So I picked up a set of the 12 SMD 5050 LED lights to install for my license plate lights a few weeks back. However, I encountered a strange problem where the lights were different tints or colors on each side.




At first I thought I had a bum LED cluster. I tried moving to the other side, swapping out, I even bought another 9 SMD cluster and no matter what the left side always has more of a blueish green hue and the right side always has a purplish hue (closer to what I wanted) very similar in color to the stock HID lights.

My question is, has anyone else ran into this and if so what did you do? I'm going to grab my multimeter this evening after work and try to check the voltage/current differences. Is it possible that just adding a resistor could bring the voltages closer which would match the lights? I never noticed this problem on the standard halogen bulbs but then again the color intensity is far less so it may not be noticeable.

 

post back once you get voltage readings. And you said you got a new one that is still whiter? Or that any time you put one on the left side it turns into a blueish tint?

 

It happens, looks like a I have a rainbow around my car(no homo). I have pure white, blue tint white, and purple tint white and they are all 5050 SMD leds and purchased from the same person.

 

That is just garbage stuff then. All LED's are not equal.

 

So stop buying your leds on ebay

 

No garbage stuff, the brightest and the best are 5050.

 

That's definitely not true. On a budget I'd vote Philips Lumileds to be better.

 

Everyone seems to have this impression that 5050 is the best, that's a load of crap first off, second, everyone seems to think that '5050' is a brand name or something, it's not, it's a size/type of SMD. There are ton of different manufacturers of them, most are cheap junk, some are decent products, the really expensive ones cost $20-70 EACH SMD, and on top of that require heat sinks.

 

I know 5050 isn't a brand name.

 

So a half way decent 0603/0805/1206 will outperform a cheaper 5050 any day of the week, and the colours will actually match.

The point is, saying "they're not garbage, 5050 is the best and brightest" is an uneducated statement. They are quite likely garbage, cheap LED's. And also, as I have already said, the quality is what's most important, not the type of LED. I have used a ton of cheap 5mm Straw hat, 130*, flat tops, etc, etc in the directional style LED, and the much smaller normal 3mm LED from a good supplier sends even colour out over a wider area, is much brighter, and lets off less heat. They're so much brighter, I can run them at HALF the power as the cheaper 5mm ones, and still get signifigantly more light out of them.

I'm not trying to attack you, just trying to inform you.

 

boom roasted
jk

 

Sorry, didn't mean to offend your led knowledge.

 

^ Really didn't man, there's a TON I don't know about LED's Im just scratching the surface. I really was just trying to inform you of what I've learnt so far in the game, and purchasing a LOT of LED's in the past. The hope is that you realize that before your next purchase, to save to headaches and money down the road. The initial cost is worth it, that's very hard to admit, trust me, I have tried to cheap out on a lot of things, a lot of the time it works great, but if you're half-way picky about appearance and reliability, then you don't want to cheap LEDs.

 

Well apparently none of you understood the fact the problem IS NOT the LED's?? I have swapped them out over and over again and the problem remains with where they're plugged in. The right side always looks as it should (purplish white like factor HID) and the left side always has a bluish green hue to it. I've been out of town all weekend so I didn't get a chance to measure with my multimeter. Will bring with me to work tomorrow to do on my lunch.

I'm confident the problem is a slight variance in voltage from the harness and these LED's are sensitive to the voltage and will vary in color based on different power input.

 

Our little conversation had nothing to do with your specific circumstances, it was to clarify that most LED's will have different colouring.

I said post back when you get multimeter reading.

The otherthing you should do is switch the light housings side to side, not JUST the bulbs. Doing that will eliminate most of the possibilities. If the issue follows the Harness (car side), not the bulb or housing, then you know it's likely a voltage issue or harness issue.

 

I wanted to update that for some reason I can't find my multimeter anywhere. It must have been misplaced since I moved back in Feb. Anyway, I tried switching out the bases and I noticed that one of the bases had a thicker gauge positive and negative lead so once I changed the bases the color difference improved noticeably. Its still not a perfect match but I still need to test the harness.

 

^ Hard to tell from that description, but sounds like you're on the right path bro.

Here's a little tip for electrical testing:

Most low voltage issues are not apparant until there is a load placed on the circuit (plugging the bulb in).
Therefore, you can read 12 VDC at both harnesses, and both bases with the bulb disconnected, but as soon as you plug the bulb in, the voltage can drop, causing a dim/underpowered bulb.

Just a heads up, I'd still measure them just in case, but I just wanted to let you know that test is not the be-all-end-all.
If you do run into that predicament let me know, you can back-probe the harness with the bulbs inserted to test the loaded voltage.

P.S.>> I know you're running LED's, not "bulbs", just wanted to keep things simple for all to read.