Anyone whos dealt with the (194) "SMD LEDs" (Gauge LED Conversion, etc)

[BrianDye]

How are yours holding up? I had them in my old 95, and they were great at first, just a few barely noticeable darker spots, then about the time I sold it, they'd flicker, the dark spots were DARK DARK now, etc.

I bought little SMD LEDs with 28 LEDs on them (For my puddle lamps), and theyre alot better, but I still notice a tiny bit of flickering every now and again. (Mind you, it IS 10-20 degrees out, but I would hope LEDs dont fail due to being cold)

Ive requested numerous replacements (Venders rule was if 1 was bad, they'd reimburse me with 2), and every single one I get flickers. I even had 2 in my license plate lights in the hatch and 2-3 of the 5 LEDs on each ficture would flicker.

Has anyone had SMD LEDs that dont flicker!? Ive seen them on websites for 15-30$ for just 2 of the fixtures, and that just isnt worth it to me, and on top of that, it looks EXACTLY the same as mine from eBay.

 

[willindsay]

I have the 5 SMD ones in my gauges and they are still great I've had them in for about 3months now. I just put one in my marker light and it seems to be working good but it's only been in there for about 4 days.

 

[BrianDye]

Where did you get them from? (Thats what I forgot to ask in my first post

 

[XLT]

I have the 5 smd bulds in my guages for well over a year now. I have no problems what so ever. I bought mine off ebay from a seller in hong kong. One did flicker and died but the seller sent me a replacement. Turns out the bulb was ok. My leads on it were not making the best contact since i modified them a little bit.

 

[storlied]

I've had my SMD's in my interior, gauges, plate lights, heater controls, and corner LED's for my projector housings for over a year, in two winters now with temps down to -50. You have something else going on with yours.....

 

[rookieshooter]

I use them on my cab lights and running lights and had some flicker untill I squeezed the housing a little for a better fit and have had them on for years now with no problem.
Personally, at least on my housings, if the base of the bulb was a little wider it would make for a better contact area. JMO.

 

[BigRondo]

I put these in all three of my dome lights and they are really bright and no flicker. 13 degrees this morning and no flicker whatsoever.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/LED-...Q5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories#ht_9345wt_1165

 

[BrianDye]

I have the 5 smd bulds in my guages for well over a year now. I have no problems what so ever. I bought mine off ebay from a seller in hong kong. One did flicker and died but the seller sent me a replacement. Turns out the bulb was ok. My leads on it were not making the best contact since i modified them a little bit.

How did you modify them?

I've had my SMD's in my interior, gauges, plate lights, heater controls, and corner LED's for my projector housings for over a year, in two winters now with temps down to -50. You have something else going on with yours.....

How are you guys putting them in? Are you just pushing them into the sockets or are you modifying them somehow? Because in both my Sport, and my Limited I get major flickering.

I use them on my cab lights and running lights and had some flicker untill I squeezed the housing a little for a better fit and have had them on for years now with no problem.
Personally, at least on my housings, if the base of the bulb was a little wider it would make for a better contact area. JMO.

Did you squeeze the socket? Or the base of the bulb?

I put these in all three of my dome lights and they are really bright and no flicker. 13 degrees this morning and no flicker whatsoever.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/LED-...Q5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories#ht_9345wt_1165

Were talking about the SMD LEDs that replace the "194" bulbs for our gauge lights, licence plate lights, etc. Those seem pretty cool too though.

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I have like 18 of these still sealed up in the bags from eBay for my conversion but I couldnt stand to look at my gauges when the old ones flickered.

 

[rookieshooter]

How did you modify them?



Did you squeeze the socket? Or the base of the bulb?

OK, went out and found one bulb that would flicker when I took my hand and beat on the front fender. Now when doing trail rides or hitting bumps in road, you can only imagine how many times it would flicker
Now had I not beat on side of fender, I would have never had known that it was flickering, cause it would come on when the truck was sitting still.
Now remember that this socket is on an 84 B2 and sees it's share of trails.

Notice the air space between the copper conductors. This is too wide, does not make contact well enough when being shaken.

But before fixing the gap, this would be a good time to clean those conductors with some fine emery cloth.

Next take out your set of these nifty little things with all the different bends.
If you don't have a set and your a self proclaimed DIYselfer, then you need a set.

Then take the appropriate pick and insert behind the copper electrode and move toward center.
Make sure the switch is off.

Untill the gap looks like this or even closer.

Now the Old finger flick Test. Walla, no more flickering.

I have about 12 of these style lights for close to 5 years and not one has burned out.

 

[XLT]

For the dash i found the 194 smd bulbs to be to tall and would not lock into there locations since they would hit on the back of the instrument cluster panel. I took the smd bulb out of the plastic base and chopped anywhere from 1/4" to 3/8" off the bulb side of the base. Then i just put the smd bulb back in along with the newly shorten leads. THe one bulb must not have had its leads lined up as well as i would have liked on the plastic base which caused the flickering and eventually stop glowing. The 194 smd led bulbs really seemed to fit loose soI used a little drop of goop (shoe glue) just to make sure they stayed in place.

 

[BrianDye]

Rookie- I have had a few sets of those myself and never had problems with them, im actually talking about these:

I will try cleaning the terminals, and getting the bulbs to fit tighter though, thats a good suggestion.

XLT- Ill have to try that, I only know of 1 bulb hitting the cluster when I did it to my 95. And it was probably holding it back less than a millimeter, so I just forced it, had no problems with that bulb now that I think of it.

 

[willindsay]

Where did you get them from? (Thats what I forgot to ask in my first post

I got mine from Ebay. From somewhere in Hong kong.

 

[storlied]

You can bend the lil metal contacts on the SMD's so they bend a little bit outward to make a better contact.

That's the only reason they will flicker in my experience, bad contact. If they are bad, they simply won't light.

PS, the lights you posted are the ones I'm using in Everything. Minus my projector corner LED's, for those.. I used single SMD 194's which is because with the 5 SMD's they just wouldn't fit into the holes.

You must have some dirty contacts on your plugs.. but since you're having flickering on everything.. that's just even more weird... double check everything.

Also, these 5 SMD's I had no problem fitting into my cluster... I wonder if they made changes from 95 to 98...

 

[BrianDye]

Yea I got em' in my gauges, and already noticed one flickering.

I also put them in my new headlights with VERY tight contacts so im curious to see if they flicker.