That's B'S, LED lights draw less,i wouldn't let that guy put air in my tires

 

Light for light LEDs definitely draw less power.

Heres a thought though guys, if you're replacing say a fender tip light for an LED. The original bulb was 9 watts maybe? Correct me if I'm wrong.

The replacement LED with 40 LEDs in it, lets say 20 of them are lit for running light and the other 20 come on with the brakes hypothetically.

If those LEDs are 1/2 watt each that would be 20 watts with all LEDs lit, correct?

Even if they are 1/4 watt each you're still looking at a 10 watt load with all 40 LEDs lit up.

I'm just saying it's possible to change out incandescent to LEDs and actually increase the load, it all depends on what you are putting in as a replacement.

Always need to look at the LED replacement and check the wattage.

 

For those that have LEDs all around.What did you use in your tag light?

 

You're using two different terms here, watt and amps. Two different things. LED's do operate at a higher wattage if you have enough of them, but do so at a lower amp load. I have led headlight and spots plus a bunch of led accent lighting. It still draws less than the stock headlight alone.

 

Woa there John!

Watts = volts x amps.

With fixed voltage on our bikes, we can't have higher watts AND lower amps!

LEDs use lower amps and hence consume less watts, when compared with conventional radiant element bulbs. Hence your lower draw above.

 

You beat me to it Sir Graham

 

LED's draw in milliamps.... Take a typical 1157 bulb. The standard may draw 9 watts or maybe 3 times that with the brakes on. A typical LED bulb will draw under 200 mA and last 30,000 hours. Now, there are better LED's from others, but if you, like I replaced all your bulbs with LED's, you would need a load equalizer. Why? The lack of the resistance load.

 

By the skin of my teeth, by the look of it Ken!

 

That's the key gentlemen, Watts/Volts = Amps

I agree that LEDs draw far less amps individually, however as I am sure you have all noticed these replacement LEDs we are using have way more than just one LED on them. There are typically many LEDs used to replace one bulb, they all add up folks. The wattage of each individual LED in the circuit adds up to a total, if that total ends up being more than the original incandescent bulb wattage then you are going to draw more current (Amps) This I guarantee you!

My point was changing bulbs out for LEDs will only lower the current or amp draw if the LED has a lower wattage rating than the original bulb did.

I would say most times that will indeed be the case, but it is entirely possible to increase the wattage as well. Need to watch out for this, it's not always as simple as it seems.

 

I'm not quite sure if your theory is entirely correct rusty289 (I'll preface that I am wrong at times).

Many LED applications will have the total amperage draw, like 1.8A and not necessarily on an individual LED bulb basis. And most will claim a lower draw than the stock (non-LED) product.