1. First and most important, the LED lamps chosen should be of the highest quality. Design sophistication, ruggedness both of structure and electronics, protection from voltage spikes and electromagnetic interference, lens design, mounting design, etc., make a huge difference in lighting performance and lamp longevity.
There are significantly different levels of quality among various lamp designs and among suppliers themselves. The lamps may look the same initially, but often they don’t perform the same.
2. The quality of the LED diodes themselves varies tremendously and so do their life expectancy. Low quality LEDs fall out of spec more quickly and start to dim unevenly or just burn out.
In addition, the electronics within bargain lamps do not stand up as well to the vibration, corrosion and rigors of the highway environment, causing them to fail much more quickly.
3. Another issue is the integrity of the harness and the connections both within the harness and between the harness and the lamps. When you invest in LED technology, you want to protect your investment by selecting an entire lighting system as reliable as the LED lamps themselves.
Thus, both the design of the connectors and the number of connections is a concern.
There are different connection designs in the marketplace today and their resistance to corrosion varies because the designs of the seals between lamp and harness have different characteristics. Pick a harness system that doesn’t force you to make spliced repair or modification connections.
LED lamp technology can outlast the trailers it is installed on, so it does little good to source the best lamps and mate them to a connection system that allows corrosion to cause system failure regardless of the quality of the lamps.
