LED bulbs for dash lighting (1 Viewer)

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yooper

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I bought a beater '93 4Runner as a temporary winter car and the bulbs behind the climate controls and the shifter were burned out. I was making an LED bulb order for my FJ40 anyway so I threw in two bulbs for the 4Runner.

I got these bulbs:

#74-xHP3 LED CAR BULB Specifications

74xhp3.jpg


I had to sand the edges down a bit to get it to fit in the dash socket. The shifter socket accepted an unmodified bulb just fine.

They are pretty bright, the dash light is almost too bright.

:cheers:
 
Interesting. Do they dim with the dimmer? I might give them a try.
 
The dimming response is a little funny. They dim a little for a while as you turn it down but at about 50% on the knob the voltage goes below a threshold and they just shut off completely. It's not very satisfying, they are still pretty bright just above that threshold and the main instrument panel is pretty dim at that point. The specs for the bulb are 10-16V.

There are LED bulbs out there that aren't quite as bright, for example this one with a regular single LED, at about 1/9 the rated output:

#74-x LED CAR BULB Specifications

74xh.jpg



Or this one, with a single SMD, so 1/3 the output:

#74-xHP LED CAR BULB Specifications

74xhp.jpg



The downside of those two is that they are front firing, 100° and 120° beam pattern respectively, so you'll get a hot spot of light and not much side fill compared to the one I used with the two SMDs on the sides. It might work out okay because in the dash behind the climate controls the bulb is behind a clear plastic thing that acts like a wave guide/diffuser and in the shifter housing the bulb is far away from the PRND2L panel. Also those bulbs have slightly simpler electronics, just judging visually, so they might have different dimming properties...
 
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