Quote:
Originally Posted by freebeard
Depends on the LEDs. My experience is they make good daylight driving city lights, but they don't have the same reach down the highway at night.
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Yea I have experience with this. The ones that work well are the ones that have one thin strip of diodes in a straight line so the beam pattern is almost as focused as a halogen bulb filament. If the beam isn't focused, then it's hard to see further out at night.
It seems like mass production of headlights has really taken off and the prices are low now. I'm going to take a chance and order a set for 8 bucks.
The only thing making me uneasy is that there isn't much space between the headlight socket on the passenger side and the washer bottle, so I will have to get one of the lower powered ones. That said, a 55W halogen bulb isn't exactly very bright so if the beam pattern works out it'll be fine. The other consideration is that the lights are exposed to high under hood temperatures, so a big heatsink sitting in hot air might not do much for cooling the lights, while a small heatsink inside the headlight housing has a mildly better chance.
EDIT: Ended up splurging and spending a whopping 15 on these:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256802141642681.html
The seller has pictures showing the thing drawing 1.2A (thus I can expect approximately similar light output as the stock halogens), and the heatsink looks much better designed than some of the cheaper ones with the cut in the side of the flat piece holding the LEDs and the numerous fins on the round part.
That's 2.5 gallons of gasoline money which will take about 50 hours to save, which should pass pretty quickly. I'll have the 65W high beams for de-icing if needed.