The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay is there an Led dash light source?

Hey Guys,
I'm re-wiring my '49 truck, (12 v), & using as many LED's as possible.
Head & tail, interior...

Does anyone know of a source for LED light sockets for the dash lights?
Keeping the stock gauges.

If not I'll go with the original style.

Thanks in advance.
Rick

Rick,

Not sure what type "led" lamps you are talking about using in your dash.

If you are using something like this led equivalent to the original style GE 55 incandescent lamps, you can just use your standard sockets. One thing to note on this particular lamp, the info does not indicate if this is a "dimmable" led lamp. If it's not, your dash light dimmer will not work with this lamp and you may need to do some further searching to find a dimmer compatible bulb.

If you are wanting to upgrade your dash to newer no metal base bayonet style lamps (like currently used GE 194 style bulbs), you may want to consider these rubber push in style sockets. They should fit your dash panel holes I believe. On these sockets though, you will need to connect the second (black) wire to ground as the socket itself will not self ground when installed.

Good luck with your "led" relighting project!

Gdads51
Thanks for the reply - Excellent information, just what I was looking for, Thanks !

I'm fine running the ground wire, My plan is to update the wiring, & new sockets / bulbs fill the bill.

Thanks Dan.
I'm sure I'll have more questions along the way.

Glad it's helpful.

A little further web looking this morning shows these dimmable GE55 LED replacement lamps that may interest you if you decide to use your original sockets.

These are a bit pricier than the other bulbs I mentioned and actually are from an "aircraft" lighting source company. The given "specs" definitely seem to fill the need for upgrading to brighter dash lights for anyone looking to do that.

If you decide to go that route, would be interested in any feedback you can provide on the lamps performance (or lack of). I would like to improve my dash lighting too and a simple plug and play would be nice.

Thanks GDAD.
It looks like these are 6 volt (would a 6 volt LED be usable for 12volt?).
Anyway, I had ordered some LED bulbs off amazon when I ordered the sockets ( Michigan motorsports sells on amazon too), I got blue & white to see how they
look.
I think one has to be careful of the size of the bulbs, some look too long.

These blue ones are surely short enought, & look like a fit to the sockets you suggested:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08372TKMB?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

White:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08R5Y275S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&th=1

Thanks !

Rick,

In my 1st reply, the original base style LED lamp that fits your existing sockets are 6-28 volt rated so would work under 12 volt input.

The later suggested lamps are 6 volt specific, but there are 12 volt applications available.

Too late tonight to research. I will see what I can find in the morning and post what I find. 😉

That’s a nice find. I’d kinda like to try a couple and see how they work.

The description for both the 6v and 12v versions offer a disclaimer. Sounds like the dimmable range with a rheostat dimmer might be pretty narrow. Not sure that I really care, as long as the light isn’t blindingly bright.

Let us know.

That is generally the biggest problem with this kind of inexpensive led replacements. They just use a current limiting resistor, so the input voltage change between dazzling bright and off tends to be very, very small.

Edit: this is a generalization of cheap led replacement bulbs as a whole, not this specific model. It would be somewhat interesting to know if this model has that issue or not. Having an extremely wide voltage range would be a mark in its favor of potentially working better.