They do regulate the beam, same old rule 108 applies, new lights comply, they do not regulate specific bulb, just beam pattern and brightness. This unusual side emission is new, as are led headlamp, regulations change is usually slow, especially when it does not involve raising taxes or pass new bans,
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I wonder what kind of retrofit (or diffusal) would be necessary to emulate older halogens…I imagine that some kind of recoil thrower, where the LED (or panel) are along the bottom edge of the assembly shining to reflect the light off the top and top back of the reflector to project light down and out might work, at least on a 2d paper…
Something like that, but maybe with a more uniform emitting surface. The LED should still be able to heatsink nicely to the rest of the assembly/chassis, and if necessary a beamshaping lens can be applied
(shape inspired by the human eye profile)
for a retrofit you would need an LED with a properly sized LES, similar to the size of the original halogen bulb filament.
It’s only a very recent development that LEDs can be significantly more intense in a smaller size compared to a 3200 K blackbody source.
but there are Certified replacements.
Been done for bikes and works well with defined cutoff.
Downside is usually when mounting the LED in this fashion you do not have ample room for big heat sink, so low output.
Just like this;
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It would not be nearly as easy to modify led headlight than it was a halogen. Nor we need to do that, there is already a solution that would fix all the light issues; modern led, halogen retrofits with hid or led, high beams, misaligned lights, light bars, and aux lights, … every glare issue is solved with yellow glasses. you will not be blinded by bright lights, you will still see bright lights, but without any blue in it, it is harmless.
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I hate LED headlights in cars. I live in a very rural area so none of the roads are lit which results in most people driving on main beam most of the time and a lot don’t dip their lights until they’ve been flashed at. Given how popular SUVs are now, the combination of LEDs on main beam at eye-level to anyone driving a normal car makes driving at night a miserable experience.
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Not so much the high of the vehicle, as its level, as it drives over uneven road it happens regardless of led, or halogen type. that does not apply to high beams, they always blind, they are aimed higher. There is no way to fix everyone’s headlamp on the road, the only way to fight it is to block the glare that hits your eyes.
I’ve got one car with halogen and one with LED, for me the LED are much brighter with is pleasant .. however they are at least 6500k with CRI of 70 if you’re lucky so it’s a worse experience for longer drives (and because I live in the north at least half the year I’m driving in darkness, so I prefer the warmer and better colour rendition of the halogen. If they made LED headlights in 4000k with 90+CRI it would be perfect
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Yes, I agree. I watched some videos about it and seemingly led bulbs can be either good or bad. It comes down to how closely the led bulb can mimic or emulate the shape size and location of where the halogen filament would be in relation to the reflector. The reflector is designed to be focused a set distance from the filament.
Some led retrofit bulbs which seemingly are bad are usually the cheap chinese multi sided COB led bulbs. Even though they look bright the beam pattern is garbage just diffuse light. Its completely ineffevtive at illuminating the road, a lot of the light goes in the sky or where its not needed. I honestly cant understand why anyone would want this. You are putting yourself at risk with lower visibility plus you shine light in everybody elses eyes which causes road rage and accidents.
But apparently you can get CSP LED bulbs where the emitter is designed to accurately mimic the filament with a tiny LES for a focused beam. These can project the legal headlight beam pattern with sharp cutoff. I think expensive name brand headlights have this like philips and osram and some are road legal.
See the bulb with the tiny led emitter and the other one has a large cob chip. Sorry only picture i could find comparing them its low res.
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I’ve noticed what appears to be a relatively large number of newer vehicles that have one, maybe two, OEM external LED lighting elements inoperative. Mostly headlights, with taillights being second, marker lights third. A smattering of multi-LED center brake lights with at least one LED not working.
I’m seeing that the headlight emitter can’t be easily / inexpensively replaced in many if not most LED headlights. That unified design requires the entire headlight assembly be replaced at often exorbitant cost just because the emitter failed. That’s a huge step backward compared to easily-replaced H4 halogen bulbs.
