Finally getting around to LEDs for my 99 Camaro SS and I have read just about all the LED stuff. I know the flashers are the way to convert and cheap but a lot of LEDs and brands are on the high side, even low and high beam headlights.
So I did some research last year and discovered a company that doesn't require the flashers since their LED products have built in resistors and they are plug n play, including switchbacks. Its been over a year and reviews are great. Keep in mind, the turn signal sound remains stock since the OEM flashers do not have to be replaced.
The company is Lasfit. They do have LED replacements for all bulbs. And the cost are reasonable and in most cases less than other brands posted.
Because they have built in resistors they do run a little hotter than non LED resistor but will not damage any lenses. Also if left on longer than 2 minutes they "could" go to hyper flash, hasn't happened on my other vehicles in 2 years. If they go into hyper flash, just turn off the turn signal and reapply the turn signal.
I have these Lasfit LEDs on my other vehicles for over 2 years, 09 Colorado and 19 Traverse and not a problem.
Im going to buy the yellow on yellow front turn signal switchbacks and rear red on red turn signals and do the plug n play and see if they work. Lasfit tech support says they should work. If they do I will buy the rest incuding low and high beam LEDs and write my findings here.

If someone decides to do it before me, let us know.

Cheers

 

I used Lasfit for the front turn signals/driving lights on my TA. They work fine. When I swapped to LED in the rear, they didn't pull enough current to allow my turn signals to work. I used Sylvania for the rear LED. I had to get a no load flasher with ground. Another TA owner on facebook swears he didn't have a issue with all LED and a non grounded flasher.

Here's the thing. For the rear taillights, I feel that the LEDs are kind of a waste. The turn signals aren't really any brighter than Halogen. Now, the back up light is nice to have as a LED. LEDs in the brake lights might be less likely to overheat the lenses.

 

Here are a few thoughts to consider...

• Built in resistors are great for people who don't have the knowledge or capability to change the flasher(s) and don't want to mess with external resistors. Some cars don't have standard flashers so there are no LED flasher options. However, built in resistors defeat one of the main reasons for switching to LEDs - reducing heat and current draw. This may not seem like a big deal but when a big stereo starts having problems when the turn signals are in use, it becomes a problem.
• Most of the LED bulbs with resistors are not nearly as bright as what's available without resistors.
• Switchbacks won't work properly on our cars without rewiring (or buying an expensive module from V-LEDs). That's because the DRL circuit, which you would want to be white, is the same as the turn signal circuit... the DRLs simply run the turn signal power all the time. Now you said yellow on yellow switchbacks which I assume means that the bulb is always bright yellow regardless of whether the DRLs/turn signals or parking lights are on. I haven't heard of such a bulb but there's no reason it wouldn't work. It's not a true switchback - just a standard bulb with both sides bright rather than one being dimmer - but if that's what you're looking for, it should work. I wouldn't pay any extra for them because the only time the normally dim circuit is active is when the headlights are on... even the parking light setting on the headlight switch uses the bright side just like the DRLs.
• These bulbs cannot cause your signals to go into hyperflash. Unlike more modern vehicles which have that feature to indicate burned out bulbs, the thermo-mechanical factory flashers simply don't have that capability. If anything they will simply stay on solid when they don't have enough current to activate them. I highly doubt that would happen since it doesn't happen with installations where an external resistor was used but I suppose it would be a handy indicator if something goes wrong like a resistor burning out... something you wouldn't get when you use an all LED flasher
• LEDs themselves don't produce heat. That's why they are a great solution for the notorious lens cracking on f-bodies. But the circuitry in the base of the bulb that controls the LEDs does produce heat - usually quite a bit of it. That tends to move the heat problem from cracked lenses or housings to burned out sockets. I've seen a number of those even with ordinary LED bulbs. I suspect the problem would be amplified with resistors built in... especially with the DRLs on all the time.

