FUNCTION
From the factory, turn signal bulbs are powered by standard incandescent lights that light up amber in color.
Newer luxury vehicles are using LEDs for turn signals, because LEDs offer a crisp, instant on/off, increased brightness, and true, vibrant color. By replacing the bulbs in your vehicle, you can achieve this modern look!
You can even add functionality to your vehicle with switchback bulbs! These light up bright white for running lights instead of dim amber, but still blink amber when you activate the turn signals, for a unique dual-color effect!
The installation is 100% plug-and-play, just replace your factory bulb. The bulb may blink faster since it uses less power, and your vehicle thinks the bulb is out- to fix this, please see "hyperblinking" section below.
BULB DESIGN
SMD27: 27 three-chip 5050-size Epistar SMDs arranged in 360 degrees. Six radial panels of three chips, and a forward-facing six-chip panel. Main body material is PCB.
HP11: Four side-firing 1.5W-rated Osram LED chips, and one 5W-rated LED chip on top, which is projected by a lens for maximum effective brightness. The bulb is housed in a machined aluminum casing, which provides superior heat diffusion for long life.
XP80: Each of the four sides of this bulb contains three 5W-rated chips, and the top is fitted with four more under a projector lens. This is the brightest self-contained automotive LED bulb on the market, and is housed in an aluminum casing with a textured finish for maximum heatsinking properties.
HP24: 16 amber and 8 white, high-power LED chips. Full aluminum body for durability and advanced digital latching circuit for color control. 6000k, Cool White to match your HIDs or other LED applications.
Fitment. All three bulbs use a quality inject-molded 3157 terminal, with a standard base connector and proper pin alignment, designed for exact replacement of your factory 3157 bulb.
Included in your order is TWO BULBS.
COLOR
Amber: These LEDs illuminate in a crisp, bright, amber color.
Switchback Option: Your vehicle may be able to use a specialty bulb known as "switchback." This bulb is only suitable when there is a clear reflector. Normally, your front turn signal lights up half power amber when you turn on your headlights, and flashes full power amber when the turn signal is activated.
By using this dual-filament design, along with an integrated controller chip in the bulb, you can get a very cool effect: the switchback bulb lights up white when your headlights are turned on, and flashes amber when you use the turn signals. When you switch the turn signal off, it "switches back" to white. This allows you to gain a uniform white appearance in the front of the vehicle at night, while still having amber turn signals.
Diode Dynamics only lists amber and switchback bulbs for the front turn signal. This is because other colors, such as white and red, are not legal for front turn signal use. Please view other pages for other colors and applications.
BRIGHTNESS
Diode Dynamics offers several brightness options so you can choose what fits you best. These options are listed by the design and the lumen output of each bulb:
The amber bulbs in this listing are dual-brightness, and will illuminate at 60% power for parking/running lamp, and 100% for full turn signal.
SMD27: Slightly lower brightness than OEM bulbs, but still provides the crisp, modern instant on/off of LED technology.
HP11: Slightly higher brightness than OEM bulbs.
XP80: Much brighter than OEM bulbs. These are bright!
Lumens: BUYER BEWARE! Most sellers just provide "calculated" lumen numbers, based on the maximum potential brightness of the LED chips on the bulb. For example, if a bulb has five 10-lumen chips, they will rate it at 50 lumens. However, this is not accurate, as the design of an LED bulb does not get rid of heat fast enough to run the LEDs at maximum.
These "calculated" lumen ratings are much, much higher than the true, measured light output, so it will look like competitors' bulbs are brighter than ours. This is because Diode Dynamics does not provide inflated "calculated" numbers; we believe it is misleading. We test the actual brightness of the bulbs in our lab, to provide real lumen output measurements. Our measurements are accurate, but they are usually much lower than the misleading "calculated" figures. Please click here to learn more about LED brightness measurement.
QUALITY
LED Components. Diode Dynamics uses only the highest quality LED chips in the production of its bulbs. This means we use only brand-name suppliers such as Epistar, Cree, Osram, and Samsung.
While our bulbs may look the same as others on the market, most copycat bulbs use economy-grade LED chips in order to reduce costs. This greatly reduces the reliability and overall brightness of the bulb when you compare it to Diode Dynamics.
Construction. Although LED technology allows for extremely long bulb life, the market is flooded with cheap LED bulbs that fail prematurely due to inferior construction. The worst enemy of LEDs is excessive heat, and when bulbs are not designed properly, they do not disperse heat as well, leading to premature failure.
Off-brand, cheap bulbs exhibit poor solder uniformity, high levels of flux in the solder, uneven chip placement, low-gauge terminal wires, poor assembly, and bulbs held together with inferior adhesives. At best, solder joints will crack and fail on low-quality LEDs after a few weeks of use. In the worst case, these bulbs can damage housings as the extra flux and adhesive evaporates and creates a residue on the lens of the housing.
Diode Dynamics bulbs are produced with modern, computerized equipment, and only the best materials, to ensure complete uniformity, high quality, and long bulb life.
All Diode Dynamics products come with a 30-day satisfaction guarantee and a 3-year limited replacement warranty. For more information, please view the Warranty Information page.
HYPERBLINKING
The turn signals on most vehicles will begin to blink fast (hyperblink) when LED bulbs are installed. This is because the new LEDs will use less power than the original bulbs, so your vehicle thinks that the bulb is out and warns you by hyperblinking.
This phenomenon will be the same for every LED bulb on the market- there is no such thing as a "no hyperblink" LED bulb, even though some companies advertise them as such.
Resistor Kit: By adding a resistor to the bulb's circuit, you can mimic the power consumption of the original bulb, and return the vehicle to normal turn signal speed. Our resistors are 50W, 6 ohm, and come with extra-long connection wires for easy install. If you have both front and rear LED turn signals, you should purchase one set for each pair, to create enough resistance for the whole turn signal circuit. The installation itself takes only 10-15 minutes, and involves making two simple connections. Everything you need is included in the kit.
Please see the installation video below.
Flasher Replacement: You may have heard of replacing a "flasher relay" instead of using resistors. Indeed, some vehicles have a replaceable flasher relay, and it is possible to replace it with one designed for LED use, to eliminate hyperblinking. However, this is only true for some vehicles. We do not believe one is available for your vehicle, because your flasher is built-in to the vehicle's computer. You will need to use resistors for your vehicle.
