I was looking at some replacement bulbs for car head lights on DX and came across these. Has anyone tried any LED headlights in their vehicle?
My 20 year old son was asking the aame thing for his 2001 Honda Civic and I was thinking that for my 2007 Yukon. .Imsure someone here must have some knowledgeable input.
Those will be terrible. They're not going to provide enough output for driving, and they wouldn't be focused at all. They might be useful if your car was a trailer queen that only appears at car shows, but you don't want that for the street.
A street worthy LED headlight conversion will be far more than just a bulb swap.
okay, suggestions on a good/cheap conversion kit?
Ha, if only! Maybe try buying the parts off the brand new upcoming Corolla. Or rent one in a year or two and steal the headlights....don't do this.
Yeah, those don’t have any real heat sinking. Couldn’t be very bright. At least not for long.
http://dx.com/p/h1-3-5w-68-smd-led-6500k-310-lumen-white-fog-lights-for-car-pair-51061
“Worst Thing I Have Ever Purchased”
posted by gz256 on 10:11:17 G1T 05/01/2011 certificated customer
Involvement Level: Expert (understands the inner workings)
Pros: i dont know what to write in Pros… only one thing may be-that it looks nice. thats all.
Cons: 1.i dont know how it is H1 bulb. may be only looks like H1 bottom of the bulb. other has nothing from H1 bulb. i is impossible to fit and install it in H1 socket headlight, the top of the bulb is so wide and big that it is impossible to fit in socket. i dont understand why it is manufactured. 2. light is terrible. it lights only itself and may be will be enough for dashboard light or signal light, but it is unbelievable and impossible to use it for headlight or fog light.
Other: i think it is the worst thing i have ever purchased.
http://dx.com/p/h1-68-x-1210-3-4w-white-light-bulb-dc-12v-35622
“Useless”
posted by zombu3 on 17:58:48 G6T 01/06/2010 certificated customer
Involvement Level: Expert (understands the inner workings)
Pros: Looks good shines slightly blue Quality of LED’s seems to be good Assembly of Light is good
Cons: does not fit in a standard H1 light socket manufacturer never thought about size of led light .It is way too big to fit in the H1 socket needed some work with the dremel to get it in Lights are not bright at all .Very dim and so absolutely useless
Other: All and all absolutely useless unless you preferr to drive in the dark
Conversion to what? I don’t think LED’s are good enough yet.
And HID conversions are not only illegal but annoying and deadly to other drivers (I doubt it will have projectors and automatic cut offs unless you can source the headlights from the same model car that did have them)
Also I assume because they are H4 they would be high and low?
I have researched and used lots of headlight bulbs over the years, the best I have found are “Philips Xtreme Vision +100%” and “Osram Nightbreaker +90%”
They range from $30-50 a pair depending where you buy them but its a good investment.
To expand on what ezarc said about the illegality of HID headlights (because they’re not focused properly) fog lights in Victoria are illegal to turn on if there’s no fog.
Every night about 10% of idiots have their fog lights on when it’s a clear night. We hardly ever have fog and they always leave them on.
LED's are definitely good enough or they wouldn't be used as the main headlights on the Audi A8 and upcoming Toyota Corolla.
They're not going to be good as a conversion though, and probably never will be.
The #1 problem is optics. Take a look at a typical reflector for a halogen bulb.
The light source is well into the reflector.
An LED doesn't disperse light the same way, so it may be relocated at the base of a reflector that's not designed for the light source to be there, and will produce a terrible beam pattern because of it. Or the LED will be put in the same location with a pedestal, and the back of the reflector will go unused, and the pedestal will create significant cooling issues.
Another solution is to use a reflector that's designed for LED's, and cut away the back of the car reflector enough for the new reflector to fit within it. The problem here is that automotive optics are designed with a vertical cutoff that also kicks up toward the outside edge of the road, and a regular reflector wouldn't have that cutoff.
The right solution is to either design a new headlight reflector for the LED you want, or to retrofit existing automotive LED headlight components. The latter would be much easier, but good luck trying to find those parts in a junk yard. You can buy new parts, but it'll probably cost a couple thousand dollars.
