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

+1
AND i am in with 1 motobike and two cars
Pls put me down on the list!

Great thanks for your effort, I really appreciate it :beer:

A little update. I decided to add some rtv silicone between the plastic and metal pieces where they are at 45*. After sitting up 12 hours they are semi glued together. Tight enough so the metal bulb won’t rotate or wiggle out over time messing up the beam pattern. I should still be able to twist it loose with some muscle if I ever need to later on.

I finally got to drive with them tonight and I was surprised by the color temp. My old set of leds were CW and had a definite hint of blue that kinda washed out colors. This set doesn’t have any blue in it, no yellow either. I wouldn’t call it NW, but it’s a very nice CW. Colors seem more accurate. I like it a lot. I’ll try and get some pictures soon that show the colors accurately.

Here they are installed.

Since heat is a concern when it comes to a long lifespan, I was thinking of adding some small air scoops from behind my grill to the braided copper heatsinks. It couldn’t hurt.

I’m really liking the color temp of these bulbs.

Here are some pictures. My camera added extra color, so I had to reduce the color saturation to get them more realistic. It’s definetly cool white, but there’s not much blue, if any. A nice improvement over my last set of lights that also used the Luxeon chips.

Green colors are a bit faded, but not too bad.

Nice! Thanks for the beam shots!

I also have a theory about the 9007 bulbs. With HID lights the manufacturer designs the inner, electrical part to be very generic, then slaps different mounts (the black plastic pieces) on it. It’s possible these lights I’m using right now were designed to 9008/h13 specs then they slapped a 9007 mount on it. It saves them a lot of money compared to making a dedicated 9007 light. It would explain the length and led arraignment.

9008 is a newer style and is probably in higher demand.

You can even see the high beam is moved back a little like the 2 led kits I got.

Here is the 9008:

Here is the 9007 in the middle.

Here is a 9007 next to 9008. These are hid (only pics I could find), but you can see that the 9008 bulbs light source is about 4mm lower.

I put these in two of my vehicles as reverse lights. They are definitely much brighter than the stock incandescents.

I’d prefer a neutral tint, but these are certainly tolerable and not ‘angry blue.’ They even have a 1-year warranty.

When parking head-first in a dark area, they still surprise me with a bright flash while moving the shifter into park. :smiley:

Thanks again to ‘Lightbringer’ for pointing me toward the JDM ASTAR bulbs. :+1:

Yes, they represent. <hand-thing>

Okay, you guys talked me into trying the JDM Astar 194 bulbs.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01DE7UC6C/ref=pd_aw_sim_263_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=4CGK20HXKHCJ8KAP5ZEV&dpPl=1&dpID=71q-cHpteqL

Theres a ton of great reviews on them. I’ll let you guys know how they work out.

Well, you’ve convinced me to try the eBay LED headlights you modified. :smiley:

I also just ordered enough JDM ASTAR bulbs to swap all the other exterior lamps on one vehicle.

I’ll change all the bulbs on one side and report back with some photos comparing stock incans and LEDs.

:+1:

I ordered This package of 10 bulbs in 194 size.

My reactions are a bit mixed. On one hand, they ARE a bit brighter than stock, but the big color change is something I haven’t got used to yet. I have a gray interior and I’m just so used to the yellow incandescent bulbs. These leds are listed as 6,000k xenon white. They are definitely on the cooler side of white. I think this is one area where I would prefer some leds in a NW color temp. Something in between the stock warm and these very cool white. Just like with led headlights, your not gonna find these in NW tints. Maybe I can find a tinted film to add? Idk. Maybe in time I’ll get used to it.

Edit: In some other brands I see they offer warm white led bulbs in 194. Maybe if I keep looking I can find a NW.

Update

Let me update my opinion of these bulbs. They are a LOT brighter than stock. Now that I’ve gotten out of my driveway and are using them in normal situations, I’m surprised everytime time I open my door. It’s like a blast of light. Lol. Its very easy to tell they are much brighter than incandescent bulbs.

