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Old 05-19-2016, 11:45 AM   #1
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Exterior LED lights

so i wanted to replace all my existing exterior lighting with LED versions. Ive been looking around and cant seem to find much. where is the best/cheapest place to find these? is there a pack i can buy or do i need to buy them induvidually?

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Old 05-19-2016, 12:04 PM   #2
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I buy all of mine from amazon.com. They have tons of styles, just make sure to get some that are water proof and have good ratings!
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Old 05-19-2016, 12:45 PM   #3
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I've seen LED conversion packages designed for specific buses, but you wouldn't like the price. You're better off to follow an example from this forum.
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Old 05-19-2016, 12:55 PM   #4
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Try this place: https://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/...er-led-lights/

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Old 05-19-2016, 12:56 PM   #5
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I went to Etrailer and Raney's. I also picked up a set of 7" round generic led lights, amber and red from a school bus supplier. I'd be willing to sell those for a bit less than I got them for because I changed my mind on the style.

Depending on the style of your bus, your front turn signal is also a parking light, requiring a 2 function light, while the ambers on the rear do not.

Depending on your budget, the 7 inch rounds go for $30 to $50, sometimes $60 or $70 for specific lights, like the front amber one.

http://www.raneystruckparts.com/led-lighting/

https://www.etrailer.com/dept-pg-Trailer_Lights.aspx
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Old 05-19-2016, 02:33 PM   #6
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I've purchased lamps and rolls of primary wire at Ryder Fleet Products a few times.
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Old 05-19-2016, 03:08 PM   #7
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I also picked up a set of 7" round generic led lights, amber and red from a school bus supplier. I'd be willing to sell those for a bit less than I got them for because I changed my mind on the style.
I did that as well, through Amazon (including LED park/turn lights for the front). And since I changed my mind and decided to do a more MCI-ish taillight pattern, they'll up for sale as well. I ordered all replacement LED clearance lights from one of the school bus warehouses online.
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Old 05-19-2016, 03:15 PM   #8
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Please post your lights!!

what could be better than the 7"rounds?

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Old 05-19-2016, 04:53 PM   #9
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Please post your lights!!

what could be better than the 7"rounds?

Lights I plan on using from Super Bright LEDs-


In this pattern (with dimensioning)-


I might high mount these-
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Old 05-19-2016, 05:10 PM   #10
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One important piece of information to remember about LED lights, they do not produce heat so if you drive in cold weather areas with snow & ice they will freeze over very quickly with ice & snow buildup.
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Old 05-19-2016, 05:16 PM   #11
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also if your bus has a flasher that requires high current to flash you may end up with issues using LED's unless you put a dummy load resistor on... or swap the flasher out for a low-current required / electronic
-Christopher
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Old 05-19-2016, 05:18 PM   #12
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also if your bus has a flasher that requires high current to flash you may end up with issues using LED's unless you put a dummy load resistor on... or swap the flasher out for a low-current required / electronic
-Christopher
True, when I put led tail lights on my truck I had to get a new flasher that had a ground wire installed on it.
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Old 05-20-2016, 11:58 AM   #13
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The red and amber are Optronics Glolights. They have a little glow ring for the parking light and a ring of LEDs lights up for brakes or blinkers. The red and yellow flashers at the top will be wired in to these so I will have high and low brake lights and blinkers. The upper reds should satisfy the rear clearance light requirement from the DOT. The only thing I am uncertain about is if it is okay to leave the amber rear "parking" lights illuminated along with the reds while driving at night. I have also thought about putting the visors over the lower red and ambers.

The rear bay door is aluminum, so stainless steel screws are a must in my book.

I thought I had read somewhere that rear facing constant ambers were not allowed but can not find that information now.

