My version of Interior LED lights.

[RysiuM]

2012 4Runner SR5

Let me start with two facts:

1. All LED bulbs I got in Amazon or Ebay are overrated by sellers. This is true not only for cheap "made in China" bulbs but also sold by "USA sellers". I am not talking about the quality of the LED bulbs but true light output versus the data provided by sellers.

2. For LED lighting the most important value is light output (given in lumens) not light intensity (given in candelas). It is not important how bright the bulb is when you look at it, but total how much light it gives out. It is easy to be mislead by the LED brightness especially when compared to incandescent light. For the same light output LED always is brighter than equivalent incandescent bulb because of different light spectrum (high color temperature light looks brighter than low color temperature light) and different light intensity (all light is produced by a relatively small LED area compared to incandescent bulb. It may blind you, but still will not show the way

So knowing that you can't be fulled anymore by less than honest suppliers. Each bulb I'm buying I measure, test and often take apart to see how good and reliable design it is. I am not looking at the bulb, how bright it seems, but I compare them shining on the tissue side by side like for example on this picture.

At the same time I'm selecting the bulb design not only for the matching socket type and dimensions but also for the fixture where the bulb will be installed. For example for map lights and dome light you don't want the brightest and and blinding light output as when you drive at night and your passenger tuns on the light you don't want to be blinded by your own lights.

So here is my setup so far - you can agree or not, but I thought about this subject a lot and decided to create my own custom set of LED bulbs and not going for ready available "Interior LED Replacement Light Bulbs Package Set".

Driver and passenger map lights: JDM ASTAR 10pcs Super Bright 194, High Power 5630 SMD 6000K LED Bulbs. Actually each bulb takes about 60mA and uses "buck" type driver (not resistor) so actually most of the power goes to six 5630 LEDs. Each bulb takes about 0.7W with total light output about 80 lumens. That is about two times more light output than original stock 5W incandescent bulbs.

I was considering similar bulbs that contain five 5050 LEDs (in similar orientation) but the bulbs I used have actually two 5630 LEDs on the top of the bulb (pointing down from the ceiling) so they actually give more light where I needed it.

Driver and passenger site vanity mirror lights: It should use bulbs that have LEDs on one side but I couldn't find 194 bulb in such LED orientation so I used the same bulbs as I used for map lights.

Dome light is quite tricky: I wanted to go with the large light output as I could, but to much light is actually not good for driving at night when someone on the back sit decide to turn the dome light on. So I decided to go for 3110-W10-CB from superbrightleds.

Actually it is very well designed and made bulb. I has "buck" type driver powering ten high efficiency 4014 Luxeon LEDs. It has CANBUS resistor (which I don't care about anyway) and aluminum heat sink to get rid of some heat. The light output is about 100 lumens which looks OK inside the cab. I wish they could have the version without the CANBUS resistor.

On the other hand the tailgate lights should be as bright as possible. Original incandescent bulbs don't light much inside the cargo space, so here I went "bananas". I bought quite expensive "9w Cree LED 31mm Canbus No Error Festoon License Plate Interior Map White Lights" by SiriusLED on Amazon. Here is the picture of this bulb

I have decided to spend 9 dollars per bulb because they used high output LEDs rated at 3W each (max at 1A). However the bulb circuit design i very poor. It contains 47 ohm resistor in series with 3 LEDs and one diode (reverse current protection). The actual power run through LEDS was about 0.5W (not 9W) and the true light output is only 80 lumens. Not much for 9 dollars bulb. But I knew I could do much better. I bought NSI50350AST3G (350mA constant current driver) for 60 cents from DigiKey and installed it instead of 47 ohm resistor. I have removed also CANBUS resistors to make room for this IC. I have also removed plastic from each end of the bulb (it was melting from the heat) and replaced it with epoxy. This is how it looks the "big ass DE3175" bulb (Picture taken before replacing plastic ends):

Now I have true 3W bulb with light output 480 lumens - that is equivalent of 30W incandescent bulb. Big improvement from the original 5W bulb. Now the cargo space is well lit just by tailgate lights alone.

My next step is to replace puddle lights in mirrors. For that I have bought WLEDB-CWHP9-DAC from superbrightleds. This bulb has nine 2835 LEDs powered by "buck" type driver. The bulb takes 130mA (1.5W) with total light output is about 130 lumens. The good thing is that all the light is facing down (where it should) not like bulbs from a "kit" all the way around. The only unknown is: will it fit through the opening in the fixture. I will try to install it tomorrow so I will know. If it doesn't I will have to modify the bulb to make it fit

 

[SKP-4R]

How much was it? The afformentioned eBay kit you called "overrated" only cost me $18....

