replacement light bulbs

Careful wa8yxm with the load simulation resistor or you risk the ire of a respondent on another thread who declares incandescent light bulbs last ten years or 200,000 miles.

JARTRAN an offshoot of James A Ryder truck rentals contracted me to address the issue of them having failing tail lights on their CL and CLT 9000 truck tractors after only one trip on I-80 from Reno NV to Fremont California and back. A single trip. The CHP inspection station in Truckee, CA. was issuing citations by the handful to Jartran. First I tried the ultra-heavy duty 1157 variant (198?) four times as expensive and it lasted two or three trips. A failure. Then I did research and came up with rubber grommets, tensioning springs and stover locknuts with the (198?) lamps. Jartran leased the vehicles and the bank/lessor would not allow fitting TruckLite fixtures to replace the square housings used on the Ford vehicles.

LED lamps when properly chosen are a blessing for anyone interested in preventing stupid-grade automobile accidents. I witnessed a fatal head-on in which a car turned in front of a tank truck. The tank truck driver had witnesses claiming the turning automobile did not signal. Since I was a witness, I was eventually dragged into court. The auto was T-boned killing the driver's wife and two very small children. When the plaintiff demanded a deposition from me I got angry and telephoned the underwriter of the tanker. I asked them to please check the front left turn signal on the automobile.

They got a court order and did it - checked the lamp. Wanna know what they found? A broken and badly corroded bulb and socket.

It is "possible" that HAD THAT GODDAMNED lamp been flashing the truck driver would have had a chance to avoid the accident. It would have spared me 30 years of equally goddamned nightmares about helping to drag 30 pound corpses out the broken back window of that station wagon.

Sorry for the temper tantrum, but yeah I am a safety nut as well as a consumer advocate. Please forgive my weaknesses.

wa8yxm wrote:

Gonzo42 wrote:
I started looking for LED replacements for spares and reliablility but I soon found that in my case the turn signals have to be the incandescent variety or the turn signal timer won't work properly. The timer module is not replaceable without changing the entire switch assembly. Howeve I did find LL (long life) versions at Autozone and Walmart so I have those as spares.

Note: if you clean the contacts on your bulbs and the contacts in the sockets use ONLY a white pencil eraser. If you use a pink eraser, the red phosphorus in it will promote corrosion.

Two answers and a question: First the question "TIMER?"

Second the flasher unit should be easily replacable, kind of like replacing a fuse.. A HD flasher should work fine with LED lights since it needs very little load to flash (SD flashers get weird with low load.

Second. They sell a resistor (Believe it or not) that "Simulates" an incandescent lamp so the turn signals work normally.. Does nothing but make heat, but it does last a lot longer than a lamp bulb will.. Kind of defeats the purpose though in my opinion.

NEWER vehicles do not use the old time "flasher can", instead the Body Control Module or BCM as some manufacturers call it actually times the flashes to the proper DOT specs.

The BCM checks to see if the bulbs are drawing the correct amount of current and varies the flash rate to hyper speed if it detects ONE bulb worth of current not being drawn.

BCM is not reprogramable nor replaceable to fix the flasher rate.

That is the reason for the add on resistors, the resistors simulate the correct amount of current drawn for at least TWO bulb filaments.

Technically speaking changing to LEDs and adding the resistors is defeating a safety feature. The LEDs can and WILL go bad and the resistors will cover up the fact that your turn and brake lights are not working properly..

Older vehicles (early 2000 and before) used a flasher can which is replaceable. The standard one used the current drawn through the bulbs to heat a bimetal strip in the can.

Once the strip heated to a predetermined temp it would bend and open the contacts.

When the contacts open no more current would flow and the strip would cool and eventually close to make the circuit once again.

Then the cycle would start again.

The standard flasher can often could be replaced by a HEAVY DUTY can which was designed for three or more bulbs. Typically needed for vehicles while towing since the trailer lights would make the standard flasher go to fast...

As far as the OPs concern about automotive bulbs going away... Not in the current laws is there any ban on what is known as "specialty" type bulbs which automotive bulbs will fit into..

You can still purchase all the incandescent bulbs you want. Production of these bulbs has stopped. When existing supplies at retailers is exhausted, they will no longer be available.

I am not sure if fluorescents with mercury is a good trade off.

Gonzo42 wrote:
I started looking for LED replacements for spares and reliablility but I soon found that in my case the turn signals have to be the incandescent variety or the turn signal timer won't work properly. The timer module is not replaceable without changing the entire switch assembly. Howeve I did find LL (long life) versions at Autozone and Walmart so I have those as spares.

Note: if you clean the contacts on your bulbs and the contacts in the sockets use ONLY a white pencil eraser. If you use a pink eraser, the red phosphorus in it will promote corrosion.

Two answers and a question: First the question "TIMER?"

Second the flasher unit should be easily replacable, kind of like replacing a fuse.. A HD flasher should work fine with LED lights since it needs very little load to flash (SD flashers get weird with low load.

Second. They sell a resistor (Believe it or not) that "Simulates" an incandescent lamp so the turn signals work normally.. Does nothing but make heat, but it does last a lot longer than a lamp bulb will.. Kind of defeats the purpose though in my opinion.

N-i-c-e comments Gonzo42. Gracias!

What brand of vehicle do you own that has that morphadite type of flasher?

I started looking for LED replacements for spares and reliablility but I soon found that in my case the turn signals have to be the incandescent variety or the turn signal timer won't work properly. The timer module is not replaceable without changing the entire switch assembly. Howeve I did find LL (long life) versions at Autozone and Walmart so I have those as spares.

Note: if you clean the contacts on your bulbs and the contacts in the sockets use ONLY a white pencil eraser. If you use a pink eraser, the red phosphorus in it will promote corrosion.

Bob Vaughn wrote:
Beings we can no longer purchase regular light bulbs is that going to affect the light bulbs for marker lights and other 12 volt light

Moved to Tech Issues forum from DIY.

Two answers:

The first is the discontinuing of 120 volt Incandescent lamps between, I think 20 and 100 watts in no way affects 12 volt lamps. Thus, this is a non issue.

2: LED replacements are found in every auto parts store I've been in in the last 10 years.

IMHO, if you do any off the grid camping it makes sense to replace your incandescent bulbs with LEDs. Prices are still going down and are quite reasonable on eBay and Amazon. The problem, as I see it, is that there are no standards for LED lights so there is a wide variation between different sellers, especially on eBay. Some are great and some are junk. Buy 1 or 2 before you buy a whole bunch.

Iraqvet05 wrote:
No, 12V bulbs are not part of the energy plan that took away incandescent house bulbs. That measure is supposed to reduce the demand on coal power plants. There is a large list of bulbs that are also not effected by the change (to include appliance bulbs, 3 way bulbs, plant bulbs, service duty bulbs, ect.)

However eventually we will be cornered into buying them just like our houselight bulbs.

No, 12V bulbs are not part of the energy plan that took away incandescent house bulbs. That measure is supposed to reduce the demand on coal power plants. There is a large list of bulbs that are also not effected by the change (to include appliance bulbs, 3 way bulbs, plant bulbs, service duty bulbs, ect.)