Anyone done this? I back into my driveway and the factory reverse light isn't cutting it. Tried searching and came up with nothing.

 

Try some LED's.

 

It's been done, here's a more practical solution over HIDs though:

https://www.scionlife.com/forums/sho...erse+light+HID

 

emrules is right. This is where I get all of my LEDs http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-b...rake-turn.html I believe you're back up light is 7440. The thing that would scare me the most with the HID is that it'd probably melt the housing. LEDs on the other hand run with almost no heat.

 

check this out...
http://store.ledmod.com/index.php?ma...products_id=64

 

DO NOT get led reverse lights. I got one a while back for teh reverse light, and the light suffered tremendously. The best way to go is get a sylvania silver star 7440. LEDs have less useable light.

This is what you want right here

http://www.amazon.com/Sylvania-7440-.../dp/B00318RIMQ

Tremendous upgrade from factory and you can actually use your passenger side mirror to see out of the other side. When I had the hid one in I could barely see at all. If you want I think I still have a led bulb I could grab a picture of tonight.

 

x2 This is absolutely the way to go if you are trying to get more projected visible light for backing up. See my before & after pics at the bottom of page 3 of that thread.

 

You guys recommending LEDs need to look up "lumens" and see how even the brightest 7440 LED produces less lumens than the stock incandescent bulb.

 

HID requires a warm up period that would be impractical.
LEDs may appear brighter, but they actually cast less directed light (unless an expensive lens is incorporated.

 

Just go the way I posted. You don't need to do any modifying, don't need to spends more then like 5-10 bucks. Just swap the bulb and go. It makes it incredibly brighter

 

I'ts good to have a very cheap, very easy alternative for those not wishing to modify their cars but you really can't compare the 2 options. It's apples to oranges. The Sylvania SS bulb is a typical 25W incandescent bulb using blue tinted glass to produce a whiter light output. While most perceive whiter light as "brighter", it's typically the opposite. That blue tinted glass actually reduces the projected illumination vs a clear glass bulb.

I searched but could not find a lumens rating for the Sylvania SS 7440 bulb. I suppose it's possible that it might be as high as 500 lumens (unlikely but possible). That's not even close to the 800 lumens from a 35W halogen fog lamp.

AFAIK there are 4 options available:

1) $50 "bright" LED = 300 lumens
2) $10 Sylvania Silverstar = ~500 lumens
3) $50 Catz 27W halogen = 600 lumens
4) $30 35W H8 mod = 800 lumens

I didn't include HID for reasons stated previously (warm-up period, high current draw on start-up). HID isn't a very good choice for the reverse light.

 

whats the stock bulb rated at for lumens?

 

~400 lumens for a clear 25W 7440. Less for colored bulbs and 21W bulbs. IIRC oem is a 21W clear bulb but 25W bulbs are a little brighter and not hard to find.

BTW, for reference the $50 7440 LED I used for comparison is a 7W, 20 LED Hi-power cluster from V-LEDs. According to V-LEDs this is the brightest 7440 LED in the world and the brightest LED bulb they sell. Most 7440 LED bulbs output more like 100 lumens.

http://www.v-leds.com/Exterior-LED/T...54223-1-2.html

 

Well, I wanted my reverse light to be a little bit brighter but i also didn't want to cut wires or mod the stock housing. So i just went out and bought some 7440 SilverStars to try it, figure its only 8 bucks so it was worth a try. They are rated at 25w and light blue tinted.

But here are pics so you can see the difference and as you can see they are a little bit brighter. FYI, these were taken from my Nexus One phones camera with the flash off and both pics were taken at the same exact location and almost identical angle.

Stock


SilverStar