Brake,tail and signal light conversion to LED

Gdetrailer wrote:

Heavy Metal Doctor wrote:

LED lights do generally last a lot longer, as long at you buy a reputable brand. I have many commercial trucks processed through with Maxxima, Grote and Ttuck-Lite brands and can't recall a customer complaint of a premature failure.

I have the Bargman #84 LEDs which lpxguy posted.. THEY DO NOT "LAST"

Best I have gotten out of them before they quit is TWO YEARS and that is only traveling 2K miles per year..

I got smart and started buying the two module fixture since it IS cheaper than buying a SINGLE "replacement" module.

I regret the day I ever decided to replace the incadescent fixtures, they were dead simple AND cheap to fix ($1 bulb and contact cleaner once every few years).

As far as commercial truck brands goes.. I replaced all the markers with Grote and guess what? Yep, I have TWO intermittent ones that half the LEDs inside quit every once and a while and TWO that have only ONE of the two sets of LEDs still working.. Yep, that there is gonna cost me a cool $20 for more LED markers vs $4 for four incadescent marker bulbs :S :M

You are only fooling yourself if you really think those commercial LEDs last a long time.. My daily commute is an hr each way on very busy trucking routes.. I work near a major Postal bulk mail center on top of that.. I see hundreds of trucks a week and I RARELY EVER see trucks which DON'T have partial or fully burned out LEDs...

I won't recommend folks to change over to them unless they love spending a lot of money constantly replacing expensive modules every few years.. Incadescent bulbs are dirt cheap, LED modules are not..

Yeah, well I'm sorry for your luck and I'm not trying to be an jerk, but I never heard of Bargman 'till I started fooling with RV's - that right there tells me they are likely cheap junk parts and I would never buy them thinking it was an upgrade / expect them to last.

And seeing trucks on the road and working on them for living are different situations. Those trucks you see with burned out diodes could have a half million miles on them. They also may get covered by a warranty, depending on the brand and the deal the supporting fleet shop has on them. I have heard some talk of exactly that situation you pointed out is positive - a few diodes can burn out and you still have light within DOT spec's whereas an incandescent just burns completely out.

I also have yet to experience an LED short and cause a backfeed that makes all the lights on a unit go wacky the way I have with incandescent.....although, I do enjoy those situations when the customer calls in freaking out thinking his whole rig needs to be rewired because of a broken filament making every light glow when he steps on the brakes - I look like a god when I tell them to pull the brake light bulbs out and replace them and they call back with "That fixed it!!! HOW DID YOU KNOW!!!??".....

And I'm not saying I would recommend someone to change either. You are correct, there is no serious NEED for LED's on a travel trailer, but they DO look nicer and standout better in most peoples view so I would not tell someone NOT to switch if they feel like it.....heck if we are gonna tell each other what to do and this or that is a waste or too expensive then we all should permanently park these RV's/5er's/ TT's and not spend a dime on the excess fuel and campground fees and on and on....it's a hobby, there will be bumps and mistakes and parts that don't work out for us after spending money - learn from it, do what works for you (sound like you are), and enjoy it!