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LED BULBS for Instrument Lighting -- DT-222

LED lamp for instruments I bought these LED bulbs from Moss Motors, USA, their part number 170-972. I installed two in the larger instruments in late 2014. I like the color and intensity, left being the LED and right being the original incandescent. They screw into the original bulb holder, and plug into the instruments as original.
LED lamp for instruments LED lamp for instruments
I was pleased with the product, for a while. Then they began to fail. First a little flicker, later more flicker, finally more dark time than light time, and the flicker would irritate me to no end. There are five LEDs in each bulb, one on each side and one on the front end of the bulb. They fail one at a time, not all at once, but eventually all dead. Pretty sure the individual LEDs would last a long time, so I recon this is a design or quality issue with failing electrical connections. When the first one failed in 2016 I bought two more, one as replacement, and one for a spare. Shortly after the second one failed, and I installed the spare.

A bit later I bought two more for the smaller instruments. These side-light bulbs splash a lot of light behind the dash, which I wouldn't mind, but the also put out a lot of light around the speaker blanking plate, which took a long time to get used to. Since then another one in the larger instruments has failed, make that three failures out of six bulbs so far. In round numbers, about two years life expectancy when we drive 40K miles per year, but with four bulbs at $6 each it's not a good cost ratio, about $1 per month to keep these things going. With that failure rate I recon I need to buy a box of ten for $10 to get the cost down to $2 per year. Otherwise, I will be changing back to incandescent bulbs as the LEDs fail.

There is another problem with this particular bulb. The plastic block for the LEDs is only press fit into the screw base with no keys, and it can be dislodged easily. If the mating threads are just a bit too snug, then torque required to screw it in will tear it apart before first use. I managed to press the first one back together well enough to finally get it installed. Also had one tear apart when trying to remove it. So be very careful with installation, not too much torque please.
LED lamp for instruments
With fan questions coming in, I recently checked the supplier again. The same part number is now $5 (March 1, 2019) and has a picture with different configuration with 20 smaller LEDs, and it may be slightly longer (which might not fit certain applications). I also see in the new picture what looks like solder connections to the top edge of the screw base, so this one might be more robust both physically and electrically (hopefully).

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