Has anyone tried them? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-X-Car-H...arts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item53fa6eedc0 I was running HIDs in my golf, but with the law change I had to pull them out and go back to normal halogens... but the leds look like an interesting alternative!!
I think that LED's are susceptible to voltage surges and the better quality ones have resistors or something inside to prevent them burning out. You probably get what you pay for. We bought cheap LED's for the 12v system on our narrow boat & 12 months on, some are already knackered.
I have cree led torches and a cree led gunlamp and they are a world above the old filimant technology I know a guy with cree led reversing lights and there fecking bright but as headlamps need a beam pattern to them i dont know how they would fair Ill look forward to hearing your findings paul
A quick bit of googling, and the general consensus is that the H4 plug in ones, as per my first link, are pants... but at £12.99 I kinda expected that But the Cree ones seem to be the boys
I have a friend that has his own company selling HiD/Xenon kit's and he was looking at the led bulbs but last i heard he couldn't get a good enough beam pattern out of them?
I dont like the idea of them needing the fan to cool them Surely thats the week point in there reliability?
Great idea, I'll add you to the list of cars I'm likely to crash head on into after being dazzled so I can't see the road, you or anything else. It's interesting to read about the lack of beam pattern, that explains a lot.
TBH they'll probably do the same with the LED bulbs as what they've done with the HIDs, and just make them illegal for highway use unless they were original equipment!!
I do hope so. You can see perfectly well with normal halogens, there has to be some trade off against dazzling everyone else for your own safety, never mind anyone elses.
At least the cree ones have some specs in the listing, if they are to be believed 2000 lumens, a standard 55w h4 puts out 1100 to 1500 lumens according to http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?180034-H4-Bulb-Lumen-output and osram 70/65w are 2000 lumens. LEDs are between 4 and 6 times more efficient than halogen so the 10/25w rating of the cree leds are in the right ballpark for the claimed lumens. would those cree ones actually fit with those fans on the back of them? If they did fit is there enough air flow in the confined space in the headlamp bowls to provide enough cooling if you stuck in traffic not moving for any length of time? I've got 2w cree reversing lights and they are very bright, I also have cree side lights which are a nice bright white light. I also have red led stop/tail lights - no issues at mot time a couple of weeks ago.
Have you got them set right?? I only ask this because my 91 mk2 Driver was awful and I had a new light fitted because the lens fell out. But my 92 mk2 GL is far better and I think it must be because they are set that little bit higher. And in case you are wondering, I've not been flashed at.
I looked into LED technology for playing field floodlights. The benefit of lower power consumption was clubs would not need to change their current light towers cabling, or the light towers as the units were lighter. The issue seemed to be focus and wavelength..the light was more dispersed and far less 'light'. You could get more light with higher cost but we found that the units themselves became hard to work with as they became too focused and looking up near them (in rugby you kick the ball I'm the air, same for throw ins at the lineout) gave you snow blindness. The consensus was that using the superior ultra bright led's would need the lamp design to be better thought out...led don't tend to have reflectors as the have quite a one direction light emission. Any remember the first Jag S types, they were some of the first LED lights on cars and their rear lamp LED pointed backwards into the reflector, the out the back of the car.