My personal opinion would be to go with ordinary LED bulbs and the no-load flashers. You gain the option of much brighter bulbs, reduce the heat in the socket, reduce overall current draw, and the cost is reasonable. You usually don't need a true no-load flasher for the hazards, just for the turn signals - the hazards will work with a basic electronic flasher. But if you do go with these bulbs, please be sure to update us on how they work out, especially after they've been in use for a while. It's always good to have multiple options when making changes like this.

 

Clarification. LEDs do produce heat, just not as much as an incandescent bulb. Brighter LEDs produce more heat than dimmer LEDs. This is why high power / high brightness LEDs have heatsinks and some even have active cooling.

The LEDs used in turn signals do produce some heat just not that much which is why the brighter ones usually have a metal housing / core / heatsink / etc.

 

Well, yes... technically that's true - LEDs in 12V bulb applications do generate a very small amount of outward heat but the heat generated is primarily from the support circuitry (known as the driver) which is on the back side and in the base of the bulb. An LED radiates no heat because it doesn't generate any infrared light (unless it's an infrared bulb of course) but a small amount of conduction heat does come through. That's why you can grab an LED bulb that's been in use by the external LED portion without it feeling any more than just warm but you can burn your hand with some LED bulbs when touching the base.

 

An LED doesn't need to directly emit infrared light to radiate heat. You can burn your finger on the aluminum substrate of a high power LED without a heatsink (I'm referring to the typical high power "star" formfactor). That has nothing to do with its circuitry. When I make 9W-12W Lightsabers, I need to use a Heatsink on the LED itself to keep it from overheating. The support circuitry is separate and doesn't generate as much heat. Most of the electricity going into an LED goes to producing light (unlike a incandescent bulb where its heat), but some of it is radiated as heat. The more power you pump in, the more heat you get. There is a reason high power headlight LEDs need heatsink and sometimes active cooling. Its not the circuitry.

However, we are just confusing this thread at this point.

 

I can see the flashers being the best choice to plug n play w/o resistors. Seems cleaner,

On my 09 Colorado, I purchased DD 5k HIDs and XPL1 6K (something like that) fog lights and rear tail light and turn signals w/license LEDs. I had to have resistors for each and that is a PITA. Each car/truck has different color code for the resistors not to mention the finding a place for the resistors. The cost was high for each non resistor LED. Each over $60.00... Adds up fast. Works great though. Also, on the 355 Nation for the Colorado's, one member produced parking lights with Switchbacks, straight forward blink or sequential blink LEDs. Awesome. White 6k DTRL and yellow blink. When DD upgraded the fogs to their new XP1's I bought them but no incentive for their old one... Yes, they were brighter and better.

I also put DD LEDs/resistors for my 16 Impala and that was PITA because you have to have a place that won't feel the extreme heat from the resistors and in some cases there is no room. They get HOT!

Ended up trading the Impala for a 19 Traverse Premier. Came with LEDs except for front blinkers and reverse lights. Who does that on a new car... Not wanting to use resistors, I found Lasfit. A month after I had the Traverse I put the front turn signals and reverse LEDs in with the built in resistor. Other brands failed. It's been over 2 years and not one issue with heat, they are brighter than my DD LEDs. I also bought a set of fog lights from Lasfit to replace the yellow OEMs. After I put them, I was so surprised how bright and white these 6K fog lights produced. No resistors and extremely bright LEDs. My reverse lights are so bright I can see across the street clear as day.

So one night the wife was turning into the driveway, I had pulled the Colorado out and forgot my pass and had to get it and walking back into the garage as the wife pulled up, I noticed a big difference between my Colorado fogs from DD and the Traverse Lasfit fogs. I was actually amazed there was that large of a difference.

