LED Headlight bulbs

[Colin Ross]

Has anybody replaced their stock headlight bulbs with LED ones?
8473

[vtl]

No. Why? Give a try to Philips CrystalVision Ultra.

[billr99]

Has anybody replaced their stock headlight bulbs with LED ones?
8473

I tried some H7-configured ones and although they look bright, not unlike all these LED-based DRLs you are seeing now, they don't throw any light out onto the road. In fact, they were dangerously dim. If you can get the specs on these things, you will notice that the lumens are 2/3 of what a normal 55w halogen are. Its lumens that you need to see down the road. Now if you are looking for colour, I guess they will work; but if you want to see better at night, don't bother with these things.

Cheers,

Bill

[vtl]

Other thing to mention in a cold climate: LED lights don't heat up headlights. Ice/snow is not melting in the winter, moisture is not dried.

[Colin Ross]

There are quite a few different ones out there. Most list colour temperature (usually around 6-6500 K) but not usually lumens. Some that do list lumens show in the 3000 range as compared to the standard GE 1860L range.
I use almost entirely LED at home and like the longevity and power saving.
I was thinking that replacing the H7 Low beam would reduce the pain in the ass replacement of them and I would like brighter high beam HB3s. I do use high end HB3 Ultras which are fairly bright but want something that gives me a bit more warning for wildlife up here. (moose and deer)
I may just go with a set of driving lights.

[nickbw]

Rocking horse ****.

[Reverend]

Another problem with these is that they're not engineered to the precise alignment (and physically can't be) for the halogen/HID reflectors, so it'll always be a poor light/beam pattern and you'll see worse than with good bulbs.

[pbierre]

I agree with Reverend. If you look carefully at the optics of the headlamp design, designed for a halogen-incandescent-filiament bulb, the tungsten filament provides a tiny spot of very intense light (too bright to look at). The reflective mirror behind this spot transforms the point source into a nearly parallel beam.
There is a metal obscuration disk in front of the bulb to keep the spot from blinding other drivers -- they should only be seeing light from the reflector.
The mechanical positioning of the halogen bulb is a critical part of the optical design....the bulb must be seated properly, or the spot will be off-axis, warping the beam shape.

Given this optical design cohesion around the original halogen bulb, you cannot easily adapt an LED bulb to these optics. The result is a puny level of directional lux, and incorrect beam shape. You would have to redesign the entire headlamp optics to make it work with a LED source.