HID lights should look like this.
If you can get an LED light to look like that, then you probably won’t get pulled over but I still wouldn’t risk it.
Also I don’t think there’s any restrictions on fog lights having to face the road, they all pretty much end up in my eye.
Quick answer is don’t waster your money for that.
Even these bulbs rated for 460 lumen, typical car head light bulb (55W) will produce over 1000 lumens
And this bulb doesn’t give you a same beam pattern as original halogen bulb do.
product description say its for fog lamp. not for headlight
actually LED lamps doesnt help much for fog. since LED doesn’t output IR
If you need more light output than your stock headlight, I suggest you HID conversion. (a true bi-xenon kit)
I had looked into this, and there are several problems, legality, sometimes police will charge you not because you are technically violating a law, but not following it (regular headlights are legal, but retrofits are not because they are usually HID which are illegal, so LED is neither, but its not stock, so you may be charged).
Beam pattern means they usually cannot be simple bulb swapping, the headlight housing is very well engineered to fill several laws and requirements, though you don’t realize this because you buy a car thats already been engineered to meet requirements, and you use bulbs that are designed to work with the headlight design, so you don’t really get to see what went into its design, you just think of it making light. This means the beam pattern will probably be horrible, you will likely blind oncoming drivers, and you are lucky if you get hte light on the road where you are wanting to see
LEDs have poorer colour rendering, which is often inconsequential, but sometimes can matter a lot, if your used to halogen then go to LED you wont readily notice the difference, but if an accident by chance happened due to it, you would get blamed (very unlikely, but insurance companies will use any excuse to throw you under the bus, you may pay your premiums, but they don’t look out for you, only themselves). High CRI LEDs are available, they usually cost more and are slightly less efficient
LEDs have unique heat management requirements that don’t mesh well with halogen housings, you need a system designed to keep the LED cool, which does not happen in stock halogen housings because the housing is designed for halogen bulbs that function at temperatures that would fry the led instantly. If you put a led bulb in, it will work but will eventually overheat as the housings are not designed to shed heat fast enough to keep the led under self destruct temperatures.
So while LEDs can put out more light then your current headlights, you would need a redesigned housing to work with its beam and cooling requirements, and you need to make sure you can’t be charged by the police or used as a scapegoat because of it.
I got those bulbs for a project a while back, if wanting for headlights don’t even think about it, I also have the H3, and various other fitments.
I have seen plenty of after market HID kits fitted in place of halogen bulbs, working 100% perfectly, beam setter in garages at test time confirmed pattern as well, I have a H4-4 kit that was fitted to a car of mine, but due to the “height” difference between low and high was taken off, this was a shutter design kit.
I use what ever is rated best in the most recent Auto Express bulb test, currently Philips Extreme Vision H4, followed very closely by Osram nightbreaker, or what ever they call it this year, there is so little to choose between the two, osram has nicer whiter colour, but philips better range, I prefer and use philips my dad the osram.
Once thing I did do to my car to make the lights better for virtually FREE was to wire the lights through relays, for safety 1 for dip and 1 for main each light, then link the main light switch output(to headlight DIP)to the relay, so when the light main switch is turned to headlights the switch DIRECTLY feeds the DIP relays, thus when MAIN, or HIGH’s for our USA pals is selected the DIP, or LOWS stays on.
Obviously this can only work with a twin filament bulb like the H4, the effect can be tried on H4 light by holding just for a few seconds the switch in “flash” position, ie usually pulling stalk towards you.
It makes a massive difference is MOT (in UK) ok and 100% LEGAL.
My car a sierra cosworth is 25 years old and due to old wiring benefited hugely from separate relays, newer cars not so much so.
