LED lights have been one of the brightest "STARS" in automotive industry recently.
When you stand by the road, take a look at the cars driving by, you will see varieties of LED usage such as taillights, turn signal lamps, daytime running lamps and license plate lights.
All major automakers such as Audi, BMW, Mercedes from Germany; Honda, Toyota, Nissan from Japan, Kia, Hyundai from Korea and Ford, Chrysler, GMC here in US have had their cars using LEDs.
Because of this new popular "fashion" trend, more and more LED lights and LED products have flooded the car aftermarket market. Since the aftermarket LED lights require installation, therefore choosing the correct product becomes crucial in this shopping process.
You can read this car LED bulbs shopping tutorial to find the proper bulbs for your ride.
Let's take 2008 Honda Civic changing the license plate lights to LED for instant.
Step 1: visit Osram Sylvania Lamp Replacement Guide to figure out the license plate light bulb's part number. You can easily find Osram bulb guide on Google and select the 2008 Honda in the made and year and choose Civic on the next page. Submit the selection and you will see the page with all the lights (lamps) with the part # listed out.
This page is very messy with lots of information such as bulb part number, and descriptions. All you need to do is to scroll down to the License Plate Lights and write down the numerical part number which is 168 in this case study.
Step 2: after you find out which bulb size you need, time to determine the type of LED light bulbs will work better for the license plate lights. There are two types of LEDs, the conventional refractor LED bulbs and the latest new SMD/SMT (Surface Mounting Device or Surface Mounting Technology) LED bulbs.
The refractor LEDs have water drop like plastic refractors on the top of the light emitter, used for concentrating the light. Because of this characteristic, it has very narrow angle for the light emitting. Because of this, the refractor LED is often used as spot lights and its light angle is no more than 150-degree.
On the other hand, the latest SMD/SMT LEDs have flat emitting surfaces. The flat surface has a much wider angle to emit a nice flooding light and it is also relatively brighter than refractor LEDs. Also because of SMD LED is easier to assemble onto the PCB circuit board, the lighting angle can reach an amazing full 360-degrees.
Base on the differences of these two kinds of LED lights, if you are using the LEDs to replace the stock side marker lights or parking lights, the refractor LEDs will suit better because of its concentrated lighting that can shine a further distance.
In contrast, when replacing the stock license plate lights or interior map reading lights with LED lights, the SMD LEDs will work better because of its brighter and flooding lighting.
Therefore, for the license plate lights, we will choose the brighter and wider angle SMD over the refractor.
Step 3: after the decision of LED bulb size and LED bulb type, let's move to the final step for the LED bulb color.
According to US traffic law and regulation, for car exterior, the Xenon White color not only applies with the regulation, but also light up brighter over Ultra Blue or Brilliant Red.
For the car interior, since there is no regulation at. You can choose any colors, just to express your personality and set the accent mood however you like.
