Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing High-output LED Brake light bulbs

Thank Rob. I think Santa might help me out shopping there my LEDs are quite old.

Quite impressed by the relatively new COB (chip on board) LED technology. Here a myriad of tiny basic LED chips are molded and connected into a single unit to provide a uniform solid block of concentrated light. No more of the slightly ugly individual elements that provide that patterned light. Just bought a rechargeable inspection light using such.

I have a gut feeling they may consume a little more power per lumen of light, but given meagre power consumption of LED's in general this would be a small price to pay for much improved light.

If I was upgrading lights on my car I would be tempted to wait until the dedicated format COB LED's become available.

Already available for exisitng bulb holder configurations:

https://www.bettercarlighting.co.uk/index.php?searchStr=COB&act=viewCat&Submit=Go

Thanks Tim, bookmarked that page

ETA: beware, some shown are for 50/60's era positive earth cars!

Thanks also Tim.

Isn't that actual against regulation. On some cars it makes it less likely that a brake light will be observed. I find the idiots that constantly have the front fog lights on annoying too. I am not sure how it is now but certainly a few years ago there was no obligation to control the "aim" of fog lights for an MOT or similar inspection so sometimes they are aimed way too high.

If they are CAN bus then they should not be used on a trad that does not have CAN bus. If anyone gets the chance to have a good look at them I would like to know the diameter and the manufacturer so that, if they are the correct diameter, I can try to find out if non CAN bus versions are available.

Yes missing the rear brake light is the concern, I have a feeling that front or rear fogs being on unnecessarily is a minor transgression of some sort but driving around you couldn't guess.
Our traffic officer has not made an appearance on here for a while after the sad demise of his car, he would put us right.

The front fogs aiming I haven't a clue I never find them necessary on our tintops and chose not to have them on the Morgan as I don't like the cluttered look and subscribe to the Colin Chapman school of performance.

I'm also considering this as a future project. Some of the modern LED sidelight, brakelight and indicator units are well put together a look to be fully sealed against the weather. Just a case of figuring out how to mount them to the car and retain the style.
Kevin

If the existing plinths are 84mm in diameter and you can get lights that are 95mm, one simple solution would be to get some sleeves to go over the existing plinths to match up with the larger size lights, the easy way to do this would be to use a 3D printer. That way you could print sleeves with the necessary 5.5mm wall thickness so they could be fixed over the existing plinths, retaining the original body fixings.