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Originally Posted by Compaq888
The superbrightled's website is perfect but don't order the standard stuff. If you're going to be ordering from superbrightleds.com make sure the brake lights are at least 20 LED's in a bulb.
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FWIW: I just joined this board, but (after my dad clued me into that store) have been using superbrightleds.com stuff for a few months now (with my Honda CRX, with my wife's Honda Civic, and even use a few of their 110v units in the house). So I have a little (consumer) experience with their stuff.
I've tried the 12 and 24 led modules, and they do work, but even the 24 LED units (much less the 12 LED units) are NOT as bright as the (much higher power usage) 1156/1157/etc bulbs they replace. And for small wedge bulbs, their 5 bulb "wide angle" units are IMHO very nice for replacing 168 or 194 bulbs (I like the 5 LED WLED units, as their design makes them excellent at throwing light in a very wide angle, thereby filling up most car lenses). But IMHO their "3 watt Luxeon" bulbs are the cream of the crop (if they happen to make a Luxeon bulb in the size/shape you need). Yes, they are $20/each, BUT they are reasonably wide angle (130 degrees), are rated for 50k hours (i.e. years of service even driving 24/7), appear to be solidly constructed, and they are the brightest bulbs they sell (my CRX's tail lights and turn signals, both converted to their Luxeon bulbs, look noticeably BRIGHTER than the stock 1156/1157 incandescent bulbs they were replacing, and yet use a small fraction of the power, and turn on/off faster)! And I also got more "pure looking" color (having amber/red LEDs behind the lenses), than I got with the stock (white incandescent) bulbs being behind those lenses. All around, I'm not only saving power in the car, but IMHO the lighting is more safe/useful as well!
BTW: I too am working on lower electrical loads in my car (and until I saw this forum thread, I thought I was one of the few). The simple idea I had, was that ALL electrical generators (that convert mechanical energy to electrical energy) need to put more drag on their mechanical power source, as you increase the electrical load (i.e. the more electricity you use, the more mechanical work is required to keep the generator running). And a car alternator is just one example of such a generator, so it HAS TO follow the same physical principals. So (despite what many people think) electricity in a car isn't "free" (it's paid for, in the form of increased engine drag), even if/when your alternator has more than enough capacity for that electrical load. And in fact, I am able to actually hear/feel the extra engine work difference between high and low electrical usage, so the theory is sound!
I haven't really done the tests needed to quantify how much of a difference it makes in FE (although the "cleaner" light color, longer lasting "bulbs", and faster on/off activation, are all worth while IMHO, even if there wasn't also a FE boost). But FWIW I'm pretty sure it is one of the contributing factors in me recently getting 47mpg out of my 1991 Honda CRX (EPA 33 combined). How much of a factor it was in the mix I can't say (for example, I personally think synthetic oil made a bigger difference), but it is one of the things I was doing to help FE.
BTW: While all incandescent bulbs are inefficient (from the standpoint of lumens per watt), they get worse the smaller your light output per bulb (whereas LEDs are actually the opposite, being slightly more efficient at lower light/usage conditions). So while taillights are obvious for swap out, don't overlook the small bulbs in your car: running lights, license plate lights, high break lights, or even dash indicators (if it's easy to get into your dash to replace the lights). Remember, even very dim incandescent bulbs (for example, dash indicator lights) are usually somewhere between 2 and 5 watts each (whereas the LED equivalent is a small fraction of a watt). This might not sound like much, until you add up how many small lights many cars have on them, and realize just how many watts you can save by swapping in LEDs for many "misc" (small) bulbs.
NOTE: I agree with the recommendation (on the SuperBrightLed's web site), to (when possible) use the same color LED as the lens you are behind (even if/when the bulb you were replacing was white). The reason for this, is that you get a lot more effective light output this way. The reason is, a color filter (which is what a car lens is), works by throwing away light that doesn't match the color you need (and only letting the light color you want through). In the case of red (and to a lessor degree with amber), this is often 70% or more of the light being thrown away (to turn a white light source into a colored light)! But, when you put a true colored light source behind a lens of the same color (i.e. red LEDs behind a red lens, amber behind amber, etc), virtually all the light goes through the lens (saving the normal "wasted" light). The main benefit of this, is that you can get roughly 3x the effective brightness "for free" (using no more LEDs, nor any more electrical power), by simply avoiding the "wasted light" (by matching the LED color to the lens color)!
BTW: You do need to watch their warnings about "turn signals" and flashers. I did indeed have to swap out my stock flasher (with an electronic flasher unit), before replacing my turn signals with LEDs (on my CRX). However, I was easily able to swap the break/tail/running lights with LEDs before the flasher swap. And I also found swapping the cabin and trunk lights with LEDs resulted in more cabin/trunk light (while being much lower power drain, should I ever have a need to leave those lights on for a long time). And just for good measure, I made my cabin light RED (instead of the normal white), so that a passenger can read maps/etc at night without killing my "night vision" (red light doesn't kill your night vision the way white light does).
And finally, after poking around on the net, (while it is easy to swap many bulbs with LED units) I don't really see any way to significantly decrease headlight wattage (but you could of course leave the headlights off, except when they are needed for legality and/or safety). You can get slightly more efficient halogen bulbs, but that bonus will be maybe 20% more efficient (and even then, they probably don't make them lower wattage, but rather the same watts with slightly more light output). You can also convert to HID ("High Intensity Discharge", i.e. fancy arc-lamps), but (after market) HID conversions cost several hundred dollars, and appear to be illegal for street use in the USA (sort of defeating the purpose IMHO). And I also decided that swapping out the "backup lights" was a bad idea (even though, unlike the headlight situation, you can get white 1156 LED "bulbs"), as you don't get any lens bonus with white light (meaning that even through white Luxeon 1156 "bulbs" use much less power than the 1156 incandescent bulbs, the incandescent still give you a little more "useful light" in this situation). And I personally want (for safety purposes) as much backup light as I can get (especially at night). And really, my percentage time backing up vs driving is pretty low (and it's only during backup when swapping the backup lights with LEDs would save any power)...
Edit Reason: Minor fix to my car's EPA estimate.
lol i'm such a geek... lol 
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