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I’ve played around with pretty much every lighting option out there for automotive headlamps. I’ve currently own 5 cars that all have different lighting setups and really you get what you pay for. The more you spend the happier your gonna be. I’ll give you guys a quick rundown of my findings so far.
car-1 bone stock lighting setup
car-2 Relay harness with higher wattage bulbs (factory 55/65w upgraded to 90/100w)(relay harness allows you to safely run the higher wattage bulb without either burning up your wiring or blowing fuses AS WELL as giving you higher voltage at the bulb(so even with the stock bulb using a relay harness will get your some extra brightness))
car-3 cheap 55w HID plug and play kit (i like to call this the asshole mobile! its about the most glaring setup you could possibly do. 55w HID in hi/low/fog not to mention the fact its a import car with the Right hand drive beam pattern(so it kicks light up to the left instead of the right for signs) as well it 20 year old glass thats nicely pitted to help spread the light even more)
car-4 cheap 35w HID bi xenon
car-5 Proper retrofit that included buying new headlights off ebay opening them up removing the projectors that where in it and putting in some projectors out of a acura TSX so its essentially a stock HID setup(one thing I will say about having a razor sharp cutoff is that it sucks at lighting up street signs as there is no light going above horizontal which was a pain since I use to be a pizza boy lol (so there is some good things to say about glare i guess)
I’m a huge fanatic of LED but at this point LED for car headlights absolutely suck! Even the big automotive companies are having a hard time integrating them (audi bmw lexus) and that’s engineering them from the ground up not trying to retrofit them into something that was designed for something very different.
Heres a comparion pic of when i was doing car number 2 showing the huge differnce in light you can get with just bulbs and a relay. As well this pic shows the difference between Japan spec light pattern(rhd) and a LHD E-code (new light is E-code)
I agree with most of what's already been said above. Stick to the bulb that was designed for your current reflector. LED lighting won't work due to their low output and if they were to be bright enough, there are no retrofit kits that account for massive heatsinking that I know of. If you do opt for the HID retrofit route, it usually requires a lot of cutting or buying pre-made expensive ones online. And yes even if you have a proper HID cutoff, it is technically a violation of the law for even having that aftermarket part.
The 2014 Infiniti Q50 uses LEDs for both High and Low beams as well as daytime running lamps. In fact, the only exterior incan bulbs on the car are the rear plate lights and rear directionals.
Here’s a review of two H4 LEDs (900lm & 1400/1800lm) :
http://dx.com/p/h4-10w-900lm-5-led-white-light-car-fog-lamp-10-30v-168839
“Bright and Compact”
posted by Herto on 23:26:15 G7T 02/07/2013 certificated customer
Involvement Level: Expert (understands the inner workings)
Pros: - The build quality looks good, solid - This lamp has the same shape and size as a normal H4 lamp, so replacement is a no-brainer (except for luminous flux) - Led current is regulated, so if the lamp is supplied above 12v, the current won’t raise and power consumption will stay the same - Lightning is omnidirectionnal in driving beam.
Cons: - In passing beam, light is still omnidirectional, whereas it should not be- You can’t compare the light emitted by this lamp with a real H4 lamp. A real H4 lamp is much more bright.
Other: The brightness is good for a HS1 replacement, with a –85% power consumption.
http://dx.com/p/h4-20w-1800lm-4-cree-xp-e-white-light-car-tail-lamp-12-24v-177042
“LED H4!!”
posted by lasermanathome on 06:58:14 G2T 22/02/2013 certificated customer
Involvement Level: Expert (understands the inner workings)
Pros: High quality material 4X R5 and a real driver to stabilise the light output between 10-24 VDC. Don’t know for sure is the 1400lumens are really reached, the type of led chip certainly can, these emitters can handle about 5 Watt each and deliver in that case about 450 lumens. Light is not bluish like HID 8000K but more 6000K like sunlight.
Cons: Has in dim configuration all the leds burning and in high it does not light at all…. The dim and high can be connected with each other and so you have always light. Without further action it can NOT replace a “normal” H4”.
Other: A first attempt to make a H4, in some cases even really usable in headlights. It is no big step to make a H4 out of this concept but that step is unavoidable…. The development of a full replacement for an incandescent “normal” H4 should be very welcome.
I’m confused I see many threads on here saying they are legal and many complaints from people about another forum that told them the same.
I need to spend some time at the junkyard and see about finding some LED headlight parts. The optics might be good for a bike light, but I'm mostly just interested in seeing what they're using.
There's also a deep five finger discount on slightly used headlights. ;)
