LED headlamp bulbs...
Discussion
90% of aftermarket bulbs are s
t. And they're fitted st. But people want the 'new look' for their car. The other 10% that are well fitted and adjusted are absolutely fine. But, from an aftermarket bulb, you'll likely never see the effectiveness of an OEM LED unit; less range, sharper cut off, less intensity all while blinding oncoming drivers.. But some halogens are dangerously dim too...Volvo C30 I'm looking at you.
t. And they're fitted st. But people want the 'new look' for their car. The other 10% that are well fitted and adjusted are absolutely fine. But, from an aftermarket bulb, you'll likely never see the effectiveness of an OEM LED unit; less range, sharper cut off, less intensity all while blinding oncoming drivers.. But some halogens are dangerously dim too...Volvo C30 I'm looking at you.Mr2Mike said:
And significantly less light output.
No, way way more output. The pics don't do dit justice. But it's not just the output, it's the smoothness and even illumination of the beam that also make a big difference.The halogen is a Nightbreakers, so about as high output as you get from a 55w halogen. The LEDs light up the area significantly better in person. And mainbeam is in a different league, like running a set of aux spot lamps.
A regular H4 halogen won't light up both elements for main beam, so you loose the light immediately in front of the vehicle. The LEDs could maintain the dip beam profile and then add the main beam too.
TBH I wasn't expecting such a good result from the LEDs, but I thought I'd give them a go.
The pic makes the halogen look at least twice as good as the eye see's it and the LED in person looks way better than the photo.
These are the same bulbs, but in some different halogen lamps. Not quite as smooth a beam as the other lamps I posted above, but still a smoother beam over halogens in the same lamps.
Again, way better illumination, but again note how good and sharp the beam cut off is. No glare for on coming drivers, but much better road illumination for you.
Edited by 300bhp/ton on Friday 28th April 10:32
Finlandia said:
What are LEDs like in projector lenses? On my RHD car I bought aftermarket LHD projector lights with H7 fitments, but the light output is not to my liking, so thinking about going the H7 LED route.
Again this will depend on the actual lamps in question and how they achieve their beam profile. And what sort of bulbs you go for.The biggest advice I can give is. Go and learn up about LEDs. The bulbs I bought (H4 fitment) where for the single fact that they used Cree XM-L2 LEDs. Something I know well from the flashlight/torch world. The design of the bulbs also meant that the light source closely matched that of a halogen.
Many LED bulbs use crappy LEDs that will never make the claimed outputs and especially not on the claimed amp draw.
Anything COB led is likely to be rubbish. They generally don't make the lumens, have a huge surface area and the wrong light distribution. And more often than not, a very blue coloured tint and very low CRI.
The XM-L2 Leds I mention, they are cool white (shame they aren't neutral white). But they generally have acceptable CRI, probably in the 70-80 range.
That all said and done, any purchase is going to be a bit of potluck and trail & error. Make an informed judgement before you buy, then test out. If they are no good, return to the seller stating they are not fit for use.
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