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MG MGA - LED Lights for cheap

While rebuilding my electrical system I thought that I would investigate the possibility of adding led bulbs to the car.
I know this topic has been covered before and is detailed in the MGA Guru site but I thought I would re-open it as I have found some really inexpensive lights that I believe can be used.
The are $1 each + shipping, which is MUCH cheaper than what the British car part suppliers are selling their kits at!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220707405330&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT

and

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230565795133&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT

I have purchased them but still have not received them all (coming separately from China).

What I wanted to clarify/confirm the following;

- I understand that typicall LEDs are brighter but consume less power and hence had more resistance.

- I should be able to directly swap both the brake/parking lightbulbs

- For the turn signal lights (front & back), I would need to add the power resistor to compensate for the different in Resistance and power consumption which would stop the flasher unit from working.
Is there any other workaround for the flasher?

Gonzalo Ramos

Gonzalo,

My company makes LED lights for military/tactical police use.

These bulbs SHOULD have all the resistors necessary already built into the circuit board. Any decent engineer will have incorporated everything so they work with the standard 10-14VDC that cars use.

Basically it should be plug-n-play.

CAUTION: LED are polarity sensitive. Their circuit may or may not have polarity protection and or correction. If you put it in and it doesnt work, try rotating it 180degrees.

HTH
Judd Irland

Good work, Gonzalo! Please share your findings with us when you have them installed.

Ken
Ken Korey

Those lights are certainly for negative ground. They will not work unless your car has been converted to negative ground. Turning the lights 180 degrees will not change the polarity.

You may need to add a resistor to get the flasher to work. The other option would be a heavy duty flasher, the kind used when towing a trailer. I don't know if one is available for the original MGA flasher, but I am using a 550 flasher for which there is a heavy duty version.
Jeff Schultz

For LED tail lights you can install a Heavy Duty flasher unit that work with anything from 1 to 6 bulbs. These are originally intended for use in 4-way flashers so they can flash any number of bulbs, in case one or more of the bulbs might be disabled. I don't know if this will word when using LEDs all around with no incandescent bulbs in the circuit.

Otherwise you can use an electronic flasher unit. The same eBay seller has one of those also for $1 plus shipping (spade terminal type).

When using either the Heavy Duty or electronic flasher you will lose the safety feature of "stop flashing" when one bulb is non-functional. Installation of a load resistor in parallel with the LED device may similarly defeat the "stop flashing" safety feature in case the led device is disabled, so you need to be diligent about checking the outside lamps often.
Barney Gaylord

Hate to rain on the parade here, but having bought both of these bulbs for fitting in a boat, I tried them in the MGA out of curiosity. I can report the following

1. The bulbs in first link does not fit into an MGA bulb fitting. It bottoms out on the solder tabs at the back before the bayonet can be engaged in the fitting

2. The bulbs in the second link are not very bright.

So the search is still on I'm afraid.

dominic clancy

Auction closed for the first link, Try this one: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220720477512

This should indeed fit MGA fixtures for dual filament bulbs, as it is a direct replacement for the 1157 bulb. With 60 LEDs radiating in all directions it should be plenty bright as well. I can't wait to hear how Gonzalo makes out with it.

The LED in the second link is a parking light bulb. With only 9 LEDs I wouldn't expect it to be bright enough for brake light or turn signal. The ad is misleading calling it "Tail Brake Light Bulb Lamp".

The same seller has a red LED dual lamp with 36 leds. Being red it should transmit more light through the red filter lens of the MGA tail light, so this one might appear just as bright as the 60-LED white one. See here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230565987923
Barney Gaylord

Ok, thanks for the comments.
I will report on the findings, if they don't work properly, at least the investment wasn't huge.

In fact I don't really mind the original bulbs! I was just trying to be smart... ; )
Gonzalo Ramos

Sorry this follow-up too so long but lately I have been driving my car more than working on it. i.e. the way it should be.

Last night I tested for the first time the new LED light bulbs I got from China.
Positive; They all fit well into the lenses.

Functionally I think some tweaking will be necessary. This is what I found;

Rear/Brake bulb;
------------------
with Lights OFF.
-Bulb works well when brake pedal depressed.

With lights ON
-Bulb does not see to go any brighter when brake pedal depressed.

IF brake pedal is presses AND then lights switched on, lights go brighter. As soon as you release the pedal and press again, it is back to previous case.

I am not sure if the is an component that is drawing out the current that would not allow this to work?
(note I have a license plate light with 2 small bulbs).
Note the front 'position lights' are normal filament ones.

Turn signals
--------------
I bought these as a gimmick as I know that they would not work immediately due to the way the flasher works and needs the resistance to keep the timing.

Install 1 LED bulb in LEFT REAR.
- Flasher works at half the speed.

Install both LED front and rear LEFT.
- Flasher stays permanently on (front and rear).

Same for the Right side.
So turn signal LEDs cant be used as is. Need to add some resistors in series as Barney suggests in his site.

I don't have enought knowledge of the way the harness is put together to understand these phenomena, but I am sure at least one of you (i'm thinking Barney here), will know how to make this all work.

What was strange is that I was not able to measure the resistance of these LED bulbs. The multimeter indicates open circuit.

Let me know what your views are on this.

BTW these LEDs are VEEEERRY bright.
Gonzalo Ramos

Hi Gonzalo

Others can correct me if I'm wrong, but since LED stands for Light Emitting Diode, your light is actually a diode. Remembering my high school electronics class, this only allows current to pass one way, the definition of a diode.

Try reversing the leads on your multimeter, you should get current passing (using the resistance setting) one way but it should register as open the other. I have a chart at home showing which leg is the positive side, but can't get to it right now.
L Wheeler

I did try reversing the leads with no success to measure resistance.
Gonzalo Ramos

Gonzalo, -- Install a Heavy Duty or electronic flasher unit designed for 4-way flashers to flash any from 1 to 6 bulbs. This will flash regardless of external electrical load. It will also defeat the safety feature of no-flash if one bulb stops working, so you have to do frequent external inspections to assure that turn signals work on all four corners.
Barney Gaylord

Gonzalo, Generally L Wheeler is correct if measuring an individual LED. Current will flow in one direction only. The problems is that the foward voltage drop is somewhere around 2.4V for an LED. The mfgrs probably run multiple LEDs in series due to the expected operating voltage of 12V. if they use 4 LEDs in series, it would take around 9.6 volts to forward bias the string. Most multimeters use a low voltage for the resistance measuring so they can't supply enough voltage to overcome this.

Suffice to say, you cannot test these bulbs with a multimeter.

Chuck Schaefer

Gonzalo, you never did post those pictures you promised after you got the A back together.

Regards,
Rich

Richard Taylor TD3983

Indeed I didn't not post the pics! I have to do that but I spend more time driving it and got to clean it before I take some pics.

The guy who painted it still has to polish it for me as he did not have time, so it will be even shinier! ; )
This is why I still have not installed the rear badge and luggage rack.

Here are a couple of shots from the last event I went to.
https://picasaweb.google.com/100263094090705468207/CoralSpringsMGAOuting9January11616PM#

Let me know what you think.

Regards,
Gonzalo
Gonzalo Ramos

Looks awesome Gonzalo or as they say these days thats a sick ride:) The paint looks great and you have done a fantastic job on the interior. I like the tan carpet and plan to install tan in my TD. I had the factory black in a midget years ago and it always looked dirty and we know how black interiors like to soak up the sun.
Great job!
Richard Taylor TD3983

This thread was discussed between 12/01/2011 and 25/02/2011

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