The BLF Automotive Car LED headlights, results, opinions and beamshots!

lol, I wondered how long till someone caught that.

The funny thing is, if the beam could be created equal to the normal bulbs, an XM-L2 is capable of almost double a normal bulb lumens (most normal 60w bulbs are between 700-800 lumens).

The XHP70 is really about perfect for a headlight.

Wellp, both my cars’ headlight assemblies are closed chambers, with dust-caps covering the area where you’d grab the sockets to change the bulbs. I suspect most cars with similar assemblies are the same.

So “heat sock” or not, fan or not, the internal temperature of the chamber would quickly rise, no? Any long trip would have the chamber heating up, not be able to shed heat, then the LED would heat up, too.

I LED-ised pretty much everything else in my car, even all the rear lights (tail, brake, reverse, turn), and some brands (eg, JDM Astar) are fantastic.

Headlights, though? Too high-strung for me to trust them.

Plus, filament placement is critical, and the optics designed specifically for them. Even a high-strung L or L2 are squares set off from the center-axis, not a small coil of wire that’s perfectly placed.

So what good is 2000lm if half of them go, well, other than where they’re supposed to?

Dunno, I’d love LED headlights, but to me the tek is still flawed.

Yeah, that’s the problem with most LED retrofit bulbs, including the ones my friend bought. To get the most out of the emitters, they need to be matched to a reflector (or projector lens) made for LEDs, not made for a hot wire.

Pretty much all the heat from an LED goes out the base and into the mcpcb. The inside of the light would heat up but should cool off fairly quick due to airflow. The real heat issue are the 150+ degrees temps in the engine bay.

I also swapped out all my other lights to LED’s many years ago, so far they have worked great and no complaints. I am sure they have improved a lot though since then (around 2008-9 I would guess).

Some lights kick ass. Those JDMs in back (red tail/brake/turn) are even brighter than the 40W (vs usual 32W) 3357s I was running in back.

The yellow turns in my other car are about as bright, but are more saturated vs NA (natural amber) bulbs. It’s a more “pure” light.

I ain’t ever going back…

I’ve owned my car for 3 years. I put in those LED lights months into ownership, so actually those LED lights have been in my car for at least 2 years. There’s 3 cars in the family, and they all use the same design LED lights. None has failed. They work as they did since day one, day in day out, summer and winter.

We took a 3000 mile road trip recently and the lights stood up to long stretches of driving. Heat generated by the LEDs are transferred via the metal tube they sit on to the back of the ‘bulb’, where it’s transferred to the 4 copper ribbons for dissipation.

Despite everyone’s concern about heat, all I can tell you is that it works fine, for months or years now, in multiple cars, in all seasons. Either this design is great, or Philips makes some tough, tough LEDs.

Lights are no brighter than factory halogen but acceptable. They look cool, and make my cars look cool. Let me know if I miss anything.

That explains things. If they are only putting out say ~1000 lumens then that is only around ~10W worth of power. That should be easily manageable with the setup you showed. A lot of the lights I have looked at say they are ~4000 lumens and ~30w (which is about right and what I would expect.). That is another ballgame and much harder to cool down.

Honestly? Do an H11 to H9 conversion, and be happy. 55W goes up to 65W, and you get almost double the lumenage, with whiter light.

Oh, and 100CRI.

Whiter but still no match for the 6000-6500K of LED. If I care for night stadium level of lighting, I would go with HID. I’m perfectly contented with my setup and if this set ever fails, I’d go with the same lights again.

Ewww.

Umm, sorry. But I’m hard-pressed to do CW in a flashlight, nfw would I get CW headlights if I had any choice in the matter.

4000K-4500K would be about my limit for headlights.

I’ve seen those “bug-eye” LED headlights in some newer cars. Ugh.

“C’mon, man, look how white they are!!”

“Umm, ya mean how blue they are??”

Naw, no thanks.

Maybe if they at least come out with high-CRI lights, or better yet, run 219Bs or something…

Do you think sunlight is blue as well?

In daytime, yeah, kinda. It’s noticeable on white objects that are indirectly lit (eg, in shade).

At night, 6500K is kinda hideous. Browns and reds are muted, take on a dull grayish quality. So out in the sticks, watching for brown things like trees, deer, etc, they’ll look muted. Red stop-signs will also look dull.

Warmer lights bring out those colors and make them “pop”. They’re just more vivid.

Can someone help me out here? Before anyone sends me hate mail, know that I love LED as much as everybody else here. My whole house is converted, and has been for 3 years or so. I surely believe in the merits of LED’s. But what would one gain by converting automotive headlights to LED?

Halogen last quite some time during normal usage.

The decreased power consumption of LED is really a non-issue in an automotive application.

The negatives really seem to outweigh the positives here. Such as:

Heat dissipation
Cost
Reflector placement/design issues

Again don’t kill me for asking, but I’ve been curious about this for quite some time.

Basically they would have more light output and a better color temp then Halogen.

Take for example proper HID’s vs Halogen. There is no comparison in the beam. It is soooo much nicer to drive with good HID’s over normal Halogen, there is simply 4-5x as much light on the road and a better beam as well.

LED’s are simply the next step, they do reduce the power consumption, although this is not a big deal in this case.

They have better CRI in most cases then HID but the real benefit is the instant on of the LED’s compared to the HID and (assuming you can keep the heat in check) the much longer lifespan.

A well designed LED should last the life of the car.

I don’t mind HID but the warm up time and inability to “flash” them is rather annoying.

Stock Halogen is around ~700-800 lumens compared to an HID of around 3000 lumens and LED of 4000. Pretty easy to see why they would be better for driving at 60mph+.

Oh, no hate coming your way scotlarock. You BLF Michigan high powered flashlight toting human! :sunglasses: That is a good question. I scratch my head a little, but that’s ok.

You have been to, or seen pictures of a race track, correct? It’s there that humans take things several step further, than the desk sitting accountants, insurance executives, and corporate leaders. It is there that HP and performance are taken to the edge, to see just where that edge is.

This ‘edge’ can be found in countless fields of endeavor. Whether it be Guns, Slingshots >

Race cars, Flashlights, Knives, Chainsaws, Lawnmowers, Tractors, etc. The sky is the limit, if you have to passion for it.

- “But what would one gain by converting automotive headlights to LED?”

Just one example could be, that some people drive in Iowa, where the Deer seemingly come out of nowhere, in the dark of the evening. :wink:
If one does not drive at this time of the day, for instance. Then I can see why they would not imagine needing anything with more performance.

Some people never leave the city, and cannot even remember when the last time was, that they had their headlights on high beam. Different strokes, for different folks, in different locations and circumstances.

Then there is a group of people who like to keep up, or live on or near, the cutting edge of Tech. Whether it be the latest and greatest in Flashlights, Smartphones, LED Headlights, Batteries, Electric Cars, Cameras, etc. It’s just a matter of, what’s next?

At one point in time. Many people were perfectly happy with sealed beam headlights too. Now we can simply twist out a Halogen or LED light, quickly and effortlessly. Changing out for Color, CRI, Lumen Count, Burnt Out, etc.

What’s next? Some people are part of ‘What’s next’. Some people find out that same day, or the following day. While other people find out months or years later.

A detailed look at the performance of the 2017 Cadillac XT5’s LED headlight system.
Published on Aug 17, 2016
03:45 minutes

- “Can we just get vehicles with decent headlights?”

Only one out of 31 midsize cars studied by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, had headlights it considered “good,” according to its study recently released.

“Contrary to what people might think, poor headlight performance is not exclusive to cheaper cars. IIHS found that many of the industry’s luxury midsize cars perform just as poorly as mainstream models, or even worse, with a luxury BMW model posting the lowest score.”

It’s more than a convenience problem, writes Nathan Bomey, of USA Today. Visibility issues create a safety hazard, ranging from excessive glare to insufficient illumination.

Taken directly from the USA Today article >

“With about half of traffic deaths occurring either in the dark or in dawn or dusk conditions, improved headlights have the potential to bring about substantial reductions in fatalities,” IIHS said.

John Whiteside, 54, of Rock Hill, Calif., said excessive glare from oncoming vehicles is a big problem when he drives his 2002 Toyota Camry. “I have to literally turn my head a little bit to look away,” Whiteside said. “It can blind you.”

The study also brought attention to the fact that U.S. auto-safety regulators have left headlight regulations largely untouched for a half century, thus prohibiting certain new technologies that would light the roadway better while reducing glare.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, responding to the IIHS report, noted that its proposed overhaul of its five-star safety ratings will depend partially on vehicles’ use of lower-beam headlights, semi-automatic beam switching and amber rear turn signal lights — technologies that are supposed to improve visibility for the driver and other motorists.

“Basically, we agree headlights can and should be stronger,” NHTSA spokesman Bryan Thomas said.

Since it’s the auto industry, there are often many different headlight options available through various packages on vehicles. So IIHS evaluated every possible combination in several scenarios, including traveling straight, veering left sharply or gradually and veering right sharply or gradually.

After assessing 82 possible combinations in 31 vehicles, the non-profit said only one — the Toyota Prius v with the highest trim level — qualified as “good.” That light combo is available only with the advanced technology package, which includes LED lights and high-beam assist. The standard model, which comes with halogen lights and no high-beam assist, gets a poor rating.

Eleven models’ best option qualified as “acceptable,” while nine were “marginal” and 10 were “poor.”

If want to read more of this article, you can find it here > https://usat.ly/2sEcDDL

Hang on… PM hatemail on the way… :smiley:

Not the best, especially if you switch to harder-driven filaments like the H9, but not terribly inconvenient, either.

You never lost an alternator on a long trip, have ya?

I literally got back to the end of my block and was just trying to back up maybe 50yds before everything just upped and croked on me.

Then again, I was running 90W/130W H4s in 4×6 format lights…

For headlights, absolutely.

Especially the last one. What good is it to throw twice the lumens as the original filament, only to have most of them scatter and be lost, or worse, throw light where they shouldn’t. Think of glare to oncoming cars, getting tickets, etc.

All the other LEDs I put into my cars, at least match and in most cases outperform the stock hotwire bulbs. Side-markers are as bright as I can get ’em (and still fit), turns/tails/backups are all brighter than the original bulbs.

Then again, they’re meant to scatter light in a wider swath, for maximum visibility. So just go for power. As I mentioned, I had great luck with the JDMs I’m using, and “standard” 194s in yellow and red can be had which are way brighter than (filtered) hotwire 194s.

My only complaint about “dual filament” LED bulbs (xx57 replacements) is that the difference between low and high is a paltry 3:1, so parking lights are wonderfully bright, but turn signals are only a smidge brighter, visually. I’d rather have them turn down the low setting to have maybe a 10:1 difference, so that the turn signals will stand out more.

The H9 is only 65W and belts out around 2100lm, and the filament is exactly in the same position as the H11.

My headlights have the built-in shields in front of the bulbs, so there’s no danger in doing the swap.

3100K, 2100lm, only 10W more than stock? I’ll take it!

Best of all, they look like stock bulbs at a quick glance. Nothing to attract unwanted attention…

I put leds headlights in my reflector based housings and got a huge increase in output (like 4x) along with the factory beam pattern. Here’s how:

Here is a similar conversion on my H4 bulbed bike.

https://vfr.bikersoracle.com/index.php?threads/led-headlight-bulb-upgrade.132095/

The key to getting a good pattern is this:

It’s been about a year since I converted my car and some of the LEDs are starting to fail (I drive a ton at night) so I switched back to Silverstar 9007s and they absolutely suck! I can’t tell they are on most of the time and they are so yellow. :confounded:

Now I am on the hunt for some 2017 model lights. I’ve ordered 3 kits so far. The first was supposed to use Philips Luxeon ZES chips, but they used something different. A quick lux measurement at 18” with my old led lights, Real Luxeon showed 2500 lumen lux, while the new ones showed 600 lumen (same visable brightness to my Silverstar as I drove around with one each in my car so I could compare them). Horrible. I sent them back. Hopefully the next 2 sets will be better.

I will try and answer many of the questions mentioned in above posts as soon as I get time.