Thread: Low cost globes

I replaced all the interior incandescent globes in my L322 with LEDs from China.

Most have failed in one way or another - usually flickering. Unfortunately, some of the globes are a real pain to get to and replace so having to go back in again isn't what I wanted to do.

Did you expect anything else, Ron?

Originally Posted by gromit

I just fitted LED E10 globes to the instruments in my Series III shorty and I can now actually read the instruments at night !! $1.53 including shipping for 10 !
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005...Cquery_from%3A

Ahhhh, great tip, thanks! I might do the same for my IIa! I'd never considered it, but the instruments lights are so dim!

Originally Posted by p38arover

I replaced all the interior incandescent globes in my L322 with LEDs from China.

I got some good LED's for the interior lighting in my Disco2. It's one of the best mods ever!

I'm doing this LED conversion also.

I was trying not to buy ebay type lights because I wanted something a bit better in it, but shopping local turned up nothing. E10 LED lights are not all that common it would seem. Interestingly the bulb I pulled was marked as being a Mazda part! Even searching shops on line didn't turn up much, and I suspect my purchase from a store is exactly the same product as what I would have got from Ebay or somewhere like that - except the ebay part would have been 1/10th the price.

Doing some reading online, it sounded like changing the dash lights for LED was good, but there was a warning not to change the 4 warning lights at the bottom of the clusters as they can prevent them from working properly.

Fingers crossed that these ones work for me.
e10 led bulb 12v COOL WHITE 360deg | The LED Shop Australia(R)

Getting these bulbs out of the mounts is near impossible, the mounts prevent your ability to grab the bulb and spin them out. To do this, I used fine surgical forcepts which have serrated ends and was able to do the trick. Maybe thin surgical latex/nitirile gloves might work as well to give better grip on the bulb, but the mount still prevents easy access to it.

(Edit: the LED Shop are fast! Overnight delivery to CW NSW is very impressive! Ordered by 10:07am, Sent at 12:46pm, delivered at 7:12am! Auspost can have some shockers, but they can do well also.)

As I understand it, on older Lucas alternators, the IND light is part of the alternator charging circuit in that it is in series with the battery feed to the field windings providing flux to get the alternator working. Replacing it with an LED may make the charging a non-worker.

Some charging circuits had a resistor in parallel with the light. I don't know if this was to continue keeping a battery supply to the field winding if the bulb failed.

Lucas10AC.JPG

Thanks for this Ron! That's a great explanation, as just looking at the vehicle wiring diagram it wasn't really providing me with any explanations

Originally Posted by Slunnie

I'm doing this LED conversion also.

I was trying not to buy ebay type lights because I wanted something a bit better in it, but shopping local turned up nothing. E10 LED lights are not all that common it would seem. Interestingly the bulb I pulled was marked as being a Mazda part! Even searching shops on line didn't turn up much, and I suspect my purchase from a store is exactly the same product as what I would have got from Ebay or somewhere like that - except the ebay part would have been 1/10th the price.

Doing some reading online, it sounded like changing the dash lights for LED was good, but there was a warning not to change the 4 warning lights at the bottom of the clusters as they can prevent them from working properly.

Fingers crossed that these ones work for me.
e10 led bulb 12v COOL WHITE 360deg | The LED Shop Australia(R)

Getting these bulbs out of the mounts is near impossible, the mounts prevent your ability to grab the bulb and spin them out. To do this, I used fine surgical forcepts which have serrated ends and was able to do the trick. Maybe thin surgical latex/nitirile gloves might work as well to give better grip on the bulb, but the mount still prevents easy access to it.

I found that as the incandescent E10's in warning lights are in such a small enclosed area that they are bright enough.
For me it was improving the speedo, temperature gauge and fuel gauge visibility.

Just fitted LED's to another of the fleet while I had the instrument panel out.


Colin

Originally Posted by p38arover

As I understand it, on older Lucas alternators, the IND light is part of the alternator charging circuit in that it is in series with the battery feed to the field windings providing flux to get the alternator working. Replacing it with an LED may make the charging a non-worker.

Some charging circuits had a resistor in parallel with the light. I don't know if this was to continue keeping a battery supply to the field winding if the bulb failed.

Absolutely. Most alternators will start to self-excite when they run fast enough if there is no bulb and/or resistor. For example, the alts on our boat will fire up if we rev past about 1900rpm (redline is 2400). With a 5W bulb in circuit they'll excite as soon as the thing fires up. My Volvo would excite at about 4000rpm when the bulb failed (watched the volt meter).

You can replace the bulb with a LED but you really should put a resistor in there that ensures the same combined current as the original bulb. Only took us 25 years to get around to sorting that out on the boat. Prior to that it was fire it up and rev it up until the alt led goes out.