Dome module (1 Viewer)

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just a thought are you only doing white LEDs or have you made some red ones? Red would be awesome especially at night since red lighting doesnt effect your night vision.
 
joebob2586 said:
just a thought are you only doing white LEDs or have you made some red ones? Red would be awesome especially at night since red lighting doesnt effect your night vision.
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I agree (and love red lighting) but it just doesn't seem to do the job as the dome light should be a bright white (ish) light, imo. You want to see colors and even tho there is a adj, it seems to make life easier. When using red, it seems like you need 2x as much power to equal the same brightness (not very scientific I know:princess:)

for constant lights like the dash, I think red is great. ambient light like the floorwells, etc as red is equally nice imo.

For the dome, I like it to light up as "daylight".
 
I received my led's today. Excellent job, worth the money. Thanks for making these George.

Pic of center with LED, and back without.
35cldt1.jpg


Pic of both front and back with LED's
2mn0t52.jpg
 
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joebob2586 said:
just a thought are you only doing white LEDs or have you made some red ones? Red would be awesome especially at night since red lighting doesnt effect your night vision.
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Oh yes RED DOES mess up your night vision... It is one of those myths that red light doesn't affect night vision.

e.g.

Night Vision - The Red Myth

Red (or monochromatic lights) also mean paper maps and things that are printed in multi-colours will be very hard to distinguish.

The key to nightvision retention is to use as little light as possible, not so much the colour of the light...

cheers,
george.
 
I agree that red does make maps hard to read maps, however before NVGs came out or F-18s used to have white instriument panels that went red at night so the pilots could still see, now that they have the NVGs we had to change out all the panels so that they are white lettering that turn green because white blinds the pilots, if you are staring straight at red light bulbs yes it will blind you, however if it is backlit i.e. the dome light behind you and you cant see the bulb it wont affect your night vision.
 
as I said in post #22, I agree w/ instrumentation but for a dome light, I don't.
my dd has all-red instrumentation & ambient light
my wife's has red/blue instrumentation
my LC has greenish-yellow instrumentation
ALL have white dome and map lights.

if the dome was commonly ON all the time, while driving at night- then yes, I think red would be much better. However, IMO, red dome would be very annoying when you really need clean, white light in most all cases. The fact you can't see colors is enough to really make it ineffective as a dome.

another .2 cents :beer:
 
I agree that red dome would be annoying after a while, im looking into putting some red lighting somewhere else, I was just answering to the post saying that red lighting affects the ability to see at night. Any ideas on where to place red lighting on the FJ?
 
Get a head light flashlight that has both. Then its anywhere you need it. I like the red headlights around camp that way you don't blind anyone or trip over anything.


joebob2586 said:
I agree that red dome would be annoying after a while, im looking into putting some red lighting somewhere else, I was just answering to the post saying that red lighting affects the ability to see at night. Any ideas on where to place red lighting on the FJ?
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Mags

I was referring to the newer (I ASSUME they're LED's) MAGLIGHT "modules" that fit in the place of the incandesant bulbs and are about 4 or 5 times brighter than the original bulbs and a very "white" light. While I'm in electronics, I don't know much about the latest LED technology. The one's in the MAG lights seem very small with a yellowish center. The "module" I bought for my FJ dome light was essentially a bank of 10 white LED's on a custom circuit board made in Japan (got the same for my Subaru).


george_tlc said:
Not sure I understand the question? Maglites are pretty dismal flashlights versus the current state of LED technology. The LED drop in modules for them are generally pretty horrible too. There's some fantastic mods that folk do with mag bodies as hosts. Multiple 3W or 10W LEDs in them.

These dome modules that I'm making use a Lumileds Rebel 3W white LED , 70 lumen/watt binning. I am running them at 350mA for a nominal 1W to keep heat reasonable, given the tiny size of the board space I have to work with to fit the FJC. Still a LOT of light versus the original incandescent and other multi-led made in China offerings. These are made here in the US by me - if that makes any difference to you.

I've been making modules for the 60 and 80 series for 4+ years and you can do some searches on "georges leds" on this site to see what folk think of my original module design. It was too large to fit the FJC so I redesigned the module to make it a bit shorter and a lot narrow. Fits the FJC perfectly and still fits into the 60/80 series.

cheers,
george.
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Yes, the mag drop in LED units (some are made/sold by mag) are mostly pretty poor. The problem is that they have a pathetic thermal path and so they can't run the LED with too much current or they have overheating issues. The other major problem is that the Mag reflector is horrible for a LED drop in, it was designed for the incandescent bulb and even with produces nasty beam artifacts. Basically Mag has done a great job of marketing the whole concept of "aircraft grade aluminium body" - but the basic light quality sucks big time.

There are much much better LED based lights out there than a retrofitted Mag light. There are folk that rip the guts out of the Mag's and put in custom heatsinks and high powered LED arrays and those really are impressive.

If you are bored you can check out CandlePowerForums - folk there are just (or more) insane than the cruiser folk :) I'm on that forum too - if that says anything about my state of mind :)

Most of the retrofit LED arrays that you find out there are using 3 series white LEDs with a resistor to limit current and then parallel strings of those to make more light. The issue is that they are designed to work at 12V - by selecting the appropriate resistor value. There is no spike protection if the vehicle electrical system does something nasty the LEDs will eventually die and there is no current regulation as the LEDs' forward voltage varies over time/heat/etc.

My modules are fully current regulated - that's what the electronics on the non-LED side of the board does. The electronics allows the unit to provide constant current, protects against spikes and keeps the LED output constant regardless of running from 6 to 30V input.

I've seen the 'cheap' resistor LED arrays die over time, basically a spike here and there and slowly the LEDs degrade or die. You then end up with a dead string.

Anyhow, you get what you pay for in the case of my dome modules.

cheers,
george.
 
I paid about 20 bucks for each of mine, so yours seem very reasonably priced. Once I start poppin' LED's, I'm sure i'll be ordering from you!
 
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