The color is also fine. I’m starting to get used to the new color. Before I would have given these a 4 out of 5 star rating, but now I’d say they are 5 out of 5. :+1:

I didn’t take any pictures, but I did go through all 450 reviews and snatched up some pictures that I felt are really representative and show the differences well. You can see they are a bit brighter than incandescent. Not a whole lot brighter, but a bit more.

These bulbs use 3 leds each and the mounting arrangement seems to give pretty good coverage. The base is a bit thicker than a 194, so you have to push it in a bit harder. The overall size is a good match for 194’s so they will fit just about anywhere a 194 fits. They are not polarity sensitive so you can just stick them in and they work. I don’t know if they are “error free” as my car is older and doesn’t monitor that stuff.

90% of the low star reviews are from people using the online compatibility software instead of actually looking at what size bulbs they need then complaining they don’t fit. You can’t fault the bulbs for that. So make sure you get the size you need.

Overall they are a great value at 10 bulbs for $13. I’m not sure about the shipping costs as I got them as an Amazon Prime member and got shipping for free.

If you need some lights that are way brighter than stock, JDM Astar make these.

These are 2 bulbs for $11, but one reviewer said they are not very cool in color, more like 4300k temperature. Since I have 2 bulbs for dome lights, I may try these out. These should have the biggest effect on the interior color. My other bulbs are for floor illumination and they can stay as is.

These look bigger than 194 size.

If you’re not terribly interested in high-brightness, Fasttech has a whole bunch of NW “bulbs”. I went nuts and ordered a minimum of 2 of each for my tag-lights, just to try them all.

For that (tag-lights), I actually don’t want brighter, in fact dimmer would be better. Just don’t like the appearance of a billboard on the back of my car…

Anyway, I did find one set that’s got a single 5050 NW on it, which I’m using now. Still lights up the plate just fine, but is a great match for my car’s shade of white (“diamond white”; not eyeball-searing paper-white like most white cars are, and not mayonnaise-yellow like a Chrysler 300). Beautiful match, just ever so slightly off-white.

https://www.fasttech.com/p/3267500 or probably these https://www.fasttech.com/p/3278100 are the ones.

For interior lighting, I went with WW. Where they’d fit, I used Amazon.com , which are quite nice. Where I couldn’t fit the extra length (map lights, etc.), I used Amazon.com , also nice, but not quite as bright.

For most exterior lighting, I’m okay with CW. I like those 800lm CW JDMs that I’m running now for backup-lights. Didn’t replace the lights on the underside of the doors (puddle-lights), etc. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t, but I got ’em if I do.

Hate when people do that.

Also hate those emails Amazon sends me, “Can you answer this question?” when the question is something like “Will these bulbs fit my —make— and —model— car?”. Uhhh, how’bout you look at the light first and see what form factor it is, first??

I try to stay away from “canbus” lights except in those rare cases when I absolutely need them, because they have those resistors in the base just to burn off extra current (as heat!!).

Map-lights, puddle-lights, footwell-lights, glovebox-lights… who needs canbus?? Only really for exterior lighting do you need them to not throw errors.

Oh, and this is what pisses me off. Everyone hawks those 6Ω resistors for turn-signals and the like. Uhhh, those’re burning over 2A!! Even with NO bulb installed, it won’t throw an error.

For my turn-signals, the LED bulbs are juuuuuuust under the threshold for throwing an error. Sometimes in cold weather it won’t even do that (coin-toss whether/not it does). So I got a bunch of 25Ω resistors to only cook off an extra half-amp or less, just to nudge it over that threshold. And if something happens to the LED bulb, it will still throw an error.

Hmm, trust random feedback saying they’re NW, or the printed spex and all the pix saying CW…?

I went with all WW, like those 5050s I pointed to in the previous post. Black leather interior, I just like the “warmth”.

My other car actually has a grayish-beige interior where WW would probably look nice, too, but I already did it in CW, which is all that was available at the time.

Yeah, 194, 921, W5W, T-whatever… they pretty much all fit the same base, but have different bulb sizes and lumenage.

Hmm.