Shortly after the pandemic burhaha I spoke to a guy who had a GM small / crossover SUV that had one brake light inoperative. He said the taillight assembly was integrated into a small body panel, and the emitter is non-replaceable, requiring relatively complex dis / re-assembly to replace that costly assembly, and that they were back-ordered with no availability estimate.
The supposed reliability of vehicle LED would be negated for any owner of a vehicle that required complicated and costly repair when (not if) an emitter fails. I believe an industry standard is needed to make emitters plug-n-play, and as common and easily replaceable as H4 halogen bulbs are in (relatively) older headlights. Same with how incans are in older taillights.
If I ever shop for a new vehicle again, I’ll ask the salesperson to show me how to replace headlight and taillight emitters. If sales feigns ignorance, they’re not really salespeople, just money takers who don’t know the product being offered. If emitters are not replaceable, I’ll ask the parts dept. about cost for the assembly and, the service dept. how complex the replacement procedure is.
I can see the advantages in LED for vehicle lighting only if serviceability is designed in. To me, the manufacturers are shooting themselves in the foot by making LED lighting difficult and expensive to service.
slmjim
“buT LEDs LAsT fOrEvEr!!!”
At least that’s how they try to sell it.
One half of my LED CHMSL is already dead. Looked up how to replace it… f no. Not gonna happen.
Thankfully, I personally don’t do a lot of night driving, but when I do if it’s raining and someone has LED’s on their vehicle it definitely makes for a bad time! I don’t notice it quite as much these days, but back when BMW, Audi, etc all first started using LED’s and everyone went out and bought the bulbs that didn’t correctly fit the housings in their vehicles because they wanted that “look” for their 1992 Chevy Blazer and the bulbs were shining every which direction but forward…that was a nightmare, probably around 2002 or so.
Sounds like a Customer Problem… the manufacture is happy to sell you new headlight unit.
Those would have been HID kits, which were just as bad in halogen housing as LED bulbs. The first car with LED headlights, Lexus LS600h, didn’t come out until 2007.
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Companies devalue human labor. Then they devalue consumer value. The only REAL thing of any inherent value in the supply/demand chain is the human, and these corporations do everything they can to diminish our view of ourselves. Just thought I’d shed some light on the subject…
By directly overcharging consumers, they’re indirectly devaluing labor, because the money which the labor earns becomes devalued through the decrease in buying power. Don’t believe the lie that companies exist to make money, they exist to extract value from humans, full stop.
But it would be nice to have more enthusiast-centric replacement options available.
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I posted in a bit ago about upgrading my 12 year old vehicle’s lights to LED because I found a 4000K replacement on Amazon. I was worried about cutoff and all that but they work spectacularly well. Never been flashed for them.
On the other hand I had a newer model Toyota Highlander for a couple years and the factory LED lights (awful 6500K by the way) and I’d always get flashed by semi trucks. Not normal cars but there was just something about the lights that hit higher riding 18 wheelers just right.
I generally hate aftermarket Jeep headlights and lifted pickup trucks. They’re often poorly aligned. The general cool white fetish for LED headlights doesn’t help much either.
So overall I have a mixed opinion, some LED lights are great, more light where it needs to be. Other times it’s a curse even sometimes for a stock light.
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How about the blinding rear LED’s on some of the newer cars.
Cadillac SUV have the worst PWM and sick bright brake tail/lights and there are many other brands in this boat but they seem the worst.
All that money you think they could use a regulated driver.
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Then again, who am I to talk…I got sucked into the Fast and Furious lifestyle around 2002 (I was 20 years old) and was rocking a Pontiac Sunfire with off road lights as fog lights!
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looks kind of like a superdeformed Ultraman
That was a fun time to be alive though, made a lot of friends. Though I do wish I never sunk thousands of dollars into a car that wasn’t really built for it! Had a full body kit on it, spoiler, lowering spring, full exhaust, headers. Certainly moved for a Sunfire, but that money could have been used on better things. All worth it at the time though!
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