with the same light and even more strange is with the led globes in I cannot set my cruise control

I noticed that the brake light is on in the rear windscreen of the verada with the led brake lights.. Is this light always on and does it get brighter when the brake is applied? Only asking cause I've replaced my tail lights with led's and its messed with the same light and even more strange is with the led globes in I cannot set my cruise control

yes. if you installed the leds in reverse polarity then the high-mount come on when you turn on the lights, btdt. unplug the leds, twist 180 degs and reinsert them. do it one at a time and check each time. and no the high-mount is only for braking.

I must have a dodgy set of LEDs, just tried your idea and when I turned them around the high-mount came on as the brake light.. The original way I had them the high-mount came on as a Parker and still worked as a brake light

that is how it is. i did not fully exain before. reverse polarity leds causes the exact scenario. these leds have reverse polarity protection circuitry so i think confuses the cars electricals.

Ok so I'm guessing the led's I've got aren't suited for my car?

nothing wrong with the leds in terms of function. the behaviour with the high-mount is normal and happens with all leds from $10/pair cheapies to $100/pair ones like my v-leds. whether they are bright enough and have enough distinction between parker and brake modes, i have no idea. need to see it with my own eyes.

Love the deep red with Leds! So Vlad, are you suggesting the reverse polarity protection is what causes the cruise control to stop working? I was working on some custom led rears, but because of the odd shape, it's hardly easy! Decided to put the project on the back burner. Custom DRLs first and then mayyyybe! Done many electronic mods in your car Vlad?

dont know about the cc but def the high-mount brake light miss behaving. done plenty of electrical/electronic mods:
1. LED interior lights.
2. LED brake lights.
3. LED DRLs including use of delay on timer relay to prevent DRL flashing while starting car.
4. 7" 2DIN ICE.
5. Wireless reverse camera with delay on timer relay to prevent screen flickering when shifting past R.
6. Reversing sensor controller with in-cabin isolation switch and hooked up to same delay relay as in 5. panel beater installed and painted the actual sensors.
7. DEI-506T glass/loud noise sensor hooked up to BEM to trigger factory alarm.
8. Work in progress. Home made delay off relay to turn on fog light of respective side with the indicators.

Cooper, are you talking about the normal brake lights or the high-mount on the rear windscreen which are already LEDs? I have a set of T10 wedge brake/tail LED bulbs which I no longer use. They are from the US and are called V-LEDs which are very bright. Most if not all brake/tail combo LEDs are not bright enough and don't have enough distinction in brightness between the tail and brake modes. If you are talking about the main brake/tail combo then they are the T20 7443 brake/tail combo ones like these (http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/EPISTAR-RED-7443-W21-5W-T20-Cree-LED-9-5W-Car-Light-Bulb-Brake-Stop-Tail-/121136276594?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item1c3448e472). You can, if you want, test mine out to see what the V-LEDs are like.

I forgot to say mine's a wagon, and the std high-mount middle brake light has 4 x wedge bulbs, not LEDs. I ordered a few LED replacements from Ebay, $1 ea, free postage: not much to lose if they're crap.

ah cool. let us know how they go.

Nice list!
What kind of DRLs are you running? Were you one of the ones with the superbright ones?
I understand double din, but "ICE"?
How does the wireless camera work? Never get any interference? I was nervous of it, so I just went wire. Though I havent heard negative of wireless yet! Is it connected to your headunit?
Definitely the only way to install sensors! Even if I got them professionally painted, Id go crazy getting the positions exactly symmetrical :P
I assume you have a wiring diagram of the car if youve hooked into the BEM? And I guess being you like playing with your electronics...
The fog light indicator mod sounds very cool!

Nice list!
What kind of DRLs are you running? Were you one of the ones with the superbright ones?
From Bright Light Auto Parts in Victoria, same place as where Maggie3.5 (Mike) got it (his is round and mine are rectangular.
I understand double din, but "ICE"?
In Car Entertainment (7" HD display with GPS/Radio with RDS, TV, Bluetooth, DVD etc).
How does the wireless camera work? Never get any interference? I was nervous of it, so I just went wire. Though I havent heard negative of wireless yet! Is it connected to your headunit?
I mounted the transmitter on the boot lid as the wires are too short o mount them closer (like behind the seat backs). The receiver is left of the steering wheel behind the plastic shroud. One day, I'll either remount the receiver where the centre console bin is and extend the transmitter to be closer as well or go wired (not difficult to convert the wireless one to wired). There are interferences sometimes but mostly fine. It is connected to the ICE.
Definitely the only way to install sensors! Even if I got them professionally painted, Id go crazy getting the positions exactly symmetrical :P
I assume you have a wiring diagram of the car if youve hooked into the BEM? And I guess being you like playing with your electronics...
Yes, I've got the PDF of the manual. Very useful indeed.
The fog light indicator mod sounds very cool!
Got the circuit boards all done (one per side). Just need to get another relay and add-a-circuit fuse tap to tap into the fog light fuse (#7) to prevent them lighting up when indicating, when the foglights are already on.


See replies in bold.

ah cool. let us know how they go.

will do but it'll be few weeks coz I'm going away.

I remember seeing the DRLs! Quite good... Any idea what type of leds they are?
Ohhhh ICE! Got ya... I have the same set up. Was the most practical way to have a reverse camera screen, besides its other benefits :) What kind are you running? I went with the Sony XAB-701BT for the MirrorLink considering I have a Galaxy S3. I imagine soon there will be a lot better around. Not too impressed with MirrorLink to be honest!
Im surprised you of all people didnt go wired! You get tired of wiring from the front to the rear as well? I happened to be installing my system at the same time, so wasnt so bad!
Where in the Manual, I suck at getting around the manual!
Impressive making your own control module. Complicated much?

the LEDs in the DRLs are 100lm/w ones so 600lm/side but can't remember brand/model. my unit is just a generic eBay one but with HD display and multi-tasking in that I can have the GPS running in the background while listening to music etc. a workmate had the non-multitaksing one and was a pain to use so on long drives to unfamilia destinations had to use his smart phone for gps. my unit only costed me $320 back in 2009 and installed with help from murph on here as at the time I did not know how to open the dash up.
the pdf has bem pinout info so followed that. the bem itself was a pain to remove from its holder.
the delay off relay is fairly easy to make, just involves a pcb relay, pcb fuse holder, diode and capacitor of the correct rating to sustain power between blinks so the coil remains charged, as well as a 4 slot trrminal connection block, all fitted inside an abs plastic box with 4 wires coming out, indicator +ve, ground, battery +ve and fog light feed +ve.

Thats some pretty decent lumens right there! I have no idea what the lumen rating of mine are...
Generic ebay one hey? I know in some ways they can be a fair bit better than brand names, was just worried about the sound chips and other stuff I dont understand :P
Multi tasking is definitely a must! With MirrorLink, I can use the GPS through my phone, but forget about multitasking! Live and learn really! Also there are generic ebay ones with wifi which are really appealing, but again I was scared of the quality being disappointing. So you are pretty happy with yours?
I guess the module doesnt sound so complicated, though id still leave building it to you! :P Maybe you can sell the kits when youre done?

Interesting this thread came up as I've recently been toying with LED stop lights on my TJ, and I've had high mount issues myself.
My friend bought some 7443 bulbs from ebay, but I wasn't happy with them, so I decided to roll my own.

http://i.imgur.com/qT2Rqdd.jpg

They are being driven at 20mA which is the given spec for these particular LEDs and they are actually not as bright as stock bulbs, but they are really not that far off. I could easily get more brightness out of them if I wanted to by driving them a little harder. My test show they will survive at least 270mA for an hour, so 50mA should be ok.

Anyway, onto my high mount issue. I've found that when the tail lamps are completely disconnected, my high mount light is constantly on(faintly) once the key is turned to the 'ON' position. The same happens when I plug in my LEDs, but it turns off when I plug in the standard bulbs.

I have current leaking from some-place, but I can't figure out where from. I also have no idea if this is normal behaviour, or a problem with my car.

Na normal behaviour by the sounds of it cause mine has the exact same problem

Ah, thanks. I was actually hoping it was normal. I'm thinking it's a safety feature; normal brake bulbs pull a signal to ground, so if they're both blown, some system on the car knows about it. Possibly ABS or cruise control related. In any case, I've found that a 10K (7.5k might actually be better) resistor between the brake filament pin and the ground pin will turn it off. I haven't had time to implement and therefore test it on the car though, so I don't know if there are any unwanted side effects once the brake is applied.

There seems to be a need to explain why the LED stop lamps glow slightly with no filament type stop lamps in the stop lamp circuit.
The circuit diagram for the ‘STOP’ lamps shows a link to the: Cruise control; ABS; Auto Transmission; and TCL.
These links are to electronic modules and it is these modules which supply a small current to the stop lamp circuit. With the filament lamps in circuit, the current supplied from the electronics is insufficient to establish a significant voltage drop across the lamps.
Given the lamps are 21 watt, these consume about 1.6 amp each at their operating temperature. For two lamps in parallel, the current consumption would be say 3.2 amp. The effective resistance in the circuit to ground is then about 4 ohms total. However, when the lamps are cold, the filament resistance is around one tenth of the hot value, so we can take the resistance of the filaments to be around 0.4 ohm.
With the filament lamps in circuit, the voltage developed across them will be much less than the voltage required to establish a current through the LED lamps.
The modules which can contribute current to the stop lamp circuit are;

CRUISE CONTROL; probably nothing from this module.

ABS: this module probably contributes most of the current to the stop lamp circuit. The Mits diagrams don’t show the complete arrangement, but it appears there is the battery voltage supplied through a resistor and a diode to the stop lamp circuit. For the ABS, if the brakes are ‘OFF’, then the ABS is inactive, and the input voltage seen by the pin 14 of the ABS module is zero, because the sensing current of the ABS module is flowing OUT of the module. When the brakes are applied, the input voltage rises to say 14 volt, current does not flow out of the ABS module, and the ABS module detects this and comes into operation.

AUTO TRANS: The circuit diagrams are confusing. The ‘Engine ECU shows a switching transistor short circuiting the stop lamps. This is wrong. The switching transistor is most likely able to supply current TO the stop lamps under emergency conditions. Under normal conditions the transistor is ‘OFF’ and only leakage current of the order of 50 micro amp could flow into the stop lamp circuit normally.

TCL: It’s unclear what the circuit arrangement is here.

Fitting LED’s in the brake lamp circuits should cause no worry or concern. It is important to maintain the ‘OFF STATE VOLTAGE’ at a level which the electronics recognises. The Mits manual suggests this value is less than 1 volt. Assuming the ‘OFF STATE’ current into the stop lamps circuit is say 5 milliamp, then a shunt resistor of 200 ohm will guarantee the electronics will see the circuit as ‘OFF’.
This resistor should be fitted when NO filament lamps are used as stop lamps. LED devices generally have a non linear characteristic such that they pass no current at a terminal voltage of say 1.2 volt. Without the shunt resistor, the voltage across the stop lamps could rise to around this value and this value is greater than the 1 volt maximum voltage required to guarantee an 'OFF' state. The power rating of this shunt resistor needs to be at least 1 watt.

Hope this helps
Rumpfy