Curing LED Turn Signal Conversion Problems

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
If an individual is mentally challenged to the point where they cannot test their new lights and determine if they are suitable replacements or not I would suspect that their "new" lights would rate way down on the list of things that driver poses as being dangerous to other drivers. Get my drift? Few RV'ers especially the ones on this forum are likely to settle for purple tail lights or green front turn signals. Or for laser beam projection where the lamp cannot be reasonably be seen from an angle that meets or exceeds OEM and State law standards. Most RV'ers are very fussy.

If you doubt that LED lighting is significantly more reliable than incandescent, you have a big job ahead of you --- contacting the owners of several tens of millions of big rigs to argue your point.

Here we are nibbling on the finesse of proper battery float set points at -20F and then publicly questioning the intelligence of others regarding whether a change to LED signals is rational or not. Frankly this amazes me.

I have 1hr commute each way every day to work so I have plenty of time to notice things along the way. 40 minutes of the 60 minutes is on Interstate highways which is a MAJOR trucking route north to south.

Daily I see hundreds of big rigs on the road, it is easier to count the ones that DO NOT have partial burned out or fully burned out LED markers and tail lights.

Nearly every big rig I see daily will have at least one non functioning or malfunctioning LED light on it.

Many of this rigs are most likely more modern than what you see in Mexico..

LEDs when PROPERLY setup WELL BELOW the maximum current allowed can operate for 100,000 hrs.

The problem is the manufacturers of these fixtures are driving the LEDs AT or ABOVE the maximum recommended current levels.

This is done to gain the most brightness from the LED but at the expense of the LIFE of the LEDs.

LED manufacturers give SEVERAL different life expectancies according to the current drawn.. The 100,000 hr life is typically given at 75% of the max allowable current and at 100% max allowed current the life is typically 25,000-50,000 hrs.. go over that and all bets are off on how long they will live.

While I do like the brightness of the Bargman fixtures I have I am thoroughly disgusted with the FAILURE rate of them. So far 50% failure rate in under three years (grand total of 6K miles, that's less than 100 hrs of usage if they were on the entire trip) is dismal and unacceptable.

My next move is to add in current resistors to drop the current through the modules to see if that extends the life to something a bit more acceptable. At $50 per module every few years, it hurts...