Next day I ordered a set of fogs from Lasfit for my Colorado and wow... I wouldn't trade or replace my DD HIDs with LEDs. Reason, the 5K HIDs reach farther out and when I drive on back roads I want to see farther ahead for deer any other critters running onto the highway. Those HIDs are awesome. Now with the upgraded fogs, which produce a wide span I'm covered... I ended up buying Lasfit 6K high beams LEDs for 57.00 bucks and wow...great buy. So now I have both DD fog light sets on the self. If someone what's to buy them, I will sell cheap as long as you pay for s/h.

So my post here was to find out which is better, flasher with non resister LEDs or lower cost LEDs w/built in resistors. As my post says, I decided the go with the built in resistor LEDs based on my other cars history. Each car is different and I didn't want to move forward without the experience on this forum. I have pictures but not sure how to load in here... I'll read and figure it out and post the pic of my LEDs.

Thanks

 

Resurrection time...

HardBlu, I was wondering if you ever went through with this and how it worked out.

I've been reading up on these conversions and I see where the previous posters are coming from when talking about the benefits of the regular LEDs. Obviously everybody complains about losing cruise control when they go to LEDs all around and they wind up using resistors or a relay to bring it back. But from the sound of it, you only need one third brake light incandescent bulb to keep enough resistance in the circuit for the cruise to remain operable. That made me wonder if you could just do all "non-resistor" LEDs along with electronic flashers and then use the lasfit 194 in the third brake light...would that keep enough resistance to keep the cruise functioning? You would obviously keep from cooking sockets by keeping the heat down everywhere but in the third brake light and you wouldn't have to tap into any wires with resistors/relay (granted it would actually work). I suppose there could maybe be problems between the flashers and the difference in LEDs too?

Just thinking out loud. Anybody have any thoughts on that?

 

The only way to know for sure is to try it. When it came to rear brake lights, I found that the LED weren't really much brighter than halogen.

 

Fixed it for you .

 

WhiteBird00 you seem to be an electronics expert. Do you have any thoughts on my idea as a more “plug and play” option instead of having to cut/splice/tap into the factory wiring?

I guess if I just went ahead and did it that it’s not that expensive of an experiment and I could always add the resistors or relay later if needed. Maybe I just talked myself into it. 😀

 

I'm not sure if a single 194 incandescent bulb would be enough resistance but it's certainly worth a try. It might be better to go with a 168 bulb which is basically the same but is 50% brighter and also produces 50% more resistance through the filament.

Using a single incandescent bulb can't hurt anything although it might look a little odd due to the difference in speed between incandescent bulbs and LEDs. I notice it even on the factory lighting of some cars where the third brake light is LED while the main brake lights are incandescent... you can clearly see the third brake light go on before the main lights. Doing that within a single housing might be even more noticeable.

 

I wanted to see incandescent vs LED speeds and brightness. I ended up leaving it like this because it looks like sequential lights. The faster inner one is LED, the slower one is incandescent. I have both sides like that.

 

Really what I meant was would two 194 built-in resistor style LEDs produce similar resistance to one incandescent 194? So LEDs everywhere but the 2 in the third brake light would be built-in resistor 194s. I'm not sure if that's an answerable question without knowing some specs on the LEDs...

 

That's an interesting way to do it.

 

Yes, I would think that LED bulbs with built in resistors would work. I've never actually checked myself, but I expect that those bulbs are designed to closely match the resistance of the equivalent incandescent bulb to best eliminate the need for external resistors... that is the point of building in the resistors after all.

 

Wow! That really highlights the difference in speed. Thanks for the video.

For myself, I installed the STS-1 Universal Sequential Turn Signal kit from WebElectric Products. You have to convert the outer socket to dual filament 3157 (generic replacement socket and a Dremel tool) but it gives you full 3-segment sequential signals that really attracted attention before the Mustang got them in 2010 and people grew accustomed to seeing them.

 

Maybe I'll give this a try. Thanks for your input.

 

I know there are kits to add sequential function, but after seeing this effect ... I left it. I may still get a sequential kit and go full LED at some point.

 

IT WORKED! Started a new thread:

https://ls1tech.com/forums/appearanc...resistors.html