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Well said, Greg.
While the dual filament bulbs in my ’29 are bright for an antique car they are far from optimal for night driving with modern traffic.
More focused light on the road is always a good thing as long as it doesn’t blind other drivers.
Some 6v bulbs for our taillight assemblies would also be great.
A 4cp bulb just doesn’t cut it on today’s roads.
I am very guilty of taking things off topic, it doesn’t bother me as long as it stays car centric, as far as led bulbs, I have been using them for two years in dash and tail lights on several other non PA car…….they work great. I will get around to installing them in my cars soon.
Tsk, tsk Ed.
Showing more love for your non-PA cars.
But when you do source some 6v bulbs for one of your Pierces please let us know the details.
Back to the original discussion. I have a 1916 PA and would like to know if any of these would fit on my headlights or tail light? See URL Below.
Would a negative ground LED Bulb work in a positive ground car?
If you want tangential issues, how do I start my carbide headlights, with separate tanks on the headlights on my 1911 Napier Garden Car with wicker seats and landau top with powder blue upholstery?
Please do not hijack or just I AM kidding, even though I just bought the car at Amelia.
Maybe answered my polarity question. Apparently negative or positive ground for bulbs. Still wonder what bulb will fit my 1914 PA.
I don’t care about high end judging for our 1916 PA, except for my 1911 Napier Garden Car, I am keeping the individual carbide lights. Hope you enjoy my levity this morning.
http://https://www.ledlight.com/ledlight-6-volt-positive-chassis-catalog.aspx
Bill,
Restoration Supply carries LED bulbs, including headlights. You might give them a call to find out if they will work in your car. If you do please let us know what you find out.
When discussing these LED bulbs being used in antique automobiles something to keep in mind is that if a bulb is not compatible with the lens and reflector it could throw blinding light in all directions causing issues for oncoming drivers.This is a huge issue on car headlights today and further complicated by aftermarket products out there which in some cases are meant for countries that drive on the left like Japan and Great Britain.When used in countries that dive on the right these lamps can be a hazard.The best way I feel to have good headlights on an antique vehicle is to have properly silvered reflectors and the electrical system in good order.Pierce Arrows with electric headlamps up through the 1920’s used a 21cp bulb generally known as a #1129.The Mazda lamp chart in my 1933 Motors Shop Rate Manual lists for cars using this bulb for brighter headlamps to use a #1133 32cp bulb.For cars that use a #1110 21-21cp bifocal bulb the chart specifies a #1000 32-32cp bulb.A few years later the #1188 50-32cp came out.The halogen equivalents being sold by antique car parts vendors might be an option but the use of LEDs on a resistance dimming system might result in the loss of light when one dims their lamps as LEDs unless specially designed to do so do not work on dimming systems.
Thanks to this post it reminded me I needed to get brighter taillight and stop bulbs for my Packard based on comments from others following me. I have ordered some LED bulbs to try that are 600 lumens. According to the source of all wisdom (the internet) candle power (or candelas) can be converted to lumens by multiplying by 12.57. Packard specified a 3 cp tailight bulb which would have only been 38 lumens. I have a stoplight bulb that was rated at 25 watts, and using a table converting incandescent watts to lumens indicates between 11 and 13 lumens/watt, thus my stoplight bulb would be about 275 lumens, so a 600 lumen should be a lot brighter – maybe too bright but the tailights have poor reflectors and are located away from the focus of the reflector.
I was operating 32 then 50 cp headlight bulbs before I switched to the newer halogens, so they would have been 400 and 630 lumens respectively. The newer halogens seemed a bit brighter than the old 50 cp, have the same filament location for the low/high beam focus and the generator can keep up with them (it couldn’t running 2 50 cp bulbs). I will stand pat with the halogen for headlights.
