$14 L.E.D. Headlamps
 

2 Car H7 6W SMD LED Bright White Head Light Bulbs Lamp | eBay

good, efficient, and cheap headlight bulb replacement?


I welcome all feedback. if anyone has tried these already, please let me know.

( someone has raised the issue of these possibly having an incorrect beam pattern which might blind other drivers. I don't see why this should be the case, they look like nice headlamp bulbs.
however since I havent tried them yet I can't say ,but if it turned out to be the case I have a solution:
It wont be a plug-in-swap as it will require some modding the rear of the reflector plate.
I'd have a piece of 3" diameter PVC plumbing pipe, and I'd cut a piece around 2-3 inches long and mount the led so it shines through the pipe. I now have a narrower then usual light beam,and I can control the width of the beam by shortening or lengthening the pipe.
now all we need is to have them pointing correctly downwards and no oncoming motorists will have a problem. -again, I welcome all feedback)

Those LED's are for single beam headlights, so if your vehicle takes a single filament bulb that LED they should work fine.
Otherwise I'd be worried about them over heating, 6 watts of heat is not a lot but over time, in an enclosed space, they are going to get hot, the version that is sold on Amazon for $45 has a single review saying that they burned out after 10 days of use.

https://www.google.com/search?aq=2&o...w=1024&bih=475

shows some that have all three contacts, of course there is no saying how well they really work and a number of them require you to buy 29 or 32 of them at a time.

the ones in my link can be bought one set at a time for $13.59

as to the cooling problem it can be solved for $1. here: DC 12V 2 Pin Brushless Cool Cooler Fan For VGA Graphics | eBay

the amount of power this fan takes is rediculously small at around .03 amps.
(the larger 60 mm fans take .04A and .48watts. this one is only 2/3 that size, so I guesstimate .03A. small enough to put anywhere!)

These will most likely put out the equivalent light that a 20-25 watt light bulb would put out. Stock headlights on a car are around 55 watts. They might be ok for accent lights or backup lights etc, but not suitable for headlights. Don't let that stop you-they are really cheap and you can experiment.

why is that?

doesn't 6w LED equal around 50w-60w incandescent?

I understood fluorescent was about 1/4 the wattage of the incandescent bulb, with led's using only 1/2 (or even less then 1/2) of the florescent. that would be about 1:9 or 1:10 so 6w led should give like 50w-60w equivalent.

am I making a mistake somewhere?

That is very true that they are not going to be very bright, 400 lumins is about the best you can hope for if they can put out 70 lumins per watt, 40 lumins per watt is pretty common for cheap LED's but some of the better ones are getting up to the 70 lumin range, Car headlights tend to be closer to 800-1200 total lumin output.
I wouldn't want to introduce fresh air into a head light either, even with a decent air filter you are still going to get a fine dust building up on the inside of the reflector over time.

Even with that, they are still an impressive LED and cheap too, they would work great for other uses if they didn't have to hold up to being on for an hour or so at a time.

if thats the case perhaps u can put 2 in the fog lamp nacelles and 2 more in the headlights. total 4 bulbs and 24w instead of 110 w.

the 4 bulbs should swing it perhaps. may need to raise up the beam from the foglights a tiny bit, they are usually directed at the ground very steeply downward.

You are better off running HID lamps. You can get em for about the cost of the 4 bulbs on Ebay, and they draw 70w total. Most importantly, they give off more light which should make for a safer trip as long as they are adjusted to not blind oncoming drivers.

wow......
why dont we just go back to 4 ply tires..........
Headlamps are designed by computers SPECIFICLY for the hotsopt of the bulb that is in them. PERIOD.
so EVEN IF it had the same lumens, it would not 'work'. oh, you'll get light...with a glare pattern!

And dont take a picture of the front of you car and say 'see...lotsa light!"
take a picture of the light pattern on a dark road before and on a wall before. then com-are with you led.

or .........just do what you want.

I am amazed how many people are aba testing aero mods, but dont understand the science behind the lights. THe .0001% gain in mileage from the lower electrical pull is completely offset by 1. the illegal & 2. inferior light.

when u are trying to lower your electrical load so you can run without an alternator then 24w total draw instead of 110w draw from your headlamps is a major accomplishment. (alternator delete= 8-10% increase in mileage)

converting a car to ALL led's is the first step.

disabling the alternator and putting a 100amp hour battery in your trunk is the second.

lowering your aero drag from .32 to .29 is the next. (very achievable)

then you hook up a relay on the brake pedal so your alternator will charge when you are on the brake to extend battery life a little (or will provide for a bit less on the overnight charging when back at home)

Doing just the alternator mods will raise fuel efficiency by like 8-10%. add the aero mods and your even higher, a total of 13-15% wouldn't surprise me.

what part of you last comments have ANY THING to do with ILLEGAL and UNSAFE????
Did you really read what I wrote????
you could double your mpg and it'e still ILLEGAL and UNSAFE.

