X350 sidelight laamp replacement/upgrade.

[J44EAG]

I think the fact that I DID fit CANBUS LED units was the cause of the flicker issue. If I were still using LED sidelights, I think I would now try non CANBUS LED lamps. Plenty on ebay.

Now running cool white conventional halogen Osram sidelights. Obviously more current draw than LED and not quite as bright. Flew the MOT without issue.

Mike

[Manbearpig]

This was one of the first things to do for me, the combination of icy white and, well, orange, makes the dipped beam front end of the XJ look rather silly.

Been waiting weeks for my LED bulbs to arrive from Guangdon Province or wherever. I didn't realise until reading this thread that it is going to be a headache but should have guessed. All the routine service stuff I've done on my "new" R has been quite fiddly. Looking forward to this....

[J44EAG]

The miserable OE "orange" (so called white) side light lamps certainly do portray a poverty spec look and are visually dull and of low general visibility. On my car, they just had to go! White dipped beam HID lamps and pathetic orange side lights really didn`t cut the mustard. In addition, I just couldn`t stand the idea that people might think even less of me than they do already.....nice Jag, terrible sidelights!!

So now I have the HID Osram Nightbreaker XNB dipped beam long range, high lux output lamps which together with Osram bright white side light lamps looks much more modern and altogether more business like. I finally realized that it had been a mistake to put CANBUS LED in the sidelights and that NON CANBUS LED might have been the more satisfactory option. By the time Brian clarified the possible cause of the CANBUS LED flickers, I`d lost my patience and gone back to halogen lamps.

One lives and learns.

Mike

[irishjag]

Interesting video here which I found on another jag forum;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkPGqM0Sl64

on some of the problems with the LEDS we see on ebay. They can produce a good amount of heat apparently due to resistors added to simulate the resistance of standard bulbs to trick the CANbus systems in modern cars.
I have decided to go for bright white Halogen bulbs like Mike has, although its the Philips version rather than the Osram.
The LEDs seem from reading quite a bit of stuff to be unreliable and a bit of a headache.
I'm putting the new Halogens in later today so will let you know how they look

[Manbearpig]

Verdict?

[irishjag]

Verdict is they are a lot better than the standard bulbs, a lot whiter and less yellow..but...
they still look a bit yellow side by side with the xenons.
These are the ones I've used;
PHILIPS BlueVision Ultra, Xenon Effect 12961BVB2

I've also been testing the cheap LEDs I bought off e-bay, running them off a battery to see how hot they get.
Actually not very hot is the answer so far, after leaving them for an hour or so not too hot to touch. I've left one on in the workshop so I'll check again later.
The ones I have have 10 132 ohm resistors (5 each side of the spade) soldered across the terminals and only work if connected correctly, ie they don't have a bridge rectifier to make them light up which ever way round you connect the +ve and -ve.
One comment that was made on the forums as to why they can be unreliable as side lights is the heat that they are exposed to from the other bulb in a common housing, the situation we have on the x350.

I've also ordered a couple of these;
Osram LED W5W (501) 1w 12v Warm White 4000K Bulbs
which are not cheap at 20 Euro delivered for the pair. Looked at a few youtube reviews and they seem to get good comments.
They don't use resistors and will throw up a canbus error if the circuit is monitored by the car, but from what I can gather the sidelights on the x350 are not.
So when these arrive I'll stick them in and see how we go. One thing is that they are exactly the same size as the filament 5w5 bulbs so will fit in the headlamp of the x350. A lot of the ebay bulbs are longer so wont fit properly.

[J44EAG]

Actually, Chris, the Phillips side light lamps ie Xenon Effect halogen, are what I now have in my car. These were the ones with the blueish tinge that make them look hugely whiter than the standard orange types.

Its worth noting again that the sidelights are in the inner most headlamp units. As such, they are not subject to huge heat issues as the dipped beam HID lamps (or halogen on some cars) are fitted on the outboard headlamps. Only when main beam lamps are used can those sidelight lamps be slightly likely to be affected by heat soak.

I`m convinced Brian offers the best explanation for LED flickers which if CANBUS rated but not on the CANBUS circuit, then become highly sensitive to the electrical pulsing of the alternator when charging. I`d very much like to know if fitting non CANBUS LED lamps, cures the flickers. Fitting halogen again takes me back to the Fred Flintstone era. I`d hoped to get away from that high current draw form of lighting, but as yet have not achieved it. So I have a handful of CANBUS LED lamps in the centre console cuddy. Looks like they will end up in my caravan if I can find some holders for them.

The Xenon Effect lamps are certainly whiter than standard OE halogen but not as bright or sparkling as LED units. The Xenon Effect lamps are a big improvement on OE lamps but visually not as pleasing as LED.

Mike

[kapows]

The advice here helped immensly

I managed to get the Osram and Osram sidelights both from here with 20% off total

https://www.powerbulbs.com/product/osra ... le-blister

Luckily, last year had the bumpers off and this was a huge job somethng i would recommend to all owners is remove the bumpers and replaces the steel bits because this job is huge if you need to cut them all like i had to with mine what a b-ache!

Bulbs replaced and motorway night time driving is a breeze!

