How many riders switched to LED headlights from halogen?

[mrmarklin]

I switched with my Harley twin cam. Came with a whole new unit. Big improvement.

 

[bikeama]

My Audi and my BMW S1000XR came with LEDs and both are great with a sharp cutoff on the light beam. My 2020 Ford Transit has some of the poorest lights ever. Changing the full unit out to factory LED is big $$$. I put a LED on high beam only, not on the low beam. I have auto dimming and it will go to low beam at the first sight of a car coming.

 

[NorCalBusa]

Odd not one person has mentioned what engine oil & tire brand & model tire to use. Boggles the mind.

 

[ST Guy]

Well, it is a lighting thread. But yea…..

 

[Rtmac]

LED bulbs don’t rely on the reflector to “bounce” the light forward in the same way halogens bulbs do… nor do they rely on the housing for the horizontal cut-off.
You can’t just swap the bulbs and go, or obviously you’ll be blinding oncoming traffic (which can also happen with different brands of halogen bulbs.) But if the housings are adjusted to properly aim the beam, you can increase light without blinding oncoming traffic.

This requires more than just a couple turns of the adjusters; it’s a significant amount of downward adjustment… I wouldn’t be surprised if some vehicle would run out of adjustment and require modifications of some kind (although neither one of my vehicles did.)

FB is watching me, now here's an LED light w/nice cutoff; https://www.facebook.com/reel/3477046732565606

I’m running the same bulbs in NorCalBusa's post in my Honda Ridgeline, aimed properly. The light is great and I haven’t been flashed at all while using low beams (the same applies to the bulbs in my Ram Van.)
When set-up properly, they are comparable to the brightness of LED headlights on most modern vehicles. Yes, this requires some effort. But anyone who says that it is impossible, is talking out their ass… cuz it just ain’t true!

 

[ST Guy]

There are two ways to aim the light. One is using the factory screws to adjust the beam up and down and left and right. It can be done on all headlights. The other way is with the design of the reflector. This is not adjustable. You get what you get.

So, if one attempts to adjust the headlamp, they are only adjusting the beam they already have. This adjustment can NOT compensate for the mismatch of the wrong bulb type in a housing.

 

[Rtmac]

Again, the design of the reflector is irrelevant with LEDs... as is the cut-off provided by the housing. As long as you can adjust the housing to hold the LED in the proper position, they work fantastic.
And, btw, I can lengthen headlight adjusters, shim the buckets out, or remount them completely if I choose to (especially on a motorcycle)... it just requires some effort.
One of us is obviously wrong. I drove my Ridgeline thru downtown Walnut Creek several times last night, I could see clearly and no one flashed me... what has your experience been?
Again you are making absolute statements about something you have no first-hand experience with. I'm sure you feel you're an expert in many subjects that you've explored on the internet.
But I disagree.

 

[Enchanter]

Again, the design of the reflector is irrelevant with LEDs... as is the cut-off provided by the housing. As long as you can adjust the housing to hold the LED in the proper position, they work fantastic.

This has not been my experience. On my Ford Econoline I can spin the housing adjusters and clock the LED bulbs to get me either good highbeams, or good low beams, but not both. I've had similar experience with a Yamaha R1.

 

[Rtmac]

I always adjusted so the low beam is proper, then take what I get with the high beam. In the past the high beams would be higher than I would like, but I would rarely use the high beams unless I was out in the sticks (because the low beams are so good.)
That isn't the case on my latest set of bulbs, the high beam cut-off is proper compared to low beam. I still rarely use high beams just because I rarely need them on the highway (and they do reflect quite a bit off the street signs)

 

[johnkol]

• Luminous Flux: Total light output bounds (e.g., ~$1650/1000 lm +- 15% at 13.2V).

Right there, ChatGPT betrayed you.

This is what happens when you're not familiar with a subject and you rely on AI garbage to convince your mates you're an expert.

 

[ST Guy]

From Google:

Yes, drop-in replacement LED headlight bulbs rely on your vehicle's factory reflector bowl to bounce and direct light, but they often fail to harness that reflector correctly because LEDs emit light differently than original halogen filaments. [1] (

)

 

[tzrider]

Right there, ChatGPT betrayed you.

This is what happens when you're not familiar with a subject and you rely on AI garbage to convince your mates you're an expert.

And yet, you are providing no information as usual. Just silly potshots.

So, what in the above is wrong?

 

[gixxerjeff]

I'm beginning to think you're wrestling a pig in mud....

 

[johnkol]

So, what in the above is wrong?

If you cannot tell what's wrong in that tiny portion of what you posted, then maybe you shouldn't have asked AI to summarize something that you could not vet for accuracy?

People reading that summary would have assumed it was accurate, and in actuality it could all be made up, completely fake.

And yet, you are providing no information as usual. Just silly potshots.

No information on what??

 

[tzrider]

I can only assume you're quibbling overthe fact that 650/1000 lm at 13.2V is the European ECE R37 rating for dual-filament H4s (High/Low). The US DOT/FMVSS 108 rating for HB2/9003 is 1580/910 lm at 12.8V.

So, fair catch.

That regulatory cross-reference doesn't change the underlying optical reality: displacing a light source by tenths of a millimeter off-axis throws a parabolic or free-form reflector out of focus.

If you have an actual rebuttal to Light Center Length (LCL) displacement, substrate thickness forcing diodes off-axis, or the glare coordinate caps in FMVSS 108, I’m all ears. Otherwise, quibbling over ECE vs. DOT test voltages doesn't make flat LEDs fit halogen reflectors any better.

 

[NorCalBusa]

On several bikes, I added a circuit that made the high beam (of whatever kind of hot rod lamp at the time) illuminate whenever I honked the horn. Did the same with my F250. Fairly simple to do while you're in there switching to the all new unobtainium lamps.

 

[johnkol]

I can only assume you're quibbling overthe fact...

No, I'm aghast at the sight of a scientific quantity (in this case Luminous Flux) having units of dollars:

Luminