hi... posted a question regarding this a while back ago in another thread... but it never got answered. i tried searching for some answers but got mixed results. here is my straight forward questions:
-what led bulb will fit the rear turn signals? is it 7440?
-do i need a load equalizing gizmo for them to work properly?
-what colour is best to get... white or red?

i was thinking of getting the red 7440's on this website: http://superlumination.com/7443_7440.htm would this be fine?

thanks in advance to anyone with some experience on this.

 

If I were you I wouldn't do that. You will be barely able to see them during the day. The only suitable LED turn signal replacement for the rear would be a LED array replacing the conventional bulb/reflector assembly. To do this I am sure you will have to hack up the housing. It's definitely possible to do but it will require work. This is a project I would like to eventually do myself.

 

Actually I purchased some 7440 15-LED bulbs from www.superbrightleds.com and they worked out quite well. I had the same concerns as most other people, (brightness, quality, flashing speed) but I was pleasantly surprised with these lights.

So, to directly answer your questions:
-7440 is the right size (although buy from www.superbrightleds.com and save some money, that other site seems over priced. They probably both get their bulbs from the same Korean or Malaysian manufacturer anyway.)

-Yes, you do need to simulate a load on the circuit, otherwise your car will think the lamp is burned out. The way to do this is to splice in a 10W 10 Ohm (resistance can vary, +/- 10 Ohms will be fine, but stick to 10W) wire wound resistor. You can find them at Radio Shack or preferrably your local electronics store (it'll be cheaper there). To wire it in parallel, you need one end of the resistor going to the black wire on the bulb socket and one end going to the green wire. Tape up with plenty of electrical tape to keep it all dry. If you don't do this, your blinker will flash very rapidly as an indicator that something is wrong. Some people (*cough* ricers *cough*) think this looks cool. I think it looks like the car is malfunctioning, because, in fact, it is. If you're one of those people who happily paid $35,000 for an automobile and would like to dress it up with $6 worth of import "class" be my guest, but personally, I wouldn't be caught dead with a burnt out or malfunctioning bulb on my car.

-Get red. The only bulbs I can speak for are the 15-LED bulbs from www.superbrightleds.com because they are the only ones I purchased. I am quite satisified with them. Unlike a tungsten bulb, LEDs emit light at a specified wavelength. A red LED only emits red light. Your normal tungsten bulb emits the entire spectrum of visible light. All these wavelengths combine to create white. A white LED bulb (if I recall correctly) is emitting red, green, and blue at specified intensities to give off the appearance of white. Effectively, you're only getting 1/3 of the light since the green and blue wavelengths will be blocked by the red lens on the taillight housing.

I'd post pictures of this, but I lost my digital camera about three weeks ago. When I get a new one, I intend to do a write-up of a full LED conversion for the car. (If I don't get too lazy; no promises.)

Hope this helps.
Dustin

 

thanks for the info. the leds are pretty cheap... i'm gonna purchase a couple and see how it works out. if it sucks... i don't lose all that much in reversing back to the regular bulbs.

oops ... forgot to ask... dustin: did u have any issues with visibility during the day... what's your opinion on the brightness compared to the stock bulbs? thanks.

 

Here are a couple of pics taken of the back of my garage door being illuminated by the turn signals. Regular incandescent bulb on the left. Superlumination 15-LED on the right. Used a -2 stop setting on the camera. Notice the central "hot" beam pattern of the regular bulb. I estimate that the LED is 6 dB dimmer in this hot spot, but very similar in the periphery. The second pic is with the flash on, simulating the wash-out effect of daylight. Bottomline: The LED's were not bright enough to overcome my concerns.

 

I'm not so sure your camera is doing justice to the bulbs. Also, I'm not sure if you've looked or not, but the stock turn signals are exceedingly bright. In my opinion, the stock bulbs are too bright making the turn signal almost appear pink when illuminated due to the light blinding of the eye. (Please read: that is simply my opinion.)

Regardless, yes, I completely feel the bulbs are bright enough. Particularly considering that the turn signal in our car is a 7440 bulb and it is normally off. Thus, when it illuminates, there is practically no way to miss it. If it were a dual-filament bulb (7443) then my opinion would be slightly different, as going from half brightness to full brightness is not as significant of a change as full on to full off.

I'd do this conversion again in a heartbeat.

 

I understand your point about the turn signal being a separate bulb and lense. And add to that the fact that LED's instant on/off action also grabs attention. But the DOT spec is for turn signals to have equal brightness to brake lights, and the LEDs I tried did not achieve this.

Another problem is that the Superlumination 7440 LED aims its main beam pattern axially, and the G35 turn signal fixture is mounted vertically (in the sedan, at least). This means the brightest light output is aimed upward, not rearward in the fixture. For an incandescent bulb, this doesn't matter much. I have seen some special 90-deg LED bulbs in the more common 1156 type, but not in 7440.

 

thanks for all the input... and the pics were great. i'm a little stumped at what to do. u both have very good arguments going on... but the pics seem to sway me. i wish infiniti's manufacturer just threw in the additional leds for the turn signals.

 

Clearcorners.com is going to be releasing a tail light solution soon (according to the email they sent me). I think the only proper way to do this is to make an LED array and remove the standard reflector assembly portion of the lights.

 

thanks for the info pete... look forward to their product.

 

Ah ha! Noremac pointed out a very critical difference. In the Coupe, the bulbs point straight back as opposed to pointing upwards, as in the Sedan. This would make all the difference in the world considering the inherent directionality of LEDs. It was hard to tell in the pictures that your car was a Sedan, but I can definitely understand why your bulbs were so dim now. That would give you 9 5mm LEDs firing upwards and at most two of the 6 axial 3mm LEDs actually firing towards the rear of the car. (For the record, those 3mm LEDs are roughly 1/3 the power of the 5mm LEDs.) For me, I have all of the 9 brighter LEDs firing directly towards the rear of the car, exactly where they need to be. The 6 axial bulbs just serve to better illuminate the 'cone' inside the housing.


Trust me, in the coupe, they are plenty bright. As soon as I get a digital camera (I'm waiting on the Nikon CoolPix S1 to come out.) I'll take some pictures of it and show you.

Don't get me wrong, I love what clearcorners.com does. Their work is top notch. But so is the price. I don't know how much they will charge, but I would not be surprised to learn it is a conversion in excess of $300.

 

Yeah, I talked to Michael at clearcorners and he told me the same thing. He showed me a pic and it looked really nice. The surrounding parts of the light are now blackend (like the bluebatmobile GTR overlays) with all the lights being L.E.D. except the reverse light. And he said that the turn signal will be a ring like the running light. Shoud be interesting to see, althought Michael said it would be pricey. That's kinda worrisime since the headlights they make are around $800.00 +.

Later,

Ray

 

Dustin- You and I are on the same track. I too thought that the up-facing bulb socket design in the sedan was killing the beam pattern. That's only logical. I even called around to see if anyone had a 90-deg 7440 bulb. Every place I contacted said "No, there would not be enough demand."

So I MADE MY OWN!!! I spent a couple of hours with a dremel tool, resoldered, etc. and ended up with what you see in the pic below. (Normal 7440 is on top, and my 90-deg mod is below.) I should also say that getting the 90-deg bulb to fit into the socket hole was very difficult.

You would now think I had solved the problem. But it did not seem to make much difference. Wow. Why???! #(*@!#^$!) The only reason I can give is that the internal silvered reflector design [of the sedan] is reasonably efficient at not absorbing any light inside the fixture, and the red lens is acting as a diffuser, both of which combine to render the beam pattern insensitive to the bulb position. YMMV.

 

Noremac, I'm really suprised your angled bulb trick didn't work.

After looking through the forums a bit I found a few pictures of the sedan's taillights. I only have three guesses now as to why yours didn't work as desired.

First, and most likely, is that because we have different vendors for the LED bulbs, it is possible that mine simply have a higher MCD value. The superbrightleds.com website claims an MCD of 18800. I have no equipment to test this claim so I can only assume that it is true. I do know that LEDs can vary widely in output. Digging around superlumination.com's website, I see that the LEDs on your bulbs have a beam angle of 45 degrees. As beam angle increases, light output generally decreases. Superbrightleds.com also sells LED components and a quick view of their bare LED page (http://www.superbrightleds.com/leds.htm) will show you that this is true. Looking at the specifications for my bulb, it appears they have LEDs with viewing angles of 35 degrees. And while it may not be a completely fair comparison, but on the superbrightleds.com website, bare component LEDs with a 45 degree viewing angle only have an output of 3500 MCD whereas an LED with a 30 degree viewing angle has an output of 8000 MCD. I know you already put the time into modifying the bulbs, but since they're already open, have you considered swapping them out with some known high-output LEDs? Some of the 5mm bulbs can have outputs as high as 15000 MCD each.

Second, From looking at your picture, it appears that your bulb makes a right angle with the contact that inserts into the base. I'm not sure if it is the same way on the sedan, but when I insert a bulb, I have to insert it into the housing and then twist it ~45 degrees to get it to lock. Is it possible that when that bulb is inserted into the housing that 45 degrees of rotation causes the beam pattern to be thrown in a direction that you didn't intend?

Lastly, is that the geometry of the silvered reflector somehow inhibits the highly directional light output by the LEDs. I base this claim on absolutely nothing at all. I know on my coupe with a perfectly circular and conical lens the reflection fills up the entire lamp rather well.

Your thoughts?