Led taillights

[Busdriver]

My granddesign has regular taillights, if I Change them to led is it just a plug and play or did I need to do some thing else thinking of going with Bragman tail lights

[SaltiDawg]

SaltiDawg wrote:

SidecarFlip wrote:
LED's draw much less power than a conventional filament bulb. While the power loss in tiny, your alternator only puts out so much power.

Reduced load demand is not the same thing as reduced parasitic loss.

[SaltiDawg]

SidecarFlip wrote:
LED's draw much less power than a conventional filament bulb. While the power loss in tiny, your alternator only puts out so much power.

Reduced load is not the same thing as parasitic loss.

[SidecarFlip]

LED's draw much less power than a conventional filament bulb. While the power loss in tiny, your alternator only puts out so much power.

[SaltiDawg]

RV Novice (or less) here:

"because the less of an amp load on the electrical system, the less parasitic power loss there is..."

Why would the parasitic losses be affected by simply changing out devices - no devices removed.

TIA

[SidecarFlip]

My other reason is, I never have to change them (bulbs) again. Most LED's have a 20,000 hour lifespan and aren't adversely impacted by vibration or road shock like a filament bulb is.

[valhalla360]

SidecarFlip wrote:

Bumpyroad wrote:
why bother?
bumpy

Because I can for one and because the less of an amp load on the electrical system, the less parasitic power loss there is and three, I like them.

The amp draw is way down on the list. Tail lights are generally only in operation when the truck is running and charging the battery.

Better reasons:
- They tend to be much brighter than you standard incandescent bulbs.
- And the big one: Incandescent bulbs take about 0.5 seconds to illuminate once power is applied to the circuit (It takes the filament that long to heat up until it creates visible light). LED takes about 1/10th as long to start producing light. That's almost an extra 1/2 second for following vehicles to react to your brake lights. That can be the difference in an accident or not (or between a serious crash and a fender bender).

[Lwiddis]

Just cool, bumpy! And something to mess with.

[2oldman]

Bumpyroad wrote:
I note you didn't include those nonsense reasons. 🙂
bumpy

I hope your statement isn't about money.

[Bumpyroad]

2oldman wrote:
I like them too.

I note you didn't include those nonsense reasons. 🙂
bumpy

[2oldman]

I like them too.

[SidecarFlip]

Bumpyroad wrote:
why bother?
bumpy

Because I can for one and because the less of an amp load on the electrical system, the less parasitic power loss there is and three, I like them.

[Bumpyroad]

why bother?
bumpy

[SidecarFlip]

Just changed out the ones on my RV (Bargman brand fixtures with the corresponding LED bulbs from Superbright LED. Painless changeover, in fact, I did all the clearance and marker lights as well.

On the turn signals, the flasher rate won't be impacted, so long as you leave one set of bulbs, incandescent. In my case I left my pickup truck tail lights conventional and changed everything else.

Just changed the headlight bulbs (high-low combination Halogen), to LED hi-low bulbs. Much less current draw, very bright light output.

[joebedford]

Putting LEDs on a trailer shouldn't change the flash rate.

[j-d]

I think you mean Bargman as the brand name
Eastern Marine has a pretty good selection of Bargman and other brands. Of course Amazon, various RV sites, stick and brick stores.
I replaced our triple Bargman incandescents with triple Bargman LED's. You'll see those at $59.95 each on the linked page.
NOT plug and play. The Bargman units need their wires spliced together then spliced into the RV's wiring. I liked that, because I wasn't having problems with just bulbs, but sockets also. For that reason, I was glad to go to hard wiring.
LED's draw so little current that the flash rate may change. Ours did. This can be addressed with a different flasher, adding a resistor, or adding another incandescent bulb somewhere. I added incandescent turn signals to our mirrors, and that brought the flash rate back into line.
The Bargman LED's aren't just Bright. There's an Intensity to the Color as well. Very dramatic difference in how they appear in use.