The Magic Crytal LED Car Bulb review!

Off-topic Chatter
54

You are right. I hope it will be brighter. That is currently one of the most expensive LED bulb set on aliexpress. Where did you seen in a video that H7 variant was much dimmer than halogen? I saw it is much better.

It is less likely that Cree would beat Osram.

That test is only relevant for lux results observation and beam pattern of projector headlight or headlight with lens. We yet have to see performance in reflector car headlight.

If you say that in your book Cyclone 38 looks better than ok… We are talking about car LED bulbs in this thread. You have right for your opinion. :beer:

But single emitter of “Magic Crystal” has cooling advantage. It has only one emitter on lets say 20mm DTP MCPCB (I don’t know this data I am estimating). From Aliexpress test it draws 5A out of 12V power supply and that is good…

I would rather want safer and cooler light than more powerful multi-emitter light driven on higher amperage which produce much more heat and should logically have higher failure rate…

55

Say what ya want about cops not knowing but my dad is a former mechanic (40+years) and now a local constable. He will pull ya over, write a fine, and have your car towed for running illegal lights. He has Nyctalopia (as well as I) and don’t take well to illegal lights trying to run him off the road.

He also write up the a holes running off road lights on the road at night. Those guys throw too big of d bag he has also called in the game warden to nail them for spot lighting wildlife. Far more goes into that than just a fine.

56

As much as I love leds and what can be accomplished with them, they are an absolute horrible idea for retrofitting into a reflector housing that was not designed for them. There’s a good reason they’re illegal in many places, whether or not it gets enforced (around here it does not, unless they’re blue/purple/etc), whether or not someone is actually caught or fined. The glare on almost all of them is really atrocious and they do NOT light up better or further than the halogens the fixtures were designed for. There are illusions to the eye, yes, and some of that comes from glare (that affects other drivers, but not you), and some of that comes from the change in color temp. I bought some of the newer gen a few years ago (no light pipe but a much better approach to orientation and die size than most of them) and it was a big mistake. My lenses were nice and clear, not all all yellowed or crazed (that’s very important), adjusted correctly and checked carefully to book specs, and I still got flashed by several drivers in the two nights I had them installed. Downroad visibility was the same or slightly worse, could see a little more to both sides and right in front of the bumper, but overall it was not an improvement and honestly the 6000K-ish got a little tiresome on my eyes when driving in rural areas. I did notice that reflective street and traffic signs were a lot brighter and would light up from farther away…which told me right away there was a ton of glare to others even if my eyes couldn’t make it out as well just looking at the beams. Took those out pretty fast. Got a new car after that with projectors and tried the same bulb design…no improvement although the housing of course did better in terms of glare. Went back to the halogens.

Factory LEDs seem to be either really good or just decent, depends on whose they are. The cold white temp is awful, though, and I seem to hear more and more that people do not like them as much, especially in rain and fog. I think LEDs will arrive sometime soon and hopefully they will adopt a warmer temp in the 4000K-4500K range.

But if you have reflector housings, please just skip the LED bulbs for them. Looks cool, might look better in urban areas if you don’t care about other drivers’ vision, but just clean up the lenses (or replace the housings if they’re really bad) and put some new halogens in. That is a huge improvement for many cars and people don’t realize how “dirty” their old lenses and bulbs were until they see crystal clear again.

Lots of previous threads here on BLF (and on CPF, but older) and almost everyone seems to agree that they’re not a good choice, and why. If you have to find out for yourself, just do the best you can for a proper installation (like a real proper installation) and take your chances. I know upgrade kits, if available for your car, and super expensive and very involved to install, but that’s really the way to go if you just can’t live with your halogen.

My polite two cents and experience.

57

I ordered some GTR Ultra series 2.0 led headlights. They should be here tomorrow. They're supposed to be as good as it gets for led headlights. I'll give my opinion on them once they're installed.

58

Same like someone posting to all, “What flashlight should I get?”, and my first reply is usually, “Whaddya gonna DO wittit?”.

Do youse want to see farther downrange, like a spot? More light tossed to the periphery? Etc.?

Back in the day, even when I was running my 90W/130W H4s, I never got flashed. And aside from illuminating some asshats, never ever even had to flick on my brights, either. But I did want more “reach” out into the darkness.

