LED or neon?

 

LED

 

LED ftw durable, brighter, better

or custom cold cathodes like Addiction if you want a project

 

LEDs are better, brighter, and more eye-catching... just invest in a good set. I bought a kit from a company that shall remain nameless (I refuse to promote them lol) and they had huge "hot spots" where the lights shined (shone? It's after midnight... please excuse my spelling and grammar lol) down, and almost no ambient glow. I'd go with a streetglow or liteglow kit.

Oh, and like Flip said, they're more durable... I wrecked my civic last summer (it wasn't a bad accident... the only real damage was that my bumper got bent/cracked and my cone filter came off (don't ask how)... not to mention the tragic loss of an LED underlight tube). Case in point: after having a good 1/3 of the car's weight resting on the front underlight, the LED's still worked (but the tubing was broken into about 30 pieces, so I tookall the tubesoff and replaced the kit lol)...

 

these things are ridiculously durable. For example:

This summer on my way to a party, we drove through a field (no road, just a striaght up field) and i went over a bump and my car bottomed out. The tubes cracked, and one of the LEDs burned out on each side. The rest of the LEDs kept workin perfectly and there isnt even a hotspot with the missing LED.

And to add to that, i still have the cracked tubes under there, so the LEDs are compltely exposed to the salt, rain, and snow, and they ALL still work perfectly. I was under my car when it was up on a lift and there was snow and moisture and salt EVERYWHER inside the tube, but i siwthced the underbodyLEDs on an they all shone perfectly. haha its pretty amazing actually

(I should really stop being lazy and replace the cracked tubes though eh? )

 

LEDs are more versatile too. Multi colour, chasing lights, all that kind of jazz. I was looking at ordering an underbody neon and the site was disclaiming that something like 50% of neons are damaged in the post let alone under a car, compaired to no problems with the LEDs.

 

I guess I am the only one who prefers Neon to LED, Mine are bright enough and I like the constant glow look, instead of the dot together look, but on a Civic the car is low enough to where you probably wouldn't notice a difference. My buddy had a truck with LEDs and you couldn't really see them that well.

 

good point. It's because the neon tubes (inside the glass tubing) are fragile, too. LED's on the other hand, don't have the fragile tubes inside them. Well, that and the fact that LED's are borderline indestructable (Flip and I can both testify for that one lol).

Oh, yeah... there's two things I forgot to mention:
1) LED's have much, much longer operating lives compared to neon. Neon burns out after a while, as far as I know
2) LED's are directional: you can point them where you want them to shine

 

+10 LED

 

man i can totally see your point. with LEDs you have to aim that how you wat, and smetimes you get hotspots, but neons are sooo fragile is really difficult to have them under your car. For under the dash and in the trunk, i can see neons, but if your gonna do that, why not just go cold cathodes? cold cathodes are as bright as LEDs (or brighter), but you dont need to aim them, light comes out in every direction, just like neons. www.oznium.com if you're interested

still, under the car LEDs ftw, just becase you almost CANT break them haha