The Magic Crytal LED Car Bulb review!

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.

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…

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.

…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:

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.

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:

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:

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!

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

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.

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:

Anyone remember that LED replacement which had individual adjustments for “filament” placement? Ie, you could twist, slide, etc., the beam holding the emitters, to try to get it placed just right for best focus.

Carries forward to 2020 toward the end….lots of good relevant info, though, and that survives the test of model years. :slight_smile:

I had the one that could be only twisted.
It made a difference (naturally) in which position it was .

Well, they're installed and I even went ahead and reconditioned the plastic headlight housings at the same time. These lights are ok but definitely nothing to get excited about. Better than the stock halogens but honestly not much better than the 40 dollar Auxito cheapies from Amazon that they replaced.

This is in a 2011 Kia Soul. The $60 HID's I threw in my 2000 Corvette provide better visibility than these. Maybe it's the housing design. I don't know.

Is the beam evenly spread across the road without dead spaces?

I ran HID low beams in my 2002 Subaru Legacy GT for 10 years until it was stolen and totaled. The key is proper alignment or folks will flash you and you’ll be a nuisance or danger on the road. No LED or HID ‘kit’ is a true retrofit or drop-in, even with projectors. Beams must be adjusted properly after an install. Plus, the type of housing makes a difference. Although conversion kits may be off-road use only here in the US you can get by using them if you do it right.

The beam pattern from the GTR's is better than the beam pattern from the Auxito's. Yes, definitely more evenly spread, but not perfect. But barely brighter than the Auxitos. Most importantly, more light on the ground while the Auxito's were basically impossible to aim properly. With the Auxito, pick which road sign you want to point each one at. My aftermarket HID's in my Corvette are great though. Decent beam pattern and super bright. Mine has separate high and low beam bulbs. I only swapped out the low beams to HID. My HID low beams are much brighter than my high beams.

OMG :expressionless: hope you had full insurance…

Could you try your new LED lights in Corvette?

[quote=luminarium iaculator]

The Kia lights are 9003 and the Vette low beams are 9006. The electrical connectors are different.