LED Replacement for Halogen Headlights

[Pennhaven]

Does anyone have experience with replacing the H7 & H3B bulbs in our stock (non-HID) headlights with the LED bulbs that are widely available online.

They seem like they might be a good idea; i.e., if they improve output while drawing lower wattage, last longer, and provide a whiter (higher Kelvin°) light.

In addition to light output, my concerns would be the tight fit for accessing the connectors on our vehicles, CANbus errors, and whether using load resistors if necessary to eliminate CANbus errors, pretty much offsets the power savings from the LEDs.

Any experience or thoughts please.

[Willy]

I can't help you and I don"t know if it applies for car lighting, but it may be useful to read this
when you go shopping for LED headlights, it's about a color temperature (medical) issue:
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/21/he...eetlights-ama/
Willy

[billr99]

Don't waste your time. I experimented with a set of H7 LED bulbs and although the 5000K light looked bright (to the extent of getting flashed during daylight), the bulbs did not come close to producing the necessary lumens. That is, the things were dangerous to actually use at night as they threw next to no light onto the road. I also tried a HID conversion which did OK for lumens but produced so much light scatter with the stock headlamp lens they were dangerous for oncoming traffic.

Bottom line here is that higher Kelvin means nothing as far as actual usability of LED lights. If they can't produce something around the 1500 lumens range, then you might as run stock bulbs. I did change the H7s over to a "rallye" version that is spec'd at something closer to 2000 lumens and that is what I would suggest if you want a better usable light.

Cheers,

Bill

[Pennhaven]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Good info.

I'm already using the 65W Rallye H7s.

Just curious whether there was anything better, with lower current draw and longer life, but it seems not.

[goldxc70]

... would be the tight fit for accessing the connectors on our vehicles ...

Say it ain't so! Last week I had to change passenger side low beam bulb. While I had no problem getting the blown bulb out and the replacement in, it was taking way too long to put the cover back on - until I realized I was trying to turn it the wrong way. Duh!

[Willy]

Taking the right turns in life is not unimportant

[MacNoob]

Related: at one point I "updated" halogen lights (on another car) with "super bright" halogens.

They WERE super-bright, to the point that you couldn't look the car in the eyes. Threw no light on the road whatsoever though.

I looked at the (very inexpensive, asian-made) bulbs and the filaments were in a completely different position than the originals - not near the focus of the reflector at all.

Very cheap and poor copies they were. Can't help but think the LEDs might have similar disregard for proper design and engineering.

[billr99]

Can't help but think the LEDs might have similar disregard for proper design and engineering.

At least with the LED bulbs I've seen out on eBay, there is no way that they are designed to place the light source only at the point of focus. They are made almost like corncobs, with the LEDS just placed all over a cylinder. It looks like what they are after is based on the hype of getting the most LEDS possible on a cylinder of a certain size. The ones I had had something like 18 with 4 rows of 4 and 2 LEDs at the very end of the cylinder. Visually, I thought the bulbs produced even more glare than a H7 HID conversion as a result of the light sources being all over the place.

The somewhat unfortunate bottom line here is that automotive lighting is a highly engineered bit of kit with the lens and/or reflectors designed to optimize what light the bulb produces in a way that adheres to the various auto lighting regs around the world. I remember back in the '70s when the trick update was to buy e-Code lights that utilized the H4 or H1 bulbs. But that mod tossed the entire sealed beam light and simply replaced it with a properly design e-Code light, housing, reflector and bulb. And some jurisdictions didn't like them at all (like Cincinnati that would fail the car inspection if the lamp produced too much light per their gear that tested light alignment). Trying to throw more light onto the road utilizing today's existing lamps with only different bulbs that don't even consider where the light source should be in regard to the design of the whole lamp is futile. In my view, the only answer is to either gut the existing housings and install some type of projector lamp or use add-on auxiliary lamps which have their own issues as far as integrating into the design of the front end of the car. Just one more aspect of car design that has more or less been locked down to adhere to regulation and style criteria with no easy way to make it better.

Cheers,

Bill

[Pennhaven]

At least with the LED bulbs I've seen out on eBay, there is no way that they are designed to place the light source only at the point of focus. They are made almost like corncobs, with the LEDS just placed all over a cylinder. It looks like what they are after is based on the hype of getting the most LEDS possible on a cylinder of a certain size. The ones I had had something like 18 with 4 rows of 4 and 2 LEDs at the very end of the cylinder. Visually, I thought the bulbs produced even more glare than a H7 HID conversion as a result of the light sources being all over the place.

Yeah, I wouldn't consider the earlier multi-small-LED versions for headlight use, but now there are H7 & H3 replacements with larger more powerful bilateral/quadrilateral LEDs positioned closer to where the halogen filament would be, at least somewhat near the focal point point of the reflector. That's what got me interested in this.

[Willy]

The bulbs offered in the link all seem to have an ultra high color temperature!