 

[blakjack23]

Dang, those rear lights look awesome!

 

[Engineer]

Thanks for all the details, always great to see other options. Your comment about the rear bulbs and having to remove plastic due to melting, apparently after your modification to increase output, would have me concerned. Maybe if I saw everything in person and could feel the heat etc I would feel better about it. I had a friend’s car in college go up in flames and a snow blower (separate occasions) the 2 things I learned......Cars burn fast in the first and the second was that fire extinguishers don’t last long AT ALL so unless you catch it when its small those little car extinguisher that we carry won’t go very far.

…….not saying it’s a real concern, only that do to my concerns and my lack of understanding of the system that would have me worried.

 

[jrandom]

I really wish someone would start selling lower temp leds. I have a few flashlights that are super bright, 600+ lumens (they get very hot, so much so the flashlights have heat sinks), in the center of the spectrum ~4k (geek out at candlepowerforums.com) I'd like to see these not necessarily the output but the color range leds in fixtures.

I absolutely hate 5000k+ it totally ruins your night adapted vision IMO (even worse with oncoming car headlights). Warmer leds for maps and dome lights are a must. They are much easier on your eyes. Rear gate lights can be cooler ~4000k sure because you are generally lighting an area.

A step further I am not really a big fan of the light coming out of my Rigid LEDs either. "Cool" spectrum lighting is such a "cheat".

 

[noisebeam]

Thanks for the great info.

I fullly agree w/Jrandom. I want warm white, not bluish. (I too used to play on candlepowerforums and have gravitated toward natural white flashlights)

Also as to brightness I am torn:
My first camping trip was full moon and I found the interior lighting to be too dim, especially the rear hatch. But I have many great flashlights so it was not much of an issue. I was determined to upgrade interior lighting to LED before the next trip, but never got to it.
On my 2nd camp trip it was new moon and I found the factory interior lights to be too bright for my night adapted vision. I was using a small flashlight in the dimmest 'moonlight mode' when not at the truck and even then often covered part of lens with finger to keep it down.

Got me wanting interior lights with two brightness levels. Or perhaps a bright natural white mode and a red mode.

 

[jrandom]

Got me wanting interior lights with two brightness levels. Or perhaps a bright natural white mode and a red mode.

That! would be great. If you could control your interior brightness via dimmer like the control/dash lighting would be a sweet feature.

 

[RysiuM]

How much was it? The afformentioned eBay kit you called "overrated" only cost me $18....

Yep, and you get what you pay for. I'm not saying it is bad, I do it very often and putting "any" LEDs will be improvement over stock "Edison" type bulbs. As for the cost I spent much more than I put into the car because some of the money went to "experiments" (or you may call it "Research and Development"). As for the final product I used the following:

1. $15 for ten "JDM ASTAR 10pcs Super Bright 194, High Power 5630 SMD 6000K LED Bulbs" of Amazon. I used 4 bulbs from this set (map and vanity mirror bulbs), that would be $6 worth of bulbs.

2. $18 for two "9w Cree LED 31mm Canbus No Error Festoon License Plate Interior Map White Lights" of Amazon. I need to add $1.26 for two "IC REG/LED DRIVER 350MA" of Digikey to make my 3W LED bulbs. So total cargo lighting was $19.26

3. $4.95 for one "3110-W10-CB DE3022 CAN bus LED Bulb - 10 SMD LED Festoon - 31mm White 31mm" from superbrightleds. This went to dome light fixture.

2012 SR5 does not have door lights so I wouldn't use all bulbs form the set. However the set covers license plate lights. I used two bulbs of Amazon (number 1 on this list) so we can add $3 to the cost.

As for puddle bulbs that requires 194 I have bought two $6.95 bulbs "WLEDB-CWHP9-DAC 921 LED Bulb - 2 Watt (20 Watt Equivalent) Miniature Wedge LED Disc - White - Cool White" of superbrightleds. That would add $14 to the total cost.

So I increased the car value by about 53 dollars. I know it is 3 times more than "ebay"kit, but I got more than 3 times more light where I need it: 480 lumens in cargo space vs 120 lumens I would get of ebay bulbs, and 130 lumens outside the door (puddle lights) vs 30 lumens of e-bay bulbs (standard 360 degree bulb would give no more than 30% of its light through the puddle light lenses, the rest would be gone inside the mirror). For some it may be stupid way of spending money, for me it seems worth it.

Your comment about the rear bulbs and having to remove plastic due to melting, apparently after your modification to increase output, would have me concerned.

You are right about being concerned, especially when you really don't know what is inside "Made in China" bulbs. I noticed the plastic melting when the bulb got short after few minutes of using it. The bulb holder squeezed the bulb from both ends and contacts touched the aluminum radiator on both sides. I was surprised that 4Runner survived this short without blowing up the fuse nor damaging the dimming controller. I have added hard insulation paper betwen contacts and the radiator and then glued contacts to the bulb's circuit board using epoxy. I am confident, that there will be no more "mishaps" with these bulbs.

Now taking your concerns into account there can be two sources of "fire":
1. From the bulb fixture itself when using bulbs emitting more heat than the fixture was designed for. This is not a case with my 3W LED bulbs. Original stock bulbs are 5W bulbs so the fixture was designed by Toyota engineers to handle 5W of heat. My bulbs use only 4.2W, so even they seem hot, they produces less heat inside the fixture than the stock bulbs. So there is no problem here. If you tried to touch the stock bulb you woud find that it runs much hotter than LED bulb.

2. From the bulbs itself. At this point I am confident that there is no "flammable" materials inside the bulb and the circuit is actually better protected than in not modified LED bulbs. Original LED bulb used resistor as a current regulator - simple and "dumb" solution. I used NSI50350AST3G IC regulator that is rated for 5.8W but I put only 1W through it. The IC operating temperature is 347 F, while when I run the bulb for longer time the temperature of the bulb established at 190 F. It was to much for the plastic that was originally in the bulb, but it inside the operating limits of all other components. At this point I am confident that my bulbs will not start the fire.

I really wish someone would start selling lower temp leds.

Yes, I wish that too. But to sell warm temperature bulbs they would have to deliver decent amount of light or they will not be seen (by visual comparison) as bright as a cool ones. It is easier an cheaper to "cheat" customers than "deliver". Actually I'm making my own bulbs for some custom applications. For example I made my own LED bulb for sawing machine replacing 5W incandescent bulb.

The LED bulb runs 16 warm white 5630 LEDs (4000K) at 85mA each giving total 640lumens. And this is warm white color. That makes big difference as you can see on the picture below.

That bulb cost me $7.50 in all parts not including labor. Yes, it is much more than $1.50 194 bulb of Amazon, but there is no comparison in light output between these two.

 

[jrandom]

Ahh I'd pay $7 for a bulb I will potentially never have to replace again

 

[RysiuM]

As for puddle bulbs that requires 194 I have bought two $6.95 bulbs "WLEDB-CWHP9-DAC 921 LED Bulb - 2 Watt (20 Watt Equivalent) Miniature Wedge LED Disc - White - Cool White" of superbrightleds. That would add $14 to the total cost.

Don't buy WLEDB-CWHP9-DAC 921 LED Bulb for puddle light. It will not fit. I just opened my mirrors (scary at first) I found what nobody showed on their pictures: the opening hole for the bulb. It is round and exactly 12.5mm diameter. Superbrightleds I tried to use have 23 mm at the widest point. No joy. For now I used "JDM ASTAR Extremely Bright 5730 SMD 194 168 2825 W5W T10 LED Bulbs,Xenon White" from Amazon (15 for pair). They have ten 5630 SMD LEDs in each and "buck" type driver. They draw about 120mA each and the light output is about 170 lumens. Thy are quite long about 31 mm which is 10mm more than stock bulb, but it will still fit inside the mirror lamp.

...and 130 lumens outside the door (puddle lights) vs 30 lumens of e-bay bulbs (standard 360 degree bulb would give no more than 30% of its light through the puddle light lenses, the rest would be gone inside the mirror).

I was wrong. I have discovered, that puddle light in the mirror has a reflector inside of the fixture so it is not all wasted - some light from 8 LEDs will make to the front. So I correct myself, what I posted (my quote above), and I guess about 50% of the light emitted by the side LEDs will make to the front. From the bulbs I used I will get about 100 lumens from the puddle lights. Still better than the stock or "kit" bulbs but it is not what I was aiming for.

So I see next project in front of me: custom made 192 bulb with three high power LEDs (something like Samsung LH351B used in my tailgate lights) placed directly on the top of the bulb. Powered by 350mA constant current driver will make 480 lumens puddle light. That is what I'm talking about :hatsoff: It is all doable to make such bulb within dimensions 30mm long and 12mm diameter, especially that puddle light is on for less than a minute each time, so it will not have time to heat up to much.

