I went the route of testing LED lighting, and with the exception of one bulb and emergency interior lighting, went back to conventional bulbs.
For exterior vehicle lighting, it was a total bust, as the taillights that are drop in replacements (not manufactured as a module like a truck or trailer taillight) are just not reliable enough and interfered with the flasher.
If you were to go that route --- the safest is automobile grade bulbs sold by truck stops and not your random ebay vendor.
Interior lighting wise --- it depends.
If you have high voltage (120v) then the old fashioned compact florescent is just as efficient and does a better job at lower cost.
But if the circuit is low voltage (12v), then the specialized 12 v lighting panels that are hooked up to an active current regulation circuit works great.
The ones that rely on a resistor for passive current regulation is decidedly not so hot. (or too hot, as the case may be).
Efficiency is not there - if that matters to you.
So I ended up again... with florescent that are 12V battery powered, or just LED back up puck lights --- which work great.
Lighting is still a big issue of personal taste --- and what light color, flicker, etc. you want / will put up with.
After a half hour of running mine still did not generate any heat to speak of. Hottest point on them was the 70 degrees at the LED itself. I will dissect one if it goes bad but I don't see any resistors in the round ones (1156 replacements) or surface mounted resistors on the board mounted ones. There were some cheaper ones I saw that had resistors showing. I passed on buying those.
Road-Trekker wrote: The LEDs doesn't get that hot, but the resistors which are usually mounted to the back of PCB get's really hot, I did burnt the tip of my finger when I accidentally touch one.
"Doc, I burnt my finger touching that resistor."
Doc: "Don't touch that resistor ... Kindly remit $199 at the front desk."
Sorry, I couldn't resist. Seriously, hope it heals quickly. I rub a bit of fresh Aloe Vera on burns, very effective.
My ebay LED's seem to run very cool.
lol...just a 1st degree epidermal burn, nothing serious. It happened when one of the LED panel came off from base, the double sided tape securing it has failed from the heat generated by the resistors.In the process of replacing the tape, I accidentally touched one of the resistors. I'm planning of replacing them with better quality ones.
I guess I don't fully understand -- the voltage is already 12 volts, so what is the resistor reducing the voltage to?
And what do more expensive LEDs use in place of a resistor that gets hot in the inexpensive ones?
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