Replacing All Rear Light Bulbs Into L E D Bulbs

[St Thicket]

I've been playing with the thoughts of replacing every bulb in my OEM tail light, and install LEDs instead. It would probably be a costly affair, but I think it would look quite cool.

First of all... does a red LED look good behind the red glass, or do I have to install a white LED? The same for the amber...

Any Idea of how many diodes the "bulb" has to have, to become as bright as a normal 21W bulb?

Does anyone know the type of socket and rating the center stop light bulb has? I really don't want to remove the trim before it's necessary.

Has anyone done this? How is your experience with LED light bulbs?

[jonnnnnnnnnnnno]

The brake light LEDs will not work as of the filaments for corolla bulbs are double and LEDs are at full brightness all of the time so will only work in a single filament car.

As of the amber LED i don't see why this wouldn't work but there are not very bright in the day time with LEDs in the car so will end up being a wast of money.

have tried this myself there is not much point in doing so.

[St Thicket]

I know that there are double action LEDs that are purposely built to replace the dual filament bulbs. So that's really not an issue. I'm more worried about how the red LEDs will look through the red lens...

Also, if I am to get the LED bulbs, I will try to get the brightest ones available. I know that there is an issue with low brightness for some of the LEDs, so I know that it is important to have some with many diodes, or a few very powerful ones... Problem is, whenever I see LEDs for sale, the brightness is never mentioned. Neither power consumtion, current or lumen...

These are the sockets for the Corolla (that I know of):

Reverse, rear turn and fog light

Brake / driving light

Front turn light

Center stop / 3rd brake light

[jonnnnnnnnnnnno]

I see but this isn't really worth doing unless you have a clear lens because you will prob not see the LED behind the red very well.

[LAA69]

Try it and find out....

[St Thicket]

I see but this isn't really worth doing unless you have a clear lens because you will prob not see the LED behind the red very well.

Do you mean that the light won't show, or the diodes themselves won't show?

I want to do this to remove the transient times that the old bulb has, and get instant light... I know it might sound strange, but I really like the quickness of the LED.

Try it and find out....

I am going to! Just trying to gather some experiences first...

Anyway, I saw this Yaris yesterday that had installed LEDs in the OEM tail lights. They were so bright I couldn't look straight at them when the stop light was on! That looked COOL B)

[CorollaD4D]

I think the LEDs would look quite good. And as for brightness I was behind an Audi S5 at the lights yesterday and I had to look out of my driver side window because his brake lights were so bright! If you do this properly you should have no issues RE brightness during day or night.

Please keep me updated as if it works I'd like to try on my rolla.... good luck!

[St Thicket]

I've done some research on the matter diode colour vs. lens color.

Some say that for red lens, use white LEDs. However, a more reliable source stated that if the lens was red, then the LED should be red. The red lens filters out all other colours than red, and if white LEDs are installed, its light spectrum contains little red light, thus filtering out most of the light available. Understandable?

Anyway, this made me confident that I'm on the right track now. Just need to find a reliable vendor of LEDs. Don't know if I should use "HongKongBay" or a webshop. Any recommendations?

Now I need to decide on narrow angled bulbs vs. wide angle ones...

[St Thicket]

After almost a whole work day of searching, I've found a webshop that sells good quality LEDs, but they are rather expensive. However, they have full specs of every single item they sell. This is very nice, because I like to know what I get...

Available indicator and stop lights

So as a first test, I bought only one stop light with dual intensity.

Data sheet

And one for the 3rd stop light. Available in red though the data sheet only cover the white...

Data sheet

For these two LED lamps, I paid $35.90 - or £21.55 including shipping. I didn't buy more due to customs regulations in Norway. If I buy for more than £20, I need to pay customs fee, plus 25% VAT

If the Stop light is OK, then I'll buy another one, together with a LED indicator relay that is custom made for Toyota cars. I checked the pin-out and compared it with the wiring diagram for the E12 corolla, and it is a perfect match!

[CorollaD4D]

Wow, looks very impressive mate! Please post some pics of the final car...you're tempting me more and more into going for this system myself hehe

[St Thicket]

Got my LEDs yesterday, so I had to test them out. From looking at the video I made myself, it looks like the 21W bulb is the brightest luminary, but the LED isn't that far behind.

Please wait a few seconds for Video to load!

[CorollaD4D]

Nice one mate, the lights look cool! Have you/are you planning to change the indicators to LEDs too?

[LAA69]

As expected, the LEDs are far more responsive, thus safer..... good stuff fella ....

[eddieinvader]

Seems as if the leds respond quicker when lighting up.

[St Thicket]

Nice one mate, the lights look cool! Have you/are you planning to change the indicators to LEDs too?

Yeah, my plan is to do that... but not immediately. It's really hard to come by the really powerful amber LEDs with BAU15s sockets.

Anyway, I bought a LED relay from superbrightleds that I expect will arrive in a week or so. But I haven't bought any idicator lamps yet.

[CorollaD4D]

Nice one mate, the lights look cool! Have you/are you planning to change the indicators to LEDs too?

Yeah, my plan is to do that... but not immediately. It's really hard to come by the really powerful amber LEDs with BAU15s sockets.

Anyway, I bought a LED relay from superbrightleds that I expect will arrive in a week or so. But I haven't bought any idicator lamps yet.

Cool mate. Well congrats on a very original mod to your rolla! I've not seen this done before...

[jonnnnnnnnnnnno]

I like it didn't know you could do all this prob because i gave up after my first attempt lol

Not really sure in the benefit other than a little bit quicker to full brightness but with a clear lens would look better.

good job though .

[St Thicket]

Yeah, I agree Jonno. It would look far better with a clear lens. But I wanted to try it out.

[jonnnnnnnnnnnno]

Yeah good job buddy top marks for effort B)

[St Thicket]

After having used the LED tail lamps for a couple of days, the automatic gearbox started actting strangely. The overdrive went on or off when it shouldn't... I have a separate post about it. When I replaced the LEDs with the old bulb, things went back to normal

Anyway, won't recommend this modification if you have the automatic gearbox ;)

[bigshark]

also, it is worth noting that becuse of the low power that is requred to run these LEDs, you need some sort of capacitor (???? im no electician, help me out here!! :) ) to reduce the current in order to make the indicator light work properly. otherwise they will just flash really quickly, similar to when 1 indicator bulb has blown!

if you want bright LEDs, the best on the market are the SMD LEDs, they are supposed to be the brightest.

Im currently using one for my car which is an import thus has no rear fog light as standard, so i've converted one of my reverse light into a rear fog light! using crystal white SMD LEDs which emits red when 'on'!

[St Thicket]

To correct you, you'll need either a high power resistor in parallell of the LEDs, or you'll need to replace the thermal indicator relay with an electronic LED relay to ensure correct flash frequency.

If you read my previous posts, I have already bought a relay for the indicators, but I'm still waiting for the indicator LEDs.

So for my brake lights, I obviously need a resistor... but I don't know if I'm going to bother anymore with it and sell my LEDs to someone else.

[Karma Supra]

You can get both dual action LED bulb replacements that light up some for tail light and all for brake light and you can get leds with two brightness settings.

My tail lights are factory fitted LEDs and are the later type; I also have an outer ring that lights up to supplement the regular brake lights when I really stamp the brakes...

It might be worth mentioning that technically retro fitted LEDS are not road legal.

The best retrofit LED conversion I have seen is Stuey’s MKIII Supra.net, Rather than just sticking in LED bulbs, he made plates up for a better effect, and more even coverage.