dllubin
Don
Ever since my car was new, the overhead courtesy light was ineffective and barely noticeable unless it was dark out. The fact that everything in the car except the carpet is black does not help.
The factory bulb is a 5 watt 39mm festoon type. I replaced it with a high power (380 lumens - roughly equivalent to a 30 watt incandescent) LED festoon and it is rather amazing how bright it is inside the car. The new bulb directs all the light in the direction of the cabin whereas the original bulb sends light in all directions and the reflector in the housing does not seem to help much. This probably makes the difference in light output somewhat greater than the factor of 6 you would expect when comparing a 30 watt bulb to a 5 watt bulb. In addition, the light is very white (6,000K) compared to the yellowish incandescent. I searched eBay for some really bright 39mm LED festoons and came up with this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2018-NEWES...cVbF0eT:sc:ShippingMethodStandard!94062!US!-1
Best $5 I've spent on the car in quite a while, and I've got a spare bulb for another project.
The factory bulb is a 5 watt 39mm festoon type. I replaced it with a high power (380 lumens - roughly equivalent to a 30 watt incandescent) LED festoon and it is rather amazing how bright it is inside the car. The new bulb directs all the light in the direction of the cabin whereas the original bulb sends light in all directions and the reflector in the housing does not seem to help much. This probably makes the difference in light output somewhat greater than the factor of 6 you would expect when comparing a 30 watt bulb to a 5 watt bulb. In addition, the light is very white (6,000K) compared to the yellowish incandescent. I searched eBay for some really bright 39mm LED festoons and came up with this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2018-NEWES...cVbF0eT:sc:ShippingMethodStandard!94062!US!-1
Best $5 I've spent on the car in quite a while, and I've got a spare bulb for another project.