What about 10mm LED's? Are they brighter than 5mm?

[c58rider]

I am planning on making my own LED aray to illuminate an instument cluster.  The aray will be inside of the cluster but not shining directly on the instrument faces.  The inside of the cluster is white which originally reflected the light from 3 little 12v incandecents on to the faces.  I know how I'm going to replace the orig. bulbs with leds, but I am so confused on which LEDs to use.  I know about the viewing angles and in my case would benifit from a wider angle, but what about size?  or mcd's? How many of what type would I need to equal the brightness of the 12v incandecent?  I hope Im making sense here, anyone who can help me a bit, thank you in advance. 

I plan on using blue leds and red leds (switched, per color choice).

Thanks again...

[justDIY]

i dont think you'll have much luck finding "superbright" or "ultrabright" varieties of the jumbo 10mm leds ... they are out there, used mainly in commerical "super size" video screens, but i haven't found a decent source for them 'al la carte' online.   Brightest i've found is 4000mcd, which is about the same as most common red superbrights in 5mm sizes.  For best illumination by reflection, I'd go with diffused LEDs instead of the water-clear, and the broadest viewing angle you can find ... so they work like flood lights.

10mm leds:
http://www.bgmicro.com/prodinfo.asp?prodid=LED1086
http://www.bgmicro.com/prodinfo.asp?prodid=LED1088

if you only want the option of Red or Blue, look into a multi-color LED ... i found a red/blue combo at lsdiodes

http://www.lsdiodes.com/multi-color/

or you could use some RGB leds, and have a switch that selects Red, Blue or White

[Rob]

I tend to agree with everything justDIY says above, and I'll add that if you find the LED that has the color, brightness, and price you like, but the view angle is too narrow, you can scuff the case with fine grit sandpaper to get a more diffused pattern.

5mm seems to be the case size that offers the most choices right now.

How many of what type would I need to equal the brightness of the 12v incandecent? I hope Im making sense here, anyone who can help me a bit, thank you in advance.

It's tougher to answer that without knowing more about what's there, but for illuminating a gauge, anything over about 5000mcd should be pretty bright. But just to make you aware, the narrower the beam angle, the higher the mcd rating (for equal amounts of light flux). So don't get tricked ny the specs.

Check this out as well:
http://led.linear1.org/how-do-i-convert-between-candelas-and-lumens/
It may help you make some sense out of ratings.

And welcome to the boards.