 

[DAGNABIT]

My $23 eBay kit has been awesome. Had the same kit on my 20114R for 3 years without issue. Expect nothing but the same on my 2015

 

[RysiuM]

custom made 194 bulb with three high power LEDs

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present you the high output 194 LED bulb designed for mirror puddle light for 5th gen Toyota 4Runner. Proudly designed and made in USA :usa:.

Technical details:

Type: 194
Light source: 3 x high power LED LH351B COOL WHITE 5700K 2SMD
Light output: 450 lumens (aprox) white 5700K (projection from the top).
Current: 350mA
Total Power: 4.2W
Dimensions: Diameter=11mm, Total Length=28mm


Some technical details (no secrets here):

Bulb contains 3 high power LED (true 1W each), connected in series powered by 350mA constant current driver with reverse polarity protection diode. Brass heat sink connected with each LED thermal pad.


Total cost in materials:
LED: 3 x $1.24 = $3.72 (LH351B at Digikey)
Driver: $0.67 (NSI50350AST3G at Digikey)
Diode: $0.07 (1N4001 at Digikey)
Brass tube: $0.12 (K&S 8137 at OSH)
Other: ??? (PCB, PCB Etching Solution, Solder)

Labor: 3 hours (home made printed PCB using Toner Transfer method, brass cutting, soldering)

I did not put this bulb in my truck yet (I need to make one more bulb for the other mirror) but I will try to take some pictures later (maybe comparison between this bulb and the bulb I have now). Anyway I have high hopes the difference will be clearly visible.

 

[Lugboot]

Great work, OP! Great way to get the outcome you are looking for and modding stuff to fit your needs.
[MENTION=99702]jrandom[/MENTION] and [MENTION=128834]noisebeam[/MENTION] -- I wanted to go the same route with my LEDs. I didn't do a kit but sourced them all from superbrightleds.com separately. Cost me more bucks, primarily due to the red leds, but I have warm white LEDs throughout the truck and red in the doors.







sorry for the hijack--back to the awesome custom LED work.

 

[Leesburgcapsfan]

Was really hoping i was gonna find some nice easy amazon links to some light upgrades. Especially reverse and puddle lights.

 

[RysiuM]

I didn't do a kit but sourced them all from superbrightleds.com separately.

This is very good source for LED - they don't lie about their products. I use them often too.

Was really hoping i was gonna find some nice easy amazon links to some light upgrades. Especially reverse and puddle lights.

Sorry, me too, but I was not able to find anything that would do it. This is why I had to built my own bulbs (I guess I was Mr Edison in my previous life). On the bright side maybe someone would read this and come up with similar product and will put it on Amazon or ebay.

 

[RysiuM]

I did not put this bulb in my truck yet (I need to make one more bulb for the other mirror) but I will try to take some pictures later (maybe comparison between this bulb and the bulb I have now). Anyway I have high hopes the difference will be clearly visible.

So I finished my second bulb, tested it and the did some real life comparison. For the comparison I took 5 different popular LED bulbs that would fit into the puddle lamp fixture and of course the original incandescent 5W bulb. I took all pictures with digital CANON SLR set with the same settings:
Camera Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL
Shutter Speed: 1s
Lens Aperture: F/4
Focal Length: 21mm
ISO Speed: ISO-100

Some pictures are blurry as I took them without tripod. Sorry about that.

I used bulbs I had on hand, that I bought from different places, but regardless of the source and price all they come from China and have the same components and design. So if you bought similar lamp on Ebay, maybe cheaper than I got it from Amazon, it will be still the same bulb and you can expect the same light output.

So that's enough for introduction, here are the results:

Stock bulb that came with my truck:

Very small bulb I bought some time for my sawing machine, but was not satisfied with it at all

Very popular bulb sold on Ebay and Amazon, and often included in "4Runner Interior Lighting Kits"

Better version (newer design) of very popular 194 LED bulb. Often included in "Premium 4Runner Interior Lighting Kits"

This is big ass bulb, the biggest you can fit inside the mirror. Very good quality and pricy too.

And finally my custom made bulb. 450 lumens going straight down. This is what I will keep in my truck.

Here is the comparison (loking from the front of the truck) between my driver side mirror (on the right) still containing the "big ass JDM ASTAR bulb" ($7.50 a piece on Amazon) and passenger side (on the left) containing my custom 450 lumens 3W LED bulb.

