FUNCTION
License plate bulbs are used to illuminate the rear license plate on your vehicle. From the factory, your license plate bulb is incandescent, lighting up in a yellowish color.
Newer luxury cars use LED modules to illuminate the license plate with modern, cool white light. By changing your license plate buls to LED, you can easily add this luxury look to your vehicle!
The installation is 100% plug-and-play, just replace your factory bulb.
With low price and easy install, this is one of the best, easiest modifications you can do to improve how your car looks at night.
BULB DESIGN
SMD2: Similarly compact design, with two 5050-size Epistar SMD chips, driven at high power for maximum effective brightness. Outputs at 180 degrees.
HP3: One high-power SMD under a diffusing lens for truly even output (no hotspots). Constant current design and air-cooled base for superior reliability. Features dual contact pins and nonpolar function for easy installation.
HP5: Four high-power SMDs, under a diffusing lens. Just like the HP3, but run at higher power, with integrated copper plating for superior heat dissipation, allowing maximum brightness.
Fitment. All bulbs use a quality inject-molded 194/168 T10 terminal, with a full-size base connector and proper pin alignment, designed for exact replacement of your factory 194 bulb. Just remove the old bulb, and plug in the new LED.
Included in your order is ONE BULB.
COLOR
These LEDs are available in crisp, bright colors including White, Warm White, Blue, Red, Amber, and Green.
We strongly recommend white or warm white for license plate applications- the other colors are illegal in most areas. Please check your local laws before ordering.
BRIGHTNESS
Diode Dynamics offers several brightness options so you can choose what fits you best. These options are listed by the design and the lumen output of each bulb:
SMD2: Slightly higher brightness than OEM bulbs.
HP3: Much brighter than OEM bulbs. These are bright!
HP5: Nearly triple the brightness of stock OEM bulbs!
Lumens: BUYER BEWARE! Most sellers just provide "calculated" lumen numbers, based on the maximum potential brightness of the LED chips on the bulb. For example, if a bulb has five 10-lumen chips, they will rate it at 50 lumens. However, this is not accurate, as the design of an LED bulb does not get rid of heat fast enough to run the LEDs at maximum.
These "calculated" lumen ratings are much, much higher than the true, measured light output, so it will look like competitors' bulbs are brighter than ours. This is because Diode Dynamics does not provide inflated "calculated" numbers; we believe it is misleading. We test the actual brightness of the bulbs in our lab, to provide real lumen output measurements. Our measurements are accurate, but they are usually much lower than the misleading "calculated" figures. Please click here to learn more about LED brightness measurement.
QUALITY
LED Components. Diode Dynamics uses only the highest quality LED chips in the production of its bulbs. This means we use only brand-name suppliers such as Epistar, Cree, Osram, and Samsung.
While Diode Dynamics bulbs may look the same as others on the market, most copycat bulbs use economy-grade LED chips in order to reduce costs. This greatly reduces the reliability and overall brightness of the bulb when you compare it to Diode Dynamics.
Construction. Although LED technology allows for extremely long bulb life, the market is flooded with cheap LED bulbs that fail prematurely due to inferior construction. The worst enemy of LEDs is excessive heat, and when bulbs are not designed properly, they do not disperse heat as well, leading to premature failure.
Off-brand, cheap bulbs exhibit poor solder uniformity, high levels of flux in the solder, uneven chip placement, low-gauge terminal wires, poor assembly, and bulbs held together with inferior adhesives. At best, solder joints will crack and fail on low-quality LEDs after a few weeks of use. In the worst case, these bulbs can damage housings as the extra flux and adhesive evaporates and creates a residue on the lens of the housing.
Diode Dynamics bulbs are produced with modern, computerized equipment, and only the best materials, to ensure complete uniformity, high quality, and long bulb life.
All Diode Dynamics products come with a 30-day satisfaction guarantee and a 3-year limited replacement warranty. For more information, please view the Warranty Information page.
