kgb

To those of you who have purchased the side-marker leds: How are the leds performing?
I'm interested in buying a set, but they are not worth the trouble if they don't last.

Please tell me about your experiences.

Thanks.

ares

iTrader: (2)

I have a bit of experience here.

I find the manufacturing tolerances suck. I recieve 1 out of 10 5mm LEDs DOA. on average 1out of 100 dies within 10hours of use. these are the PITA ones. beyond that, if its sealed tight I can think of 2 or 3 that still died past that period; thats out of a thousand or so.

by the way, its for those random few that give out, I will replace any LED that dies for whatever reason.

MacGyver

ares,

It sounds like it would be more cost effective to spend a few extra $s up front and purchase a higher quality LED instead of spending the time down the road replacing them. There's nothing worse than having to take time out of your busy schedule to retrofit/fix a previously sold product...many times it takes longer to put together a piece for the first time than fix one (and many times less expensive).




kgb, most standard LEDs are rated at a typical 100,000 hours MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure), but that doesn't necessarily mean the LED is useful at that point. Just as with neon, LEDs will begin to dim a bit over time (but not to the extent of neon). A more useful value is 50,000 hours, on average, for an LED to give off a useful amount of light.

ares

iTrader: (2)

I was using what I thought to be a good supplier. changed over on the last order to a new one, and thus far I guess I should note I havent had one arive DOA.

none have failed after the fact either, but Im not sure anyone has even installed one using these LEDs yet.

MacGyver

I sympathize...it's difficult to know when a supplier is giving you quality parts all of the time, none of the time, or (God forbid) only some of the time. The suppliers who are on again off again are the worst, as the moment you think quality is nailed down, they send you a batch that completely sucks...of course, you don't find out until they end up in a product.

If orders picks up for you (don't have a clue how much business you're doing now), seriously consider ordering directly from the manufacturer, like I do. Not only are you assured of not getting the factory rejects (such as generally the case when ordering from places like eBay), but you can also choose them from a specific brightness/color bin. The cost increases a bit for binning, but the consistency makes it worthwhile.

ares

iTrader: (2)

Ive switched to a direct manufacturer from overseas now. if I could only find a similair guy to get knockoff luxeons from . those prices are KILLING me. but on the brightside, never had one DOA ever.

dumbcurse

My work involves designing LED based illumination for imaging systems. Lumiled's Luxeon has the highest intensity among all power LED's that I can find. Yes, they are a bit pricey. But if you design it properly with proper thermal dissipation, they have very long life with very little change in intensity.