For the front, I will switch the reds for ambers, remove the original ambers and haven't decided what to put there yet. I'd like to put some fixed spot lights, but then there's all that noise about covering auxillary lighting. I also don't know what to do with the driving lights. Getting LED replacements for the Freightliner face are $70 each and honestly, I'm not going to pay that much for something that's basically just a marker light. I have looked at fog light options, but if I pick a clear light that projects white light, that would be 6 forward facing white lights, requiring at least 2 to be covered. I kinda want to do an over-and-under light set, centrally mounted light a train, but I'm not going to climb up and down to add or remove covers every time I want to turn them on.
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Old 05-20-2016, 12:59 PM   #14
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I'll be rewiring my bus entirely, since all the wiring for the light is single wire, not pos/neg/ground.
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Old 05-20-2016, 03:23 PM   #15
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One important piece of information to remember about LED lights, they do not produce heat so if you drive in cold weather areas with snow & ice they will freeze over very quickly with ice & snow buildup.
Actually, they DO produce heat, although not in significant amounts. Easy enough to fix - fill a spray bottle with Isopropanol as a deicer.
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Old 05-20-2016, 04:04 PM   #16
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The red and amber are Optronics Glolights. They have a little glow ring for the parking light and a ring of LEDs lights up for brakes or blinkers. The red and yellow flashers at the top will be wired in to these so I will have high and low brake lights and blinkers. The upper reds should satisfy the rear clearance light requirement from the DOT. The only thing I am uncertain about is if it is okay to leave the amber rear "parking" lights illuminated along with the reds while driving at night. I have also thought about putting the visors over the lower red and ambers.

The rear bay door is aluminum, so stainless steel screws are a must in my book.

I thought I had read somewhere that rear facing constant ambers were not allowed but can not find that information now.

For the front, I will switch the reds for ambers, remove the original ambers and haven't decided what to put there yet. I'd like to put some fixed spot lights, but then there's all that noise about covering auxillary lighting. I also don't know what to do with the driving lights. Getting LED replacements for the Freightliner face are $70 each and honestly, I'm not going to pay that much for something that's basically just a marker light. I have looked at fog light options, but if I pick a clear light that projects white light, that would be 6 forward facing white lights, requiring at least 2 to be covered. I kinda want to do an over-and-under light set, centrally mounted light a train, but I'm not going to climb up and down to add or remove covers every time I want to turn them on.
How'd you run the wiring to sister the rear lights top to bottom?
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Old 05-20-2016, 05:25 PM   #17
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I will be running jumper wires between similar lights. The left and right side have their own connections all the way to the panels by the driver. Side marker lights will also be tied in, including 3 lowers on each side tied in to the blinking circuit. I will be isolating the marker lights with a switch and momentary-off button to "wink" at larger vehicles as necessary, as well as an interrupt for all exterior illumination except the headlights. The side marker lights can also be flipped to blue if I choose to help me identify my bus at night in a conjested area, such as burning man.
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Old 05-20-2016, 09:52 PM   #18
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Actually, they DO produce heat, although not in significant amounts. Easy enough to fix - fill a spray bottle with Isopropanol as a deicer.
I'll have to go back & read what the Japanies did, their the ones who discover the problem because after they went all LED on their street lights & signal lights discovered that the LED didn't produce enough heat to melt ice off their street lights.
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Old 05-20-2016, 10:32 PM   #19
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nice looking lights!!

in MOST states you are not allowed to have constantly operating amber lights on the rear of a vehicle or constantly operating red lights on the front of a vehicle...

alot of these laws came back into enforcement in the 90s when all the kids were doing the glow-rods all over their cars... Neon tubes and what not.

one thing about LED lights and winter time... on my Jeep wrangler I installed LED fog lamps.. which were VERY bright and projector style... however in snow they definitely snowed over and wouldnt melt off until I stopped for quite a while.. the wind blowing cooled off about any heat they made.. im guessing the flat nature of bus headlights would be a problem with LED headlamps installed..

on the newer cars that have LED headlamps, notice how they tend to be the cars that have a severe slope in the light lense which tends to allow snow and precipitation to blow off in cold weather...

id only think that snow and ice flying up from the bottom to cover the rear lights would be an issue if you dont have mud flaps installed..

otherwise during your pre-trip in winter you would clear the read lights off so seems in the rear its mostly a non-issue..
-Christopher
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Old 05-21-2016, 06:55 AM   #20
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You could also do what Volvo did with the 850/960 series cars (when Volvo was still Swedish), and add a wiper and spray nozzle for the windshield washer fluid. I'm leaving my headlights halogen. Only the other lights are going LED
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