NSX taillight led bulbs
- Thread starter prowavy
- Start date
If you want to retain the same drop in place bulb format for the replacement, the problem is the brake lights. Two of the tail light bulbs on each side are dual function - a tail light bulb filament and a brake light bulb filament - 2057 bulb #. If you replace the 2057 filament bulb with a dual LED equivalent the brake lights and tail lights will work; but, the brake light failure detection circuit will likely not work or at best become flakey in it operation. You can either put up with the brake light failure detection circuit illuminating whenever you apply the brakes or disable the detection circuit. Your choice.
If you want to replace the rear turn signal bulbs with LEDs so that everything matches, then you will incur hyper flash. That problem is solvable by modifying the turn signal relay. There is a thread on NSX Prime with details on how to modify the relay if you use the search function.
You did not specify what best means. Brightest or most reliable? If you still want to do the LED switch, there are a lot of vendors including Phillips and Sylvania selling LED replacements. These days, regardless of the vendor name on the package pretty much all of the actual LED chips come from China so pick one and try it out.
I am still rock'n the very first original filament bulbs in my 2000.
If you want to replace the rear turn signal bulbs with LEDs so that everything matches, then you will incur hyper flash. That problem is solvable by modifying the turn signal relay. There is a thread on NSX Prime with details on how to modify the relay if you use the search function.
You did not specify what best means. Brightest or most reliable? If you still want to do the LED switch, there are a lot of vendors including Phillips and Sylvania selling LED replacements. These days, regardless of the vendor name on the package pretty much all of the actual LED chips come from China so pick one and try it out.
I am still rock'n the very first original filament bulbs in my 2000.
My comments on LED brake/signal bulbs:
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- While I think LED's are critical for safety for brake lights because they are brighter and, more importantly, illuminate faster to give following drivers more warning, we already have an LED spoiler light, so LED brake lights might not be quite as critical.
- Brake bulbs. Every LED will trigger the bulb-out indicator because the current draw is so low. Lots of threads on how to disable this and it's super easy, but some are unclear because the wire changes color at the connector so you need to be on the correct side of the connector to tap the correct wires. See link below.
- Brake bulbs: There are 2 brake bulbs which each have a low power (running light) and high power (brake light) filaments. With LED bulbs, there aren't different LED's, but the internal circuitry illuminates the bulbs lower or higher based on which wire is being powered. However, there is a 3rd light back there that is a separate bulb and only illuminates with the running lights. This also needs to be replaced with an LED, and it takes some trial and error to get them to match. Generally, you want some really cheap, low powered LED's in those running light sockets or it will look like you have your brake lights on. In fact, some have switched to brighter bulbs there and also changed the wiring to make those bulbs brake lights as well.
- While they're all made of chinesium, I generally like Boslla LED's for quality. I've had very poor results with Vleds. But I had to just grab some cheap running lights on amazon to get running-light-only bulbs dim enough to match the running light illumination in the "dual filament" brake bulbs.
- Several different rear lighting options (USM - all red, JDM - amber flash, 2002+ - round amber flash.) Be sure to get red bulbs for the red lenses and yellow or white bulbs for amber signals.
- Signals: Lots of drop-in LED bulbs with built in resistors to avoid hyperflash so you don't need to modify your relay. They do build up heat after a while and start to hyperflash eventually, but that only happens after you have had your signal on for a minute or so.
Can we justify not upgrading to LED brake light bulbs any more?
Question: Is it reasonable not to upgrade the stock brake bulbs to LED's any more??? Update from this thread 2 years ago since the technology has really become easy, cheap, and mainstream...
www.nsxprime.com
I changed out to led brake lights and got the brake warning light on dash too. I like the brighter leds during day so I don’t mind
Glad you like your LED retrofit bulbs, but you don't have to put up with the distracting indicator on your dash. See post 4, point #2 above, and the referenced link for a super easy fix, and also a nice video showing how the LED brake bulbs illuminate faster than the incandescent, whether the running lights are on or not. The bulb-out indicator is much less of an issue anyway with the LED bulbs, since they have a much longer lifespan.
Note: if the brake bulb out indicator comes on immediately, you may have blown capacitors on your gauge cluster - fix this ASAP as it's a fire risk (@Briank ). If the indicator comes on when you press the brake pedal, that's normal for LED bulb retrofits and all you need is the shunt described in the link referenced in post #4.
I replaced all of my bulbs with LEDs from superbrightleds.com 6-7 years ago and no issues with them. I did ground the brake light error wire and modify the flasher relay though.
No. This is completely different from the resistor in parallel for turn signals to prevent hyperflash, although it has the same problem in that, with the resistor in parallel, the relay will not hyperflash, even if the LED turn signal is blown, because the resistor is still drawing current.
The brake light failure detection circuit works with 4 reed switches (one for each brake bulb filament) in series. Reed switches are a relay with super low resistance winding that is actually in series with what you're sensing. So for each brake filament, current flowing in that circuit trips the switch, and you need all 4 switches to be tripped, indicating current through all 4 brake filaments, or the warning light comes on. If you wire a resistor in parallel with the LED bulb, that would increase the current and trigger the reed switches, and keep the brake bulb indicator from coming on, which sounds like a win. HOWEVER, if the LED bulb was blown, you'd still get adequate current through the parallel resistor to trigger the reed switch and the warning indicator would not come on. Adding the resistors in series to the 4 bulbs is basically a super complicated way of just grounding the sensor (with 4 resistors instead of simply connecting it to ground) to prevent the bulb-out indicator from illuminating. As noted, LED bulbs last a lot longer, so bypassing the bulb-out indicator is not unreasonable, if you check your lights every season or so. With 4 brake bulbs plus the high-mount, it's unlikely they'd all go unless you had a serious wiring snafu.
In theory, it would be possible to measure the current for each particular LED brake bulb and measure the trigger current on each reed switch and calculate a parallel resistor that would emulate an incadescent bulb, drawing just enough current to trigger the reed switch with the combined current, but not enough with the resistor alone. However, LED bulbs draw such little current that it would need to be super accurate in specifying the resistor and with the resistance changes in a resistor with temperature, it still might not work and you'd need to design the right resistor for every combination of LED bulb and reed switch.