Jim
Everybody’s eyes are different and if one needs a bit more light the halogens probably are a good option as one needs to be careful not to overload the electrical system.The LEDs should be fine for taillights and stoplights.An upgrade on lighting for vehicles with sealed beams I did as did others was to fit EC Code headlamps like Marchal,Cibie or Hella.These used a 45/40 watt bulb and later versions used a 65/55 watt H4 bulb.Sealed beams are not legal in some countries and cars usually fitted with sealed beams have to be fitted with EC headlamps.One night though I had to drive my 1930 Packard 745 through the country area where I live and those huge headlamps had newly silvered reflectors with #1000 32-32cp bulbs and I found those lights to be a bit brighter than the sealed beams on my Datsun pickup but then the Packard lamps are almost a foot wide with deep reflectors.Both my 1915 and 1929 Pierce Arrows have very deep reflectors and on high could be blinding and that is with period 21cp bulbs.
I realize this is a “stale” thread, but wanted to add my $0.02 as I am changing the lights on my ’29 to LEDs. The best advantage is more light with less current. I ordered 1129 headlight LEDs and 1158 brake/tail light lamps from http://www.LEDlights.com. The parts arrived rapidly,fit well and are substantially brighter. I did notice that the focus of the headlights is different, but should still be acceptable for high-beam use. Adding the resister for dim lights should take care of in-town driving concerns.
The challenge now is the low (dim) setting for the headlights, which wasn’t working with the incandescent lamps either. Because of the lower current draw, I will need to experiment to see what voltage (and therefore resistance) will work best for the “dim” setting. V=IR is the electrical relationship. I did see another thread here that the resister is supposed to be inside the left frame rail, so that is the target location for the new one, once I size it.
Important note: LED is an acronym for Light Emitting DIODE. Diodes only conduct in ONE direction, so a negative ground lamp is not likely to work on a positive ground car. I have had this problem on AC applications, where we had too much flicker with LEDs (on a 25 Hz system) as it was only on during half the cycle. The vendor did distinguish his parts between positive and negative ground applications, so I take that as a strong hint in ordering.
Herb
http://https://www.ledlight.com/6-volt-positive-ground-automotive-led-lights.aspx
Herb,
Thank you for the wonderful information. It is good to know that a Positive Ground may not work. Glad for the feedback.
Ken
Ken,
This article will be reprinted in the next PASB with an updated source list. LED bulbs for positive ground cars are available. Dave
Dave,
Thank you, my car has been changed at some point to a Negative Ground I am pretty sure. I will double check the next time I am at the shop. We are getting the Pierce ready for the Concours at Monarch Dunes next Sunday.
Ken
Ken, Let me change my statement, LED bulbs including headlights, are available in both positive and negative ground from several suppliers. Good luck at the concours. We’ll be at Ironstone Concours Saturday. Dave
Seems that Herbert fell victim to the dreaded double http:// when he posted his link.
Let’s see if this one will work.
http://www.ledlight.com/6-volt-positive-ground-automotive-led-lights.aspx
Dave, thank you I did realize from your post that they have positive and negative ground. Enjoy Ironstone. Monarch invited us back and have a past winners spot. The weather report is showing rain next Saturday and Sunday as a possibility. I think it will be the after affects of the Storm in Baja now.
Something to keep in mind is that the pre 1930 Pierce Arrows with the exception of the very late 1929 models used a resistance headlamp dimming system which might not be compatible with LED bulbs.Even fixtures in a home on a dimming circuit require certain LED bulbs that are compatible with dimmer switches.These headlamps were designed to use certain bulbs and the wrong bulb could be a safety issue such as going out when dimmed or blinding oncoming drivers when on high beam.My Toyota Tacoma uses the H-4 halogen bulb and when I asked about going to an LED version of this bulb my service person did not sound encouraging.
Hello everyone. I have found a company in Phoenix AZ that has Led bulbs that will replace the common ones in the Pierce Arrows. They pretty much have most if not all replacements in different colors too! I purchased six volt 1129 white 6000k tail light bulbs for my 840A 1934 and the bulb is made to fit right in to the stock socket. buy buying 6 I was able to get them at $5.08 a piece and the shipping was $6.78! So I have $37.26 in six bulbs. They have others as well in very good prices. I have my car in storage for the winter and have yet to put them in. It is worth going in to their website and checking them out. There site is LEDLight.com