LED replacement 194/921 bulbs consumer review!

[85crownHPP]

Ok, I just brought home the uber new style 194 LED bulbs tonight, and they are amazing in 3 big ways:

These things feel and sound solid (by the way they feel when they clink together) - the other bulbs I had been using feel and sound cheap and hollow in the same respect.

The brightness and light spread is everything I had hoped for - the blue ones are blinding... I cant wait to see if they improve how bright the instrument cluster lighting is. The amber ones arent as bright as the blue, but Im hoping the 4 side shining LEDs in the bulb will fill the marker lenses enough to light it up at least as good as stock.

AND THE FINAL REASON
The design of the internal bulb circuit somehow defeats the polar nature of the diode overall... thats right, the bulbs light up with either polarity orientation, meaning the marker flash mod will still work in full with these 194 bulbs.

Its official, I support these bulbs. I wont be buying the older style anymore. I think these type cover both side emitting and directional applications fairly well. Perhaps in applications with no reflector (like the glove box or ashtray light) would the older style side emitting bulbs work better (for more even spread in a small space).

This Ebay seller lists these bulbs as 'FLUX' style - thats how you can ID them in the listing title. He is selling them for about $3.50 - $4 each, depending on color. Well worth it IMO

http://stores.ebay.com/warden-jp2002

[85crownHPP]

The brigtness/spread test results are in - great success!

My speedo is now at least 2x as bright, and I can actually tell the lights are one during daylight.
to get a picture with the old bulbs, I had to edit to brightness and contrast of the pic to get it to show up well (old camera) - this pic is unedited:



I was sceptical about the amber LEDs, but I think they do a well enough job to be used on the exterior.
During the day, sunlight cancels out the 194 bulbs pretty well, and makes them look much dimmer in comparison to incandescent bulbs. Good thing the marker lights arent too important during the day

Once the sun goes down, the incandescent bulbs still seem a bit brighter, but its a glaring kind of brightness... the LED bulbs make a deeper, more piercing, purer light. Its kind of hard to explain... but now I understand what people are talking about who put other LED bulbs in the taillights - its a richer color... less glaring yellow hue from the incandescents.
I feel like the color is bold enough to be visible just as well as the OEM bulbs.

In the following pics, the 1st one has the LED bulb in the middle with the amber incandescent bulb in the corner, so you can compare - you can see what I mean about the glare with the incandescents. The next two have both markers replaced with LEDs.








:slug: :slug: :slug:

[gadget73]

I wonder if white ones would work to keep that pale green stock look, or if i could just swap all the bulbs to blue and keep the whole dashboard the same color.

[Blaze86Vic]

I wonder if white ones would work to keep that pale green stock look, or if i could just swap all the bulbs to blue and keep the whole dashboard the same color.

Just get a green one if you want green.

I just installed a set of red ones in the side lights on the rear of the car, made my almost amber from fade lights, look all red again!!!

[85crownHPP]

I wonder if white ones would work to keep that pale green stock look, or if i could just swap all the bulbs to blue and keep the whole dashboard the same color.

actually, the reason the clusters are that green color is becuase the combination of a yellow-ish hue incandescent bulb and the blue-ish bulb cover in the speedo made for a greenish light.
If you stuck in a white one, it would look more blue than green, because the white LED wont have the yellow hue.
Id do like jonny says and just get the color you want and toss the original colored bulb covers.

[trife86]

oh man the blue dash lights
hard to change em out? i wanna do that in my merk

[85crownHPP]

Mine was easy to do, since I only have the two upper bulbs illuminationg the speedo.
I was able to only remove the dash piece and the clear cover for the speedo and get at the bulbs without removing the whole cluster.
The two lower bulbs are a little harder to get to if you have them, and may require removing the whole speedo.

[85crownHPP]

I just recieved my next order from this seller - 8 days from Hong Kong. Ive waited that long for some domestic sellers... lol

[Blaze86Vic]

Another example of the result of these bulbs. I now have a set of these in blue in my new cluster. They are quite brite, and succesfully bring the cluster to a visible level!

[Grand Marquis GT]

Fucking

I know for a fact the autometers are getting some of those...may have to contract Petemang out to do LED work on them

[1987LTDmasta]

bah.. now they make 'em..

i may get all 4 just for the hell of it, but i got a nice bright thin neon stick inside the cluster that illuminates nicely.

[85crownHPP]

We now have yet another 'improved' 194 LED bulb to test....
Thanks to boxmang for finding them, I just bought a pair of these:

they are supposed to be 1 full watt of LED power - we shall see!



you'll have to wait a week or so for the results though... Im going to try them out in the speedo cluster

[85crownHPP]

here we have some white 5-LED bulbs pointing down at the floor from just under the dash

[85crownHPP]

heres a shady pic of the amber ones in my clear lenses. they look great, when the sun isnt shing on them... though Ive noticed most other normal amber bulb markers in clean housings behave that way to. eh...



Heres some white in my tag lamps. turns out it works pretty good

[85crownHPP]

well these bulbs have improved again - I havent found these on eBay yet, but autolumination.com has these - listed for 906 bulbs.
I wanna try some red in the 3rd brake light...