Hello.......I'm taping on the screen.....anybody home........

you have no idea what you are talking about.


http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/v...s/bulbs001.jpg

hot spots are in dirrent location.
hid runs in projector lens not reflector lens
all the light is glare when you put hid in halogen lamp.
That is why REAL hid lamps have a cut off line
http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/v...hting012-1.jpg
it;s a shied built into the lamp.

It's illegal

it's unsafe.

I dontcare how many plug n play kits are on ebay....

I agree, HIDs are amazing as far as light output vs electrical input. They are among the most lumens per watt out there. This is also why most warehouses and large areas use a similar technology like mercury vapor etc. Startup current on the HID's will be around 10 amps for a brief second until they normalize around 3-4 amps. By the way, quality in HID matters. Yes there are kits for $40-$70, but often the ballasts or bulbs go out prematurely. High quality ballasts and bulbs are a good idea.

..

I forgot that headlights had not been invented until after the advent of computers.

I feel a bit of deja vu here; as if we have had this discussion before. Your pet peeve must be those jerks on the highway with purple HIDs that blast your rearview mirror. It annoys me too...

You bring up a good point about legality. It's something that doesn't concern me so much, but probably does others. LED bulbs have the same problem of legality as well.

The second point that it is unsafe is only true if the HIDs are implimented in an unsafe manner, which is very subjective. I have increased safety on my motorcycle by using HIDs, and LEOs have not written me a citation for them in years of riding.

I suggested HID because LEDs at half the lumens seems unsafe to me. Further, I suggested they not be implimented haphazardly, but thoughtfully.

Light vs watt... I would say below spec driven LEDs would be more efficent.

Latest news I can find about cree (one of the most efficent brands)
CREE |Cree 231 Lumen Per Watt LED Shatters LED Efficacy Records

And a good read about Led efficentcy vs watt usagage etc.
White LED lumen testing

Seems the newer Cree leds should be at or above 100lm\w at say 350ma-400ma draw.

Side note on this, there is a graph in that thread (somewhere around the 9th page) which shows date vs led efficencies with a good up trend for best, and worst being almost flat lined.

I tried to do a quick search on HID LM output vs W usage I found a like on this site! Another great read. All in all, I think correctly designed LED application should be the best bang for power usage and $ with some fab skills.

EcoFit Lighting

Oh and one more thing to remember with "raw" LEDs, you must limit current in some way. Resisters are simple but lowest efficency while a dc to dc constant current driver is probably the best you get (80-90% max). I do not know if HID lights are measured with or with our their power drivers, more research is needed >,<.

HID's operating principle requires high heat to work so there is no need to limit it. As the HID bulb temp heats up, it's current draw goes down. LED's on the other hand require special attention to thermal management. This is not impossible, but can be very difficult. Methods employed are the use of light tubes or lightpipes to get the light right where you want it while keeping the LED in a location where heat can be effectively removed. Heatpipes can also be used to remove heat from the LED while having it in an area that's not conducive to heat rejection. LEDs are neat in the fact that they can be driven by pulsed supplies at higher average wattage than they were designed for to get lower heat output, and can be driven at frequencies that look constant to the naked eye.




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eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices

a beauty in my opinion...

this makes a very powerful beam, just look at the photos in the listing.


it may need to have a tube in front of it to cut out light spillage to the sides and any light spillage that goes too high .

it would be installed with a tiny cooling fan at it's rear as well.
DC 12V 2 Pin Brushless Cool Cooler Fan For VGA Graphics | eBay

mans: Are you paid by the click or something?

That's all well and good, seemingly good logic on its own.
Please see the post by mcrews further back, here. The real deal is very well stated there.

Headlamps, both bulbs and reflectors, is no hack science. Those things are designed and manufactured to tolerances you can't even think about measuring without lab equipment, and I don't mean a ruler or caliper. Let alone statements that "it will fit" and "it should put out enough light". Yikes. All those high tech efforts are done for good reasons - so you can see, and so the other guys ahead of you ALSO can see.