As opposed to the 4464s or whatever they were, that tossed little sissy-weenie dots of yellow light a few dozen feet ahead of me, my H4s laid down a nice white blanket of light in front of me. The stock halogens were little better than ancient sealed-beams, and certainly had no “sharp cutoff” to speak of. You just aimed ’em where you wanted those sissy-weenie dots of light.

The H4s had a nice cutoff, ’though with a few “devil-horns” sticking up, and you aimed ’em straight ahead. Noice.

But I still wanted that “reach”, especially on a deserted highway.

And that’s where those Harbor Freight driving lights came in. Silly little anæmic 55W capsule, but the reflector focused that into a nice tight pencil-beam that was a true pain in the ass to aim. I’d stick around after dark, aim at the big blank wall clear across the lot, and spend the better part of an hour aiming the f’n things. (Loosen, aim, tighten, mutter obscenities because tightening pulled it out of aim, rinse’n’repeat.)

But it was oh so worth it!

The bottom of the beam would barely skim across the asphalt in front, and the beam would be a nice tight spot waaay far out. Even if a car would be coming way way out in the distance, the beam was dim enough to not be bothersome, and as it closed in, the hotspot would then be below the driver. Never ever got flashed, and I rode with them on pretty much all the time except for local/lit roads where they weren’t needed.

They also lit up cops’ retroreflective paint like the car was on fire, too. :laughing:

Oh, and the whole point was to ask what’s the intended use, and see if it can all be done in one light (LED or otherwise) or would it just be easier to stick aux lighting to do what you want.

59

The factory lights on my sedan were dim and and I switched them out for LEDs a few years back. The beam pattern was very similar to my halogens because of the projector housing. They helped me see a lot better, though they don’t work as well when it’s raining. The 5700K is cooler than I like, but it seems very hard to find neutral 5000K or warm LEDs. If I could find a decent 3000K-4000K replacement, I’d definitely get those.

I don’t recommend putting LEDs in any reflector headlights or SUVs. I don’t think there is any way to focus them properly in reflectors.

60

Every manufacturer says their product is as good as it gets.

You will not get more reach without re-aiming your headlights up. That’s the thing - different bulbs can give you more light, not more distance because that’s not how reflectors work.

61

Really? Thanks for stating the obvious. From what I'm seeing in reviews from people that own them, and have owned others, these are top notch. Maybe they're as good as people are saying they are...maybe not. Like I said, I'll give my opinion when they're installed.

62

+1, and as we’re seeing with Amazon, some will also fabricate “reviews.”

63

Some notes about replacing Incan -> LED and why I have not done it:

Legal or not?
At least here in Finland, EU, you CAN buy them legally locally. For example Philips, for 100+€ a pair but they clearly state they are NOT road legal.

Do people use them or not, do they get busted?
Yes they use. Not by a huge margin but You can spot people and usually retards doing these retrofits to 20-30 year old cars which have completely sandblasted glasses in their headlights. Looks horrible, 0/5.

In reality, people get busted from it very rarely. Police have other things to do.
Inspection?
It´s 50/60 if it will pass or not. Re-inspection fee is something like 10-20€ here.

Why I don´t use them??
Well. I have tested a couple of years ago a few items.

- For reflector light, beam became crap. For projector light, it kind of worked after adjusting for low beam. Not so much for the high beam.

- CRI is very bad, light more like blue than neutral. Horrible tint.

- Protector caps had to be left open

- On a PLUS side, I took measurements and the peak intensity actually rose for projector light on low beam.

  • Nowadayschanged my car to old Prius, it has LED-lights anyway, no use to fiddle with them.
64

BTW:
When they sell those regular incan-bulbs with +15, +30 and whatever, they actually ARE brighter than the stock no-brand incans.

Some autumn I checked them with a lux-meter and yes, there is a difference…
…also, there is a difference in the durability…
…and price…

65

Technically they’re not brighter, the produce almost identical amount of light, they just have smaller, more intense filament and that increases light intensity at some points. Usually the difference is around 20-40% with good bulbs.

66

…yeah I should have specifically mentioned about the “brightness” (intensity) gains but I somehow thought it was obvious, that I was not measuring lumens but lux with my meter.
As long as wattage is the same in incan, total lumen output is ~roughly the same.

Total Lumen difference is at max some 2-300 Lumens best/worst.

(yes, yes, the Cool-looking C00l-blues do only half of lumens what a regular bulb does, but who actually uses those anyway…? So, not counting those in that 2-300 Lumens claim)

Lux-gains are also mentioned, as lifespan.

