The Magic Crytal LED Car Bulb review!

Could we know what part of the world you live in? These retrofit bulbs are illegal here in the U.S. LEDs do not emit light like a halogen lamp. They move the light source out of alignment with the designed focal point of reflectors and projectors. This winds up creating a huge amount of stray light and disability glare, not to mention the blue-light induced glare of 6500K LEDs. For that first reason, they may be “legal” in other countries but not in the US.

Can you provide a link to the federal statute that makes those illegal in the US?

Europe or better to say European Union.

Phillips seems to be legal everywhere?

I also should mention that there are also 360 degree LED lights to correct all mentioned sympthoms if needed:

This is the newest design of 360 degree light which seems to use classic 20 or 16mm DTP mcpcb beneath “Superman Crystal” :slight_smile: :

Me personally, I just won’t replace the hotwire bulbs for one simple reason: to fit the fan, braids, whatever, I’d have to leave off the dust-covers, and nfw am I doing that.

There was one set of pricey lights that let you physically adjust the “filament” placement to make sure it’s accurately focused, but I’d still pass. Hotwire bulbs are more efficient when the heat’s bottled up, but not LEDs.

I’ve seen these with double xhp 70 on Alix or something like that. Didn’t cost that much even. Talk about an upgrade! If you can get it to focus that is…

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I can’t point to the exact statute, but it is illegal to modify factory DOT-approved headlights Replacing the halogen bulb that were in the lights when they were approved with an led or any other type of lamp for that matter, is looked at as modifying. The bulb has to state that it is DOT approved and/or (?) state SAE Certified. There are a very few sellers of led replacement bulbs in the US that do state the led bulbs they sell are only sold for off road use.

Yes, the US has always been slow to adopt improved headlights. EU used halogen bulb headlights years, decades, before they were legal in the US.

Under US law it is not even legal to install one of the improved EU headlights in an US registered vehicle, even if it fits, unless it is US-approved. This is really too bad as some EU-rated cars have vastly superior headlights.

The recently passed infrastructure bill has a mention of within two years the headlight rules must be ammended. We’ll see. Meanwhile, there are already millions of illegal led headlights sold and presumed installed. And nearly every evening that I may be out in the dark I think I meet some of them on the highway.

I don’t know what car you have but those Phillips one with passive sink braids should fit every car like Cindirela shoes even with car lid closed. Only possible Canbus issues can happen.

It’s very illegal in the EU, reflectors in yuor car are homologated to a certain light source (for example halogen bulb) and only that type of bulb can be used. LED retrofits are illegal and they may get you in trouble much quicker than in the US.

No. It is not illegal. Phillips makes legal ones. But other are legal too. In Europe you can have LED lights :+1:

If Philips manufactures H7 replacement lightbulbs that don’t mean they are approved all over the world. Cars and vital carparts can only be driven/used if they have a official European type aproval. But because of the EU, no matter what EU country has issued the approval, it is valid in the whole EU. The toughest approval authority is German, and the approval is not given for a specific type of bulb, be it the H4 or the H7, but for the retrofit of that bulb in a specific car (headlight).
So the manufacturers are going for the quick hits, eg the cars with the biggest volumes. At the moment I have retrofitted my lowbeam headlights with (for my car approved) Osram H7 led bulbs and I’m very satisfied. The difference is impressive, and I’m hardly feeling the urge to use my highbeam when there is no oncoming traffic.

Which Osram LED bulbs? Link them please.

Yeah there are really XHP 50, XHP 70, XHP 70.2 x2 LED bulbs as you mentioned (we could dedome them :laughing: ) .

You can read some of the United States Department of Transportation’s statements on the subject here , here , here , and here. It should be noted that while these memos talk about HID kits the same rules still apply to LED kits see here. The same issues with LED are still present. You have to physically match the light emission of a wound filament with a square LED for the headlight optics to work correctly. That isn’t physically possible. This isn’t like a table lamp you can swap the bulbs on. This is more like you putting on someone else’s glasses.

You’re both incorrect. Philips and Osram have regional approvals. They apply to a specific retrofit model in a specific car reflector and more importantly they’re not valid within the rest of the EU - homologation is but what Philips and Osram are getting is just a local approval/certificate. They’re strictly country dependent (as for now mostly in Germany and a little bit in Austria), if you live in France it’s illegal to use them, if you live in Germany you can use them (if your car is certified) but you cannot drive outside the country otherwise you’ll be fined.

Well it seem that all 3 of us are wrong :laughing: . You see that you can use them in certain countries after all :+1:

Those braids still gotta stick out somewhere to dissipate heat, vs being kept tucked into the headlight assembly.

Do you have some sources for that info?
Several months ago I talked with a former Philips manager who worked on their car bulbs. We discussed legalese briefly and what I got from there was that they had EU-wide approval. But maybe I got it wrong. And I can’t find evidence of it being either way quickly.
ADDED: a longer search confirmed, polish Osram and Philips website both state that their LED bulbs don’t have ECE approval. That’s a bummer. :frowning:

My bad, apologies for that. I was right about the cars, if approved by one of the national institutes, it is approved for all countries in the EU (and of the EFTA). But when it is about carparts: these must be approved by any country you want to sell them.
Just another fine example of the advantages for us common people of having an EU. And for me: I leave the retrofit ledbulbs just where they are until it’s time for my next MOT. Test by consumer organisations (ADAC & ANWB) have proven that ledbulbs offer more visibility for the driver and less blinding for the oncoming traffic.

Guys. I would say Just do it. There are guys with modded HID lights out there which blinding everybody on the street. So if they manage to pass yearly Car inspection test without any fines I certainly refuse to be worried about LED bulb.

Even if car inspector decides that you have illegal stuff he will just warn you to replace it (and then you replace it with halogen H7 bulb) and when you replace it and pass the inspection put freaking LED bulb inside afterwards :+1:

I used my BLF and modding experience and my logic (no matter for youtube reviews) and I ordered this type of LED bulb link:

Why I have choosen this?
Well it is obvious choice since this is the most similar to our flashlight system.
It has active fan cooling with 20 or 16mm DTP board( I don’t know this data) with single quad Osram emitter that is projecting beam into real 360 degree quartz crystal tube and that should evenly spread light in a car reflector for same beam pattern as halogen H7 bulb but with much better and brighter 6000k light.

One emitter on round DTP board(and cooling fan beneath ) is better solution than 2 emitters on those 2 sided square DTP boards, or better than other 360 degrees light I saw with 10 or more emitters on very top of DTP board.

I think it could be modded if needed to :laughing: , and if I will not be happy how it will perform in a car I will mode my old my old Microfire Warrior HiD with it :+1:

Look round DTP MCPCB with Osram inside :slight_smile: :

I am sure there are guys here who think this could actually have modding potential :smiling_imp:

Ordered and on Slow boat from China so we will see :wink: