T10 LED replacement bulbs suck

[ChillRider]

Well OK, not all of them, but some definitively do.

My ZongShen Sierra has a quite Yamaha-y looking instrument cluster, which uses 4 T10 bulbs for its indications. Manual says they should be incandescent 1.7W, but in practice one can easily only find 5W bulbs in that size.

So of course I tried to find suitable LED replacements for as many of them as I could. As soon as I got it I replaced the burned out odometer one (previous owner didn't even know it was supposed to light up...), and also the high beam and neutral indicator. The flasher/turn signal one couldn't be replaced with an LED one, as that threw the flasher relay off.

In any case, I used some automotive T10 LED bulbs I had laying around, mostly blue and white ones. And, well...I was not very impressed by their durability. Especially those used as a Neutral indicator, which was often engaged during engine starts, seemed to die off pretty quickly, either with a sudden death or starting flickering erratically and coming on/off when they felt like it. At some point I found a specific type among my stock of LEDs that still holds on to this day *fingers crossed*, but I didn't quite understand what it had over those that died. The Zong sure sped up the "natural selection" process among those LEDs


I recently had to replace the odometer lighting too, going back to an incandescent 5W bulb (which, ultimately, looks better than any LED I tried), because the high-intensity yellow LED I had in there before also started flickering and eventually died, after not even 3 months of service.


I dunno, is there something in the electricals of these bikes that kills off LEDs quickly? On the top of my head, I can imagine that the charging system isn't exactly gentle (normal operation is 14.5V), that perhaps the starter motor causes voltage spikes (even negative ones...) that some LEDs can't quite handle, or maybe it's the vibration.


Most of those LEDs are unregulated, with just one or two resistors in series (the latest one to die was just that), and some must be connected with a specific polarity, while others seem to have at least some some built-in rectification/protection.


What are your experiences with LEDs?