Before commenting, do notice that the huge values are from higher wattage bulbs. :sunglasses:

67

Exactly, which is why my solution wasn’t to just up the power in my H4s, but to add aux lights with a very very specific function.

Those thin pencil-beams did wonders, and ironically enough were better than flicking on my brights.

When you flick on the brights, you’re reaching out, but in the same reflector/prism setup as the dips, so it throws more light forward, but it’s now not lighting the area immediately in front of you, so one good pothole, and you have less time to react.

With my DLs and staying on lowbeams, I have all that right-in-front-of-me coverage very nicely, but the pencil-beams lit up more of what was in that black hole way up front. Signs, markers, anything retroreflective, would light up like they’re on fire. And only 55W meant that way way way out in that black hole, anyone coming my way would still see only dim light, and by the time that distance would close, you’re already well out of the hotspot.

Again, never ever got flashed, not for my H4s, and not for those DLs. And again again, they’re pencil-beams, so aiming them is absolutely critical.

Point being that with trying a LED retrofit, you’re stuck with the pattern that’s determined by the reflector and the placement of the filament. Adding an array of high-intensity chips might get you the brightness, but without the same exact placement where the filament should be in 3D space, the results would be horrible. Especially anyone who screws around with flashlights and needs to sand or shim or center, should understand that innately. Throwing more lemons out the assembly would be brighter, but probably also fling errant light all over the place, including into oncoming drivers’ eyes.

That’s why despite replacing pretty much all other hotwire lighting with LEDs (with great results, fwiw), I’m leaving my headlights as-is. I haven’t yet seen anything that can produce the same pattern and not also introduce all kinds of glare.

68

X Ray,

Please report results in this thread. My “Magic Crystal” LED is on slow boat from China so I will not be able to test it at lest for a month.

Looking forward for your test :+1:

69

We have “Anti-vaxxers” nowdays, and sure in this thread we also have “Anti-carLEDbulbers”. We have North and South, Left and Right etc…

I would like to see more people that did such mod to their cars in this thread. For exampe (Type of car, type of headlight (projector or reflector), your honest opinion).

I will certainly report if “Magic Crystal” is good or not in newer type of a car (Passat B8 with reflector type of headlight) and if it ain’t gonna be that good I will still use it for our flashlight modding hobby :wink: :+1:

70

Maybe try putting your findings in the main thread (or both). I think that’s why it was created: The BLF Automotive Car LED headlights, results, opinions and beamshots!

71

JEZZZ! I never seen that thread before thanks! Now I will have something to read till early morning hours :+1:

72

Ha. There’s some good info in there even if some of it is dated now (sorta). There are a handful of other threads here, too. And if you want to wade into CPF they had a lot of great information, too, albeit with the heavy hand of mods and others who were/are very much against it.

I’m curious what you see with this light pipe design, but I’d be more curious what it looked like in projector housings. I have to say that the aliexpress link you shared for them….my goodness. lol. Ok, the bad typical marketing and mistruths (we’re used to that, right) but the photos themselves, both from the seller and users…looks pretty bad really. I mean on the surface it looks nice but judging the beams and what finer details can be seen in the pics (and from the drivers’ perspectives at that)…don’t think I’d try them myself. Do be sure your lenses are in good shape else you will be dazzle-city for everyone even if the beam is otherwise acceptable in that regard. Even a little haze or staining can just scatter light all to heck.

73

That is rather old thread to be honest. Car LED bulb improved greatly since that time (2017.).

We all know that Chinese exaggerate at numbers… I did not took that because some Chinese convinced me that his bulb has 30 000 lumens! But description sells stuff especially if you have great competition and uneducated costumers(80% of them) . Same like 18650 batteries stated at 10000mah. If you don’t know the truth behind false advertising would you chose 10000mah or some 30Q with only 3000mah? :laughing:

I’ve done more than thousand of modded lights for sale so I have my own logic on picking up things with intentional but accidental discoveries that I incorporate in my builds… This choice has potential in my eyes so I really don’t care how other people see that…

And photos and video from that link looks very good IMHO. If you think opposite that is also OK. Depends on angle, camera, weather…
No one should judge something if he did not try that by himself.

Weather I will dazzle someone out or not we’ll see in regular traffic test. If light will be brighter than halogen, without any side effect that will disturb other drivers they will stay on a car if not I have another plan for them :wink: