be careful with led replacement bulbs

Well gang,
I've purchase ALL my LEDs from superbrightleds.com and, we're talking at a minimum, 30 + LEDs for various fixtures all over/out/inside this coach and, never had any issues with heat or damage or, burnt out units. They've been in there now for over three years. Yeah, I may have paid a bit more than many of you ordering direct from China but, the quality of the bulbs and the "offering" of outstanding service, including instant returns should any problems arise.

And, I've been goofing around with them for quite a while and, to the best of my knowledge, an LED CANNOT USE 12VDC!!! It will burn up almost instantly. It is my belief that, they must be stepped down in voltage. And, if I recall, the max they can actually handle is around 2.5 - 3.0 volts DC. When you look on all LED light strips (just purchased three of them) you'll find a zillion resistors along the total length of the light strip.

And, in the pictures below, you'll see that I had to use resistors in building my little project of "turn signal arrows" in my mirrors on my 2008 Honda GL 1800 Goldwing. When you purchase regular, over the counter LED bulbs, ALL OF THEM will have built in resistors. You may not see them but, they're there.

In one of my early tests of a RAW led bulb, the same kind you see in the pictures, I applied 12VDC to one of the bulbs and, it was like a flash bulb on the old cameras, you know, the ones with what looks like steel wool inside them, it flashed just about as fast as those old bulbs did. Then, OUT! So, to the OP, unless you're having EXCESS 12VDC in all other applications, i.e. water pump, other incandescent light bulbs, and other 12V powered components, I'd definitely say you got some bad LED bulbs.
Scott

A couple years ago, I started looking at LEDs for our coach. I thought they were expensive. I found a Chinese source on line and ordered them from China. Got them quickly, and they have performed perfectly. They were a fraction of the cost of those sold here.

You need to check the voltage at the light sockets, incandescent bulbs only want 12VDC +/- connections polarity make no difference.

LED bulbs want 12VDC with the correct polarity (+ to + / - to -) they can be shorted and burned out with a reverse polarity. The center connection must be positive, the side connection must be the negative connection.

You got Wal*marted.. Wal*mart wants cheeper so they can make obscene profit while charging you less.. So they buy lowest cost.. OFTEN the quality is not that great.
(sometimes it is good,,, I mean brand names must maintain but some brands will not even sell to Wal*mart cause they do not want to play that game).

LEDs do vary in quality,, the first ones I got were dark blue and short lived.

Later purchases have been recommendd by others and work well.. I now stick to peer reviewed brands.

Wow Mr wiz sounds like cheap $6 ? Led at 13.5 v could burn up my mh and its my bad for using them on shore power. Wow again!

red ranger wrote:
i bought a pair of the bayonet type at walmart. i think they were $12
put one in porch lite and other in overhead. they were not real bright and i used them as nitelites. the one in the overhead burned up. the leds are charred enough that the solder melted in drops. fortunately they only got hot enough to scorch the fixture before they failed. otherwise by by mh. the porch bulb is just browned. the bulbs have 3 led on top and 6 rows of 2 around.
be careful
red

Are you on shore power ?
Some cheap LED's do not have voltage regulators
Being on shore power could subject them to voltages higher than they should be used

voltage intolerance

crasster wrote:

I wonder if there is too much power going to them. Any other light trouble or 12V trouble?

Did you try to meter the sockets to check power?

In electrical circuits power gets pulled by the load, not pushed by the source. The LEDS will only draw whatever power they're designed for, unless there is a problem in them.

Maybe you're intending to reference the voltage supplied to them: if they are sold for automotive purposes then they SHOULD be designed to handle any voltage normally found in automotive electrical circuits. If they are sold for household use they will have internal circuitry to drop the 120VAC supply to whatever DC voltage they use - but again they'll only draw whatever power is required for that conversion.

I have bought some wedge base leds from superbightled And have used them for a month and have been extremely happy with them.

my bet they were made in China'usa'