LED lowbeam experiment

[PaleMelanesian]

Ebay product descriptions aren't worth the pixels they're printed on.

If those LEDs are actually drawing the power they claim, the output would be more like 3000 lumens instead of the 800-900 listed.
The listed 940 mA input power calculates to 12.22W at 13V.

For that price, I'll believe the lower numbers and dismiss the higher ones as false advertising. Actually, I don't even believe the lower numbers and expect it'll be half as bright as they claim.

[WD40]

Those are DRL not to be used as headlights.
Try these instead, as they are headlights

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by WD40

Try these instead, as they are headlights

Hm-m-m-m, it's confusing that first-page DETAILS says "overheat fan protection", but second-page SPECS list says "NO" for that spec. Wonder which is fact?

[WD40]

They do have overheat fan protection.
What they don't have is built in overheat protection, as in shuts off if it overheats.

[American Viking]

Originally Posted by WD40

Those are DRL not to be used as headlights.
Try these instead, as they are headlights

Those are what I bought, just from a different vendor.
27W each bulb.
As for color, they are slightly whiter than old halogens bulbs, but even close to the blue white of a 35W HID.

LED's are more narrow in their output wavelengths, where as HID output is nearly as scattered as a standard incandescent.

[justme1969]

But now someone needs to do the math and figure out how many years that$100 price tag takes to pay off. it may be just a year if you conscider it is in the long life range bulb category. those are $24 -$27 replacements.
Soo if you need a bulb it might just pay to upgrade to them.

[justme1969]

So you tried these first then bought and tried the h5?? because those were too bright??

Originally Posted by American Viking

I bought the Cree h7 based led's for my Jetta.
Unfortunately VW has a weird low beam adapter/mount, so I had to grab a couple of those aftermarket HID bulb adapters for it.

Soon as I get the front end back together I'll get them installed.

Also got the H4 dual beam cree led bulbs for my bike.

[gone-ot]

MATH: I drove my 1984 Honda DX for 15 years and never once had to replace a headlight, so-o-o (a) "life" for LED lamps had better exceed 15 years and (b) "payback" had better exceed the cost of the OEM lamp...in my opinion.

[RedDevil]

Depends on how often you use them...

I drove my '85 Civic for almost 12 years and had to replace both headlights 3 times. They always went within 3 weeks of each other. I learned to carry 2 spares.
But I ran the lights almost all the time.

I'm quite happy with the HIDs in my Insight. 14 months and 500 or so hours of burn time in, they already saved 20 kWh compared to the OEM halogens.
As the electricity has to be generated by the engine, generating a kWh costs me almost a liter of gas @ € 1.65 per liter.

I already saved about € 30 by using HIDs instead of halogens, so I'm already halfway the break even point for my € 58 HID kit.
As a bonus my projector headlights now provide an adequate amount of light instead of substandard.

[justme1969]

We can estimate payback in 2 years from your figures and less if you also take in account the life cycle expense on alternator and loss of effective power from alternator draw especially during accelleration activations.
looks a little better this way.

Then for my application Ill take into account key off coasting in dark that saps my system.

So long stories short if you plan to keep your car more than a year it may just pay.