I have these as leftovers:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/72W-12000LM-Auto-LED-Headlights-Kit-H7-H4-with-Hi-lo-Beam-High-Power-led-bulbs/32762912107.html?spm=2114.13010608.0.0.Ym4NYg

I tested them. They put IMO more lumens out the front than regular incan bulbs but:

- are cooler in color

- lose about 30-40% in lux compared to GOOD quality H7 incan.

- need space behind the actual headlight

- turning the bulb itself affects the beam (you must tune it)

  • I have the sort of “lens optic” in my headlights, not sure how it comes out in a traditional reflector

Hit me a PM guys, if somebodys in need to test these :slight_smile:

So that’s all they do to trick the monitoring system? Bah.

I have looked at one of these close up, do you think the extra resistor can be removed or does it also drop down the voltage to the led?

On my car I’ve only got 4 interior lights. 2 are in the front floorboards and are no big deal as far as color or brightness.

The other 2 are in front of the sunroof and shine left and right. These are the ones I need to focus on. The color temp of these, originally 906, effect the interior color. They can also shine in your face. I may build something special for them. Either a mirrored shield (aluminum tape) to keep it out of my eyes or take a led bulb apart and re-aim all the leds forward and to the side. I might could take a single emitter bulb and extend the base with wires then mount it facing the direction I want. I’ll need to think about some more.

I want to do my girlfriends car she has a 2014 corolla and her parents live in the country and we go and see them a bit i have an older car so we take hers usually. The light are stock H11 Phillips halogens horrible output maybe like 600-800 lumens max? I am looking at convtering from H11 to H9 for now unless i can find a LED kit that is more NW. Here the cops are strict with headlight tints your now aloud HID/ LED conversions unless they are stock from factory. Most HID i see here are really bad even from factory on cars very high in kelvin like 8000-1000k some are blue/purple and create a lot of glare.

I may leave the lights stock or just get better H11s and just put a light bar on the car they can be legally used in certain situations. Country driving being one of them. I like the idea of the H9 being around 2100 lumens and the H11 are supposed to be 1000 lumens stock and only 10watts difference in power consumption.

That’s it. The bulb is supposed to draw, say, 3A? Set your threshold to, say, 2A. Anything less probably means the bulb is out. So if your LEDs draw 1A, you need to pull at least another 1A to put it over that threshold. Preferably more if you want to be “safe”.

So you splice an external resistor across the wires, or you burn up at least that much heat on the board itself.

One notable exception is the Mini Cooper. Those will occasionally throw an error even if the bulb is still lit! If your bulb is supposed to draw 3A, as the bulb ages and is on its way out, the thinner filament will have a higher resistance and draw less current, say, 2.8A. So you “preemptively” set your threshold to 2.9A to get to the bulb before it goes “pouf!”, even if that annoying error indicates that the “bad” bulb is the one that’s still lit.

Nah, you can desolder them, or as I’ve seen, dremel them out like a bad cavity.

And resistors. Like parallelled chip-resistors on cheap-ass driver boards, there are usually a few resistors in parallel doing the dirty work.

Map lights? Unless you go driving with them on, it shouldn’t be a problem, should it?

I’ve got a “console” of switches in front of the sunroof, controls for the sunroof itself and sunshade, doodads for a programmable garage-door opener, other stuff. I’ve seen lights in that area, which I’m guessing is what you’ve got.

Hmm. Depending if the bulbs are loaded sideways, or socket-up, might make a diff. If sideways, not much you can do. if socket-up, you can get a low-profile bulb with a top-firing emitter, and use the “hole” it goes into to be its own natural shield.

Lookit these:

https://www.fasttech.com/p/3278100

Won’t be as bright as “bright” bulbs, but they’re sure low-profile!

H9s have the filaments in the same exact position as H11s, but are way brighter. No need to tweak the adjustments or anything. And they’ll still look “halogeny”, so the local militsiya would have to take a lumenometer to figure out you’re throwing 2100lm instead of 1100lm.

Basically, they’re the best stealth-conversion you can make, and for cheap.

Just buy extra bulbs, as they won’t have the same longevity as H11LLs (long-life). Bfd. Keep an extra pair in your glovebox along with a few alcohol-swabs (to clean the bulbs in case you get fingerprints on ’em), and you’re good to go.