[Bigkid]

Following my recent post and that of Brian in regard to popped LED replacement sidelights, I ordered a pair of "super bright" CANBUS compliant replacement lamps. Once fitted, I then noticed that they both flickered badly with the engine running and obviously recharge voltage being applied by the alternator. It really was quite a pronounced flicker which if left, would undoubtedly result in me getting nicked at some point. It was also extremely distracting from my own point of view as in the dark, sitting in traffic, one could continually see the side lamps flickering in the reflection from the car in front. They certainly wouldn`t have allowed an MOT pass. So they had to go....20171207_133937 (Custom).jpg

Newly fitted standard lower level LED lamps have been fitted this morning. Result. No more flickers.

I did a bit of a Google on the matter of LED flicker recently. One chap went as far as building some sort of potentiometer controlled black box to rid himself of the issue. A bit extreme by my way of thinking. Far easier to fit another type of CANBUS compliant LED. Perhaps the flickering LED units had an incorrect value built in which resulted in out of limits current draw from the CANBUS system. Perhaps Brian can advise?

Mike,
As you know I've only recently purchased my XJR, but I have noticed (before purchase) that the inner headlights flicker in the upper sections. sometimes one, sometimes both.

Now looking at your pictures I would go so far as to say they are white lights not amber. So I wonder if perhaps some bright (pun intended) spark has replaced them with LEDs. Interestingly they didn't fail the MOT when it was completed recently (but maybe the tester didn't notice it because the day running lights were on).

I've read lots about earth faults etc and was going to look into that side of things, but re-reading this post reminded me of the 'whiteness' so I think maybe the bulbs are the cause.

I also had a one off issue where i switched off the car and locked it and the lights were still on, no amount of changing switch positions form auto to off etc did anything. In the end I restarted the car, switched it off again and re-locked it, then all was fine....

Maybe my lights are haunted...

Cheers
Carl

[J44EAG]

Not much more I can say about LED v halogen.

The side light staying on issue.....The fourth button on your key fob is used to switch on side or headlights at night to illuminate the path to the door of your country manor. It is very easy to turn the lights on accidentally if you have a pocket full of junk! So pump that fourth button a few times and see what illuminates.

Mike

[Bigkid]

Verdict is they are a lot better than the standard bulbs, a lot whiter and less yellow..but...
they still look a bit yellow side by side with the xenons.
These are the ones I've used;
PHILIPS BlueVision Ultra, Xenon Effect 12961BVB2

I've also been testing the cheap LEDs I bought off e-bay, running them off a battery to see how hot they get.
Actually not very hot is the answer so far, after leaving them for an hour or so not too hot to touch. I've left one on in the workshop so I'll check again later.
The ones I have have 10 132 ohm resistors (5 each side of the spade) soldered across the terminals and only work if connected correctly, ie they don't have a bridge rectifier to make them light up which ever way round you connect the +ve and -ve.
One comment that was made on the forums as to why they can be unreliable as side lights is the heat that they are exposed to from the other bulb in a common housing, the situation we have on the x350.

I've also ordered a couple of these;
Osram LED W5W (501) 1w 12v Warm White 4000K Bulbs
which are not cheap at 20 Euro delivered for the pair. Looked at a few youtube reviews and they seem to get good comments.
They don't use resistors and will throw up a canbus error if the circuit is monitored by the car, but from what I can gather the sidelights on the x350 are not.
So when these arrive I'll stick them in and see how we go. One thing is that they are exactly the same size as the filament 5w5 bulbs so will fit in the headlamp of the x350. A lot of the ebay bulbs are longer so wont fit properly.

Any update on whether the Osram LED W5W (501) 1w 12v Warm White 4000K Bulbs worked ok as side lights or did they flicker?

[J44EAG]

LED sidelights now off my car due to continued flickering issues. I had enough of buying different LED lamps which all played me up.

Now running cool white (indistinguishable blue tinge) halogen replacements which look far less poverty stricken than the nasty orange lamps fitted at the factory. Perhaps not quite as bright as the LED units I tried, but AT LEAST THEY DON`T FLICKER!!!!!!!

Mike

[irishjag]

''Any update on whether the Osram LED W5W (501) 1w 12v Warm White 4000K Bulbs worked ok as side lights or did they flicker?''

Ok, so have had them fitted now for just over a month and no problems. They are exactly the same size so fit perfectly and colour match the zennons exactly. No flicker so far so time will tell

[Bigkid]

''Any update on whether the Osram LED W5W (501) 1w 12v Warm White 4000K Bulbs worked ok as side lights or did they flicker?''

Ok, so have had them fitted now for just over a month and no problems. They are exactly the same size so fit perfectly and colour match the zennons exactly. No flicker so far so time will tell

Great news, I actually went ahead and ordered a set today, but I went for the cool white version rather than warm white.

Will at Powerbulbs reckoned they would be a closer match to the Xenon Night Breaker Unlimited D1S bulbs I ordered for my Xenon dipped beams (o/s bulb failed on Sunday!)

These are the side lights bulbs... https://www.powerbulbs.com/product/osra ... bulbs-twin
and the D1s Xenon bulbs... https://www.powerbulbs.com/product/osra ... d-d1s-twin

All prices are reduced by 20% using a code on the website "Winner20"

Just got to remove the bumper at the weekend to fit them now!

Cheers for the reply

[J44EAG]

A handy "heads up". Many thanks for that.

Mike