LED headlight bulb replacement

[Yuriman]

Some years back I retrofitted 35w HIDs with projectors into my factory headlight housings. Probably not California legal, but the cutoff is very clean and I aimed the beams correctly. They were a tremendous upgrade over the stock halogens in reflectors.

I like to tinker with things and try to fix what isn't broken, so on a whim I picked up some of the highest rated fanless LEDs on Amazon which would fit into my H1 projectors (which insure that whatever bulb I use, will not blind other drivers).

They advertise these as 40w per bulb, 4800LM per bulb. My understanding is that most 35w HIDs are somewhere around 3200-3400LM, and that 35w is before conversion losses from the ballasts, so on paper these should be better, right?

HID on the left, LED on the right:

No forward facing pictures. My car was not parked in a place where I could get a good comparison, and the difference was so stark I didn't even bother.

I was pretty disappointed. I expect you can't just make up numbers like I'm about to, but if the 35w HIDs I have are 3200 lumens, I expect the brightest LEDs on the market aren't more than 1500.

 

[Jon-T]

Well Googling the brand jkcover turns up no company website. It is a store you can buy off of on Amazon, Ebay or Aliexpress.

Is there any known manufacturing company that actually make and claims these things.

 

[Yuriman]

There are only a handful of LED manufacturers that are used in all of these, and Cree is one of the leaders. Beyond that it's just watts in, and how well the cooling design works (which determines lifespan). One 40w Cree bulb will be indistinguishable from any other.

 

[jtworldwide3]

I just replaced my Toyota Sequoia with a 2018 Tundra. I can tell you that the factory LED headlights in the tundra are like driving in the daytime compared to the sequoia. The housings look quite a bit different however. I would guess the reflector design is hurting you on this one.

 

[Yuriman]

I just replaced my Toyota Sequoia with a 2018 Tundra. I can tell you that the factory LED headlights in the tundra are like driving in the daytime compared to the sequoia. The housings look quite a bit different however. I would guess the reflector design is hurting you on this one.

They're projectors, but yeah I get what you mean, the LEDs produce directional light and it has to bounce off of reflective walls before going through the lens. I imagine it would be better if there were a straight shot.

That said, even just looking at the bulbs through a welding helmet, the HIDs are very considerably brighter.

 

[Midwayman]

Trouble with LEDs is that they are probably just listing the theoretical max per 'pixel' in the led array. Apparently even if you accept the theoretical max it doesn't work just to add them up, there are additional losses in an array. (Take this with a grain of salt, it came from researching LED dome lights)

 

[Yuriman]

Point being, watt for watt they're far less bright than HIDs. This surprised me, considering how much heat HIDs produce.

 

[mindless1]

Measure the current and voltage getting to them. It could be the issue Midwayman mentioned, many generic brands tend to use deceptive marketing, for example use 10 LEDs rated by the LED manufacturer as max 5W each, multiply that and call it a 50W light, but they are driving them much lower than 5W per LED because it would overheat at 5W per LED. What they claim is 50W may be closer to 20W, and similarly they rate lumens based on what they'd be at 50W, not at the 20W they're really driven to. In a word, it is fraud.

It is interesting that they use a tiny heatpipe on those, but in the end it still is limited by the available heatsink surface area.

 

[HarryLui]

My LED head lights work great on my Insight. Pattern and cut off line is acceptable, considering I'm using stock housings.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...0?ie=UTF8&psc=1&tag=vs-auto-convert-amazon-20

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Yeah, LED lights do not have anywhere close to the same light geometry as an HID arc. There is a difference in the geometry of a halogen projector, HID projector, and an LED projector. I'm not surprised that your LED lights do not look that great through an HID projector Lens. That being said, almost any non-engineered LED headlight setup will be sub-par to an HID Projector setup at this point. It's getting better for sure, but we're not quite there yet.

 

[SabaII]

I run a store that sells automotive accessories so I have a bit of experience here. In a headlight projector, HID's are king. No ifs ands or buts about it. In a standard halogen housing LED's offer a better beam pattern but are generally slightly less output than HID's. The better pattern and longer life outweigh the little bit lower output in my opinion. Also one of the biggest headaches I get in this industry comes from cheap parts. Now I am not saying that you have to buy the most expensive thing out there or that a more budget piece cannot hang with a more premium piece but 9 times out of 10 you are getting what you pay for. This post honestly does not surprise me at all as most cheap LED companies will either puff up their Lumen output or list a theoretical output. Sucks to have to learn the hard way sometimes.

 

[WackyDan]

Jalopnik has done some write ups on this if dated.

Regardless of whether it is HID or LED, if the bulb wasn't designed for the housing then your results will potentially suck or annoy the shit out of people. Obviously some are better than others, but I can always tell the asshole with a retrofit HID kit or LED bulbs from factory.

 

[Yuriman]

Jalopnik has done some write ups on this if dated.

Regardless of whether it is HID or LED, if the bulb wasn't designed for the housing then your results will potentially suck or annoy the shit out of people. Obviously some are better than others, but I can always tell the asshole with a retrofit HID kit or LED bulbs from factory.

You wouldn't be able to tell an HID retrofit if they're in proper projectors, which were also retrofit.

 

[WackyDan]

You wouldn't be able to tell an HID retrofit if they're in proper projectors, which were also retrofit.

You are asking a lot of the general population who buys this shit.

 

[mindless1]

In today's modern world, night driving is not like it was before. These days, drivers can drive in darkness without struggling too much with visibility. This is as a result of the advanced auto technology that has brought LED lights that are a better replacement of the typical factory headlights. link removed

You're an idiot as well as a spammer. Seldom if ever has any accident report read "the accident was due to standard headlights not providing enough illumination."

On the contrary, one should drive at the speed that is safe for what they can see ahead. If you can't see to drive at night, blinding other people to drive faster than your degraded senses would otherwise allow, is arrogant, reckless, and often illegal.

Since this trend of idiots throwing illegal lights into incan housings seems to be getting worse, those who do it should be aware that I am not alone, that the growing number of people pissed off by this are going to FIX it one vehicle at time and I'll leave that "hint" at that.

If some anal retentive mod comes along and tries to "edumacate me" that I shouldn't reply to spammers, then let me educate you that you should have caught this post before I replied and maybe you don't even get around to deleting it and in that case, it needed a reply.

I'm going to "edumacate" you anyway. If you encounter a spammer, report them. There's a button for that! Otherwise, the sole legitimate venue for "discussing" the mods is Moderator Discussions. "Retain" these instructions, please.

Perknose
Forum Director