Any one hear of this type of LED bulb? It is called the PIAA Super Tera, 194 wedge bulb and is claiming 4500K light off of 1w or power. Has anyone had any experience with this particular light. I know PIAA is a reputable company, but what is the expected life of a LED bulb putting out this type of light? Any info would be helpful.

 

4500k is not a measurement of lumines of light, it's a measure of color temperature on a color spectrum....

LED's last years because of the way they're designed to emit light and use practically no power, and I'm sure it'll last as long as you could hope for, but I really hope they aren't headlight bulbs or any outside bulb that needs projection. LED's are NOT a good idea for that. Coming from PIAA I'd expect it to be a quality product, and wedge bulbs are used in the parking lights from what I know, so that might be a nice addition to an HID kit or aftermarket bulbs.

 

I hope PIAA releases some nice LED bulbs. All the aftermarket ones I've tried are dim. Surprisingly dim, considering LED's are supposed to be bright.

 

make your own LED bulbs.. you can buy 10,000 MCD led's (most of those aftermarket bulbs are 3K mcd) and make your own sockets, using various household supplies. and a resistor of course lol

 

yeah, 4500K is just the Kelvin rating or the color temperature of the light coming out of the bulb. 4500K would be just slightly bluer than the color of a silverstar bulb.

here is a link at sylvania explaining their different bulbs: http://www.sylvania.com/LearnLightin...Brightness.htm

here is a good link to see the difference in colors and also wavelength colors. led's are usually rated in wavelength colors: http://www.venturelighting.com/techc...r_of_light.htm

 

super tera's look sick! they're a bit pricey though.

 

jrv2000, i see that you bought some on ebay!! haha. they sound interesting though... each led has it's own ballast like an HID, but i'm curious how bright they are compared to, let's say, a super white 9-led 921 from superbrightleds.com

and wow. $55.... they better be just as bright as HID's for that! haha.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=7965076405

 

The other problem with "white" LEDs is that they do not send out full-spectrum light, but are actually a mixture of specific frequencies of red, green, and blue light. Our eyes are used to dealing with full spectrum light, so they don't do so well with the "white" light produced by LEDs.

I discovered this when I started using a white LED bicycle headlight. Even though the intensity (candlepower) was higher than the incandescent light I had been using, it was harder to see with the new light. However, the fact that the new light runs 100 hours on 4 AA batteries more than makes up for this deficiency!

 

If you look in my post about led tails I used these LEDs for back up lights. They are white, 1 watt LEDs. Each one puts out about as much light as a 3-cell Mag light. I only used 6 and they are very bright! Kinda like HIDs for reverse! They ain't cheap and come in a minimum of 100. They come in colors too! I'm tyhinking about 3 or 4 for a dome light bulb.. stay tuned.

 

Ya, I bought some just after I made this post. They look extremely bright in the pictures that I have seen, and I trust a company like PIAA. I already have Silverstars for my low beams, but I want to see how my headlights will look like with new parking lights. They should be here within a week or 2, since they are being shipped from hong kong. I'll post up some pics once I get them, so everyone else will know if they are worth it or not.

 

Here are some pics of the LED Tera Bulb on some cars....







Looks pretty powerful, maybe only second to Luxeon bulbs

 

yeah, i went looking too and the only reviews i could find were in japanese. and yes, definately update us with how they look and maybe some comparison pics too!

 

piaa is overpriced. hands down.. they're taking 44cent LED's and attaching them to a resistor, then marking them up to hell..

 

Each LED also has a ballast, and they look brighter than your run of the mill 44 cent LED. Take a look at the pics I posted above, they look brighter than some of the weak halogens that are out there.

 

LEDs don't use a ballast. They might come with a resistor and diode, but no ballast. I have some of these and they cost $6 each with 100 min. (they come on a roll).

 

These are my reverse lights.

 

I dont know what to say, but in the description it says that each LED has its own ballast to increase thier brightness.

 

Sounds like hype to me. Those LEDs in the picture are blindingly bright with just 3 of them. Nothing but a resistor was used on them. 1 watt LEDs are very bright!!!!!

 

are they as bright as those pics that I posted above?

 

Absolutely, I suspect they are the exact same LEDs as these are fairly new to the market and I only know of one brand.