The LED headlight bulbs I ordered off Ebay back in
October arrived yesterday.
This kind:
Tested them out this morning. Quite pleasantly surprised with how bright the first one was at the bench test. Also please to see that the circuitry on them doesn't require specific polarity...they work any which way you put power to them. Great.
Remembered at the last moment to see how much power they draw. First one was 1.0A on high, 0.5A on low. Decently low, considering how bright it was. The second, though, was 0.5/0.4. Thats when I clued in that it wasn't as bright as the other, either.
I'm assuming the "great deal" I got was one of a bunch of cast-offs that didn't pass quality inspection or something. Maybe they both failed, though I could see one of them being bad and the pair of them being cast off together because of it. This isn't the first time I've picked the cheapest seller, usually in China, only to end up with a B-grade product. Well, you get what you pay for.
Of course, I usually complain and get my money back. Which I had already done with these, since they "never" showed up. Maybe I should have been more forgiving? I mean they were only
3 months overdue. The shipping label says they sent them on time. Oh well, I would have had to have *****ed about one of the lights being faulty anyway.
I stuffed them in my EV anyway. They're still better than the several generations past LED bulbs I had in there. The good one throws out what seems similar to a normal bulb's light. Not bad for something running on 12 watts, instead of 55. I might almost recommend a set, if you have good reason to want to cut down power consumption. Won't swear that they will light up the highway for ya, though. If you need that, you should probably shell out the dough for a decent set.
I keep trying new types of LED bulbs whenever I get a new-to-me vehicle, so I've got a pretty good idea of what works already, but I keep trying to see if the newer ones are better.
I wasn't happy with the amber 194's I had in the side markers (5050 chips), so I tried these:
Which I am much happier with. Brighter, and they glow evenly and throw the light all around, so you don't have the bright spots that give away that they're LEDs. I recommend them. (Note that these are longer than regular 194s) I would feel safe ordering more with that same kind of "filament" in the middle.
I have also bought these "COB"(chip-on-board) for my turn signals:
Which are nice and bright...though they don't get a whole heck of a lot brighter on "hi" as they do on "low", so they might not be the best choice for the 1157 bulbs...brake bulbs in particular. For that, I recommend this type:
Which are usually sold with the tags of "7.5 watt" and "Cree". They're relatively pricey, but they're the only ones that I've found that do a decent job of mimicking a normal 2-filiment bulb. Meaning they give out modest light on "low" and a heck of a lot of light on "high". All the others seem to lack on a noticeable difference. I don't care to screw around when it comes to my brake bulbs.
So, yes, you can do decent off of ebay bulbs. I would just recommend going with popular sellers, to avoid getting the B-grade crap. And, I don't know about the rest of the world, but when I order from Hong-Kong sellers, I usually get my stuff within ~2 weeks. When I order from mainland China, it takes a month or more...and about a third of the time, I never receive it, and, since the only reason I ordered from mainland china was to save a buck, these tend to be the sellers who send me B-grade crap.
I can make further recommendations if anyone is trying to figure out what works and what doesn't.
(maybe one of these days i will have some actual progress to report!)