 

[RysiuM]

Before I close the subject forever (I'm done with LED lighting) I 'm posting a picture with better comparison of 170 lumens bulb (containing ten 6030 SMD LEDs) with my custom made 450 lumens bulb. After I replaced the driver side mirror bulb I took the similar picture (with the same camera setting) as I posted yesterday, and here it is one under the other. I love LED bulbs :kiss:

 

[Leesburgcapsfan]

Before I close the subject forever (I'm done with LED lighting) I 'm posting a picture with better comparison of 170 lumens bulb (containing ten 6030 SMD LEDs) with my custom made 450 lumens bulb. After I replaced the driver side mirror bulb I took the similar picture (with the same camera setting) as I posted yesterday, and here it is one under the other. I love LED bulbs :kiss:

Dammit!!

What do i have to do to get some of these??
This is such a dick tease.
I would love to have your setup with the puddle lights and the cargo door lights.
Also would love to have something like this for my reverse lights.

 

[RysiuM]

I would love to have your setup with the puddle lights and the cargo door lights.

Cargo light is easy, just need know how to operate soldering iron (or know someone who has this skill :dance.
1. Get pair of "9w Cree LED 31mm Canbus No Error Festoon License Plate Interior Map White Lights" by SiriusLED for 18 bucks for two on Amazon (I am not affiliated and if you find this thing cheaper let us 4Runners know) and two NSI50350AST3G (60 cents each on Digikey for example) and a piece of insulated wire (high temp insulation preferred).
2. Heat both contacts with soldering iron, remove the contacts and plastic tubes holding the metal in place (this piece needs to be replaced as it becomes very soft when LED is hot and can cause a short).
3. Desolder both CANBUS resistors (on the opposite side of the LED) and current limiting resistor (next to LEDs).
4. Cut one track on the opposite side of LED (you can see which one on my pictures).
5. Solder NSI50350AST3G in place of removed CANBUS resistors
6. Solder connecting piece of wire between both sides of the board (as shown on my pictures)
7. Solder back both contacts (removed in step 2) and fill both caps with few drops of epoxy or high temperature silicon (gasket maker for example).

All takes less than 30 minutes and less than 10 dollars per bulb. I wish the original factory in China designed this bulb in the first place so everybody could enjoy it.

Mirror bulbs are much more work as they are built from parts and I can tell you soldering these tiny LEDs is PITA. You need to solder not only SMT contacts but also thermal pads to guide heat out of the chip (temperature kills LED)

Also would love to have something like this for my reverse lights.

Reverse light is 921 type: 12V 18W, which is already quite "hot" in very small volume. Original bulb gives about 250 lumens (new) so it is not easy to find a good (brighter) LED replacement in such small case. I mean most of "wedge" type bulbs can't compete as with their 100-150 lumens output they fall right into the stock bulb light output. Yes, LEDs they seem to be brighter, but it is just a light color, not the amount of light output (most LED bulbs are around 6000K while stock 921 bulb falls into 2800K-3000K range).

Be warned that Ebay and Amazon sellers are overstating the power and light output of their products. It some kind of sick rats race - who would lie more. And of course they put a picture to show how bright the light is. The fact is, that camera does not show exactly what human eye will see - LED light bulbs are always "blinding" on the picture, but it is because of they high intensity (candela) not luminosity is fooling the camera. You can spend tens of dollars and still you will not get what you pay for.

For example JMD ASTAR on Amazon sells "JDM ASTAR Extremely Bright Max 50W High Power 912 921 T10/T15 LED Backup Reverse LightS,Parking lights, Xenon White" - yey - 50 fricken Wats !!! Let's pay 30 bucks for a pair. :clap2:

Then read the description: "...10 pieces 5W high power CREE LEDs per bulb..." - here it is: the bulb contains LEDs that are rated for 50W total, doesn't mean it will use it. :lie:

Then read more: "Operate at 10W" - ouch, it's only one-fifth of what you read in the title. Hmmm.. still not bad: 10W at 120+ lumens per W will give you 1200 lumens - wow like a halogen headlight. Nnnnnnn....no. Not even close. :lie:
Someone actually bit the bullet, paid 30 bucks and measured these bulbs. Each bulb takes less than 0.3A (3.5W) which is less than my 450 lumens bulb uses. So for 15 dollars per bulb advertised as 50W you will get actually 3.5W of light that would be equivalent of something like 35W halogen bulb.
So for the cost of 15 dollars a piece you will get maybe 2 times more light from JMD ASTAR than from your stock bulb. Is it worth it? :whoo:

Sorry "T4R hardcore" guys, I may not know much about off-roading but I spent good portion of my spare time researching and experimenting with LED bulbs :ranger:

 

[Engineer]

We appreciate the knowledge/data dump. I would bet you are one of the most (likely the most) knowledgable person on LED bulbs on this forum. Thanks again for the info, upgrading to LED's is on my list for interior light and expect it will be a good indoor winter project to research and complete........