At 09:30 PM 6/4/2003, Blake Thornton wrote:
>I ordered one from VW.  It sure looks like a LED (I've got it out).  But,
>whatever it is, someone gave me the part number and I ordered one from VW.
>hopefully I can get it all put back together.

Pull off the blue cover and inside you'll find a glass hollow bulb with a
filament and round wire leads, instead of a solid plastic shape with a
cup-shaped electrode in the middle, a tiny grain of silicon-stuff in the
middle of that with an extremely tiny wire running to the other electrode,
flat stamped leads and a small flat on one side of the plastic base to
indicate polarity.  A magnifying glass should make all this easy to see.

>In the meantime, I'm hoping to pass my saftey test tomorrow by swapping
>the high beam indicator with another one of the lights.  Do you know if
>they are all the same (anyone?)?

The resistor VW used in series with that bulb is 270 ohms, vs 470 for the
LEDs.  That means your typical red LED will pass about 40 milliamps with
the engine running (less, actually, because of voltage drop between battery
and panel).  Depending on the LED it might rapidly get hot and burn/crack
the epoxy, or it might last quite a while.  LEDs tend to be rated for 20 ma
but some will carry more.  But basically it's a bad idea unless you can add
another 180-220 ohms in series.

david

--
David Beierl - Providence RI USA -- http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
'85 GL "Poor Relation"