I've seen some halogen bulbs (by Sylvania??) that claim to use somewhat less current - now there's an idea!! There ARE aftermarket halogen bulbs that will increase headlamp brightness, often legal in Europe but generally not in the US. Then there are HID assemblies, complete with optical system. But I'm convinced that many of the less expensive HIDs have sloppy optical systems that spray lots of light where it doesn't belong. I see them on the road every day. I'm so glad those drivers get a nice strong blue-white light while ignoring the needs of other drivers on the same road. Oh yes, I get that nice strong light too - right in my eyeballs.


Would you decide to decrease weight and rolling resistance by running on four spare tire donuts? Many of those are rated for 65 psi and thereabouts - think of the savings!

How about the weight savings you can achieve by removing the safety glass and substituting Lexan? Big savings there. Sorry, it's not as clear as glass and makes nasty sharp daggers when broken in an accident. Nobody will mind, I'm sure. Remove the spare tire and jack and wrench, and don't bother carry a weighty can of Fix-A-Flat either. Just call AAA if you get a flat. Remove the fuel tank, it's metal and quite heavy, just substitute a fuel cell from the racing universe. What, it won't hold enough fuel to do normal driving?? The weight savings of all the above will get you enough mpg so you won't have to worry about how far the fuel cell will take you, it will be much further than you would think.

I installed a set of HID lamps in my friend's Mustang (in December, at nite!). As strong headed as he can be about the Stang, he did do some research. The lamp setup he bought cost somewhere around $125 (not the cheapest but not bad either). They had dual beams. This allowed for a regular incandescent low beam so as not to blind oncoming traffic, and an HID high beam which was very bright. The lower the HID number the whiter the light, his I think were around 6000k which was only a tint of blue/violet. When I get the money, these are going in my Ranger.

There is a lot of talk about safety, but no data to back the claims. Shall we continue with inapplicable metaphors? Running an HID system is like removing your tires altogether and just running on the rims! See the parallel of light and traction???

I anxiously await the data that shows how dangerous aftermarket HIDs are, even if it includes the most inconsiderate of implementations. Of course this info would have to be juxtaposed with the info showing how the improved lighting helped to avoid certain catastrophe.

While I don't believe concerns of non computer-aided HID designs are unfounded, I do believe they are blown out of proportion. To use my own inapplicable metaphor; the hysteria is reaching global warming proportions!

In all seriousness though, why the vilification of HID but not the same espoused hatred for LED? They are both illegal, and both have very strong potential to be implemented poorly. Further, I find it perplexing that this is the hotbutton religious topic of the forum. There are those who propose building entire vehicles from the ground up, without nary an eyelash batted. We are talking tons of metal barreling down the highway with tremendous potential destructive energy. Still we are more concerned with headlight
implementation than the design of an entire murder waggon? Of course I'm being a bit facetious, but perhaps I have an incorrect perspective?

I'll end by conveying my condolences to the many here who have lost loved ones due to incorrectly focused purple-hued lights.

Well, this is an easy one....
first, back to your snarky statement about the invention of the lamp prior to the computer.
DUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
How about the invention of the engine before computers........
besides how completely 'thoughtless' you comment is, the fact remains that NOW, today, and for the last 15 years, with the advent of the COMPUTER DESIGNED non sealed lamps (that would go along with all the other COMPUTER DESIGNED car parts....geeezzzzz( like talking to first graders), when you alter the point where the hot spot sits you alter the reflection.
Don't believe me, shine some 'hid in a halogen reflector' lamp on a wall.
THen call me.
This may surprise you, part of the computer design of the headlamp is not just about the brightest light the farthest, but about the 'suitability'(for lack of a better word) of the light in front for the human eye. There is a science to making sure that when the human eye is looking down a dark road it is not being strained by looking into a light pattern that is insuffcient or too bright.


Maybe 100 people in the free world are self producing cars, that are driven MAYBE 4000 miles a yr. (and are aware of what they are doing, btw)
as opposed to 100,000s who are buying plug n play hid kits (and have no idea that it is bad)

And the vilification of "hid in reflectors" is as justified as 'turbonators' in your intake steam.
THe reason leds get a pass is because only in the last couple of years (thank you audi) have leds been of a high enough quality to be maid into driving lights.
(DUHHGHHHHHHHHH)
google led headlamps.......
google hid headlamps.......

