LED’s
November 26, 2012
On the C170, I had swapped all the old school bulbs for LEDs, and in the continuing pursuit of “all things LED,” today’s quick task was to swap out the overhead panel light with an LED bulb.
For the C170, I ordered all my LED’s ledlight.com. I’ve had great luck with these bulbs thus far, and will continue to do so for the C180.
Why LED? First off they are much brighter. Second, they use way less power, and the combination of the two makes it a no brainer.
There are some limitations with LEDs, the biggest of which is how the light is emitted. In a traditional bulb, the glowing fiber of the tungsten filament throws light 360 degrees. This, along with the warm yellow glow is one of the things that makes it such a nice looking light. The LED on the other hand tends to be much cooler (blue rather than yellow.) The LED light also comes out in just one direction rather than spilling everywhere like a incandescent bulb.
Think of it like a candle flame versus a flashlight. In the flashlight, the light has to be pointed at where you want to look while the candle flame spills willie-nillie all over the room. In order to counter this flaw and for an LED bulb to throw light in many directions, many individual didoes are needed.
The swap for the overhead panel light on the C180 was easy. I just looked up the P/N for the OEM bulb, and then ordered the same in LED. What I didn’t know was whether I should order red or white. The overhead fixture has a red lens in front of the old incandescent bulb which filtered out everything but the red light. I obviously wanted the brightest light possible, but didnt know if that would come from the bright white, (in which case most of the light would be lost in the filter) or with a red light from the beginning.
I’m sure smarter people than I have already figured this out, but since I wasn’t sure, I just ordered both the damn bulbs and did an old fashion “seeing is believing” test.
In short, I shut off the hanger lights and tried em both… Net net: The red LED was much brighter.
What I ordered:
