led lights car

[Jim.GM4DHJ ...]

is it not against the law for a running light to be switched off when an indicator is on....never seemed to be a problem with old fashioned bulbs ? ...

[nightjar]

Given that it seems to be common on modern cars, I suspect not.

[Steve Walker]

It doesn't matter what the law says - while we were in the EU and now outside, but accepting their standards on vehicles, anything that is type-approved by any EU country, has to be accepted as is.

[Sysadmin]

What is a running light ?

[nightjar]

A light that comes on when the vehicle is running.

[NY]

The reason that a side/tail/DRL light has to be turned off is due to the poor design of light clusters which places the indicators very close to other lights. I'm surprised our Construction and Use legislation didn't pick up on this and mandate a separation between indicators and headlights/brake lights/DRLs so the indicators can actually be *seen* in all situations.

But the *usability* of light clusters seems to take a back seat compared with the *aesthetics* of "does the arrangements of lights look nice".

VWs used to put the indicator in the centre of a ring of brake light (or maybe it's vice versa) which meant it was hard to discern the indicator when the car was braking. And almost every car nowadays puts the front indicators in the same housing as the headlights which means the indicator can't be seen easily at night in an oncoming car.

I think the dimming of a DRL next to the indicator works well: it is often the turning off of the DRL that I see before the flashing of the indicator.

And another thing... I wish it was mandated that all cars must have *two* reversing lights (one at each side) and *two* foglights (one at each side) rather than the common trend of a reversing light only on the left and a foglight only on the right, which makes it very difficult to see the road/hedge/wall behind you on one side when reversing at night, and prevents cars behind being able to judge the width of your vehicle as they approach it in fog. I tend to turn my fog light on when I'm reversing into a confined space at night, so the walls/hedges on *both* sides of the car are lit up (albeit with different coloured lights).

[Jim.GM4DHJ ...]

I think LED bulbs are the problem .....

[NY]

I don't think so. I'm sure it has existed from before cars had LED lights. Many cars have tungsten or HID headlights, and tungsten rear lights. Mine even had tungsten rather than LED DRLs - a feature that I only discovered as I was looking through a menu on the car a few yeas ago. I'd thought it was too old (2008) to have DRLs.

The problem started when some bozo decided that it was actually a *good* thing to place the indicators very close to other lights which are bright, rather than putting them a long way away (eg within or underneath the front bumper, and with the rear reflector placed between the brake/tail and indicator lights to keep them apart).

[Jim.GM4DHJ ...]

nah you can tell when a bulb is led probably caused by flicker in the canbus ....LEDs should have no place in the car enviroment .....

[charles]

This was probably done to make the wiring easier

[Jim.GM4DHJ ...]

so I am tee hee

[charles]

considering they were designed for the Apollo spacecraft, they should be fine at lower g forces