There is a great forum, hidplanets.com that is all about hid and PROPER installation of hid systems.

While I appreciate a good intulectual give and take of ideas, you need to try working thru the questions before hand.
I bet not 1 of those 'death machines' would even consider running hid in a halogen lamp. THey are to focused on the correct technology.
Ricers do not think in those terms......they think about color! Or don't think at all.

Finally, show me one picture where someone did the install and took a picture on the wall before and after. They always take the picture of the front of the car!!!!
and it's 'brighter' because of the glare!!!! not because the light goes farther or better.
also, unlike the 'turbonator' which is in your car and has NO effect on my life, my safty or my driving.........the hid in reflectors DOES effect me......and since I know the facts......I realize that you have no idea what you are doing!
(not you - you neseccarily, but the generic 'you' )

If I may submit my humble opinion, I think you are bang-on.

there is a little room for concern, but its being blown out of proportion

Bang-on.

"HID's are Illegal and Unsafe".

on the "unsafe" part we need to take a more careful look and determine Y/N.

On the "Illegal" many laws aren't the smartest....check out the link below

In Ohio its illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.
In P.A. all fire hydrants must be checked before all fires.

Dumb laws | stupid laws

what state do you live in? Check out the link I provided above for all the laws in your state.

How about we focus on the topic "illegal to alter headlamps"

Who gives a fxxx about you distracting the conversation with another topic.

while you are being frivolous, look up the headlamp laws.

I can appreciate snarky comments being repaid in kind.

Agreed, and quoted because this is important for people to know.

To clarify, we are not concerned with improper use of LEDs in headlights because they haven't been around very long?

Thanks for the link, I will check it out.

As do I. Even if we don't agree at the end of the day, I do appreciate having my ideas challenged.

Good suggestion. If I remember, I will take before/after pics of my motorcycle and open myself up to criticism.

Back to the topic, I would be very interested to see LED headlights in action using the photo method described by mcrews.

To clarify, we are not concerned with improper use of LEDs in headlights because they haven't been around very long?

No, you missed my point.
If you google each, you will se there are not hundreds of 'plug n play' kits. also the technolog isnt 'quite' there yet.

But it all falls under the same issue (clearly) moving the hot point. Maybe that doesn't seem clear to you but that's the point of the conversation.

Frankly, op wasnt going to be able to 'create' a suitable alternative w/led. But he could drop $40 on your recommendation and think he did a 'good' thing.

yes it was nice seeing this picture.


the plan was to purchase appropriate-power LED's like this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-5-HEAD-LIG...item415f577bc2


and install them inside a PVC tube of several inches diameter and 5-8 inches length. should the light spread too much in all directions I would back the light up inside the tube as necessary until the beam is narrower as the tube would cut away more of the spillage.

A shield could also be built in so there would be no light spillage at all above a predetermined height like in the picture here.

finally, I would take a pic of the beam against a wall exactly like you said,and see if it produces results that are satisfactory in terms of safety to others.

the bulb in the link I've just provided takes 1.8 watt and is a 60 watt equivelant, here's a quote from the description which you can see yourself by clicking on the like I've just provided...unless the listing is incorrect/in error
"- Power consumption: 1.8W (Equal to 60W bulbs) "


again this picture was much appreciated.

I wish you the best of luck with the led lamp.

the second question is how the led lamp throws the light.
Park a know distance on a dark street that has a stop sign at the end (or some reflective sign) turn on your lights. The sign should 'light up".

My lower projectors (above pics) are good for 1/2 a mile.
you should do that also w/ your stock lens still in place on one side.

Here are two pictures of a hid projector that has a hi & low beam function.

Most hid are low beam only(shield is permantly in place). but about 30% have a sileniod that moves the cut-off shield.

You can see the intensity of the high beam function:

http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/v...s/9-23-11b.jpg

http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/v...es/9-23-11.jpg

http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/v..._schematic.gif

This a an accurate diagram of a PROJECTOR headlamp.
The bowl or chromed refector is computer-designed to throw the light to a defined spot.
The lens is opictally ground to magifiy and project the light straight out.
A hid projector always has a shield/cutoff to keep from blinding oncoming trafic

A Halogen or reflector headlamp is similar. Also, most halogen bulbs have a blacked out cap on the bulb or there is a cap built into the lamp.

hey!

one of our members has just got on it... I wish him success in this endeavor and hope he comes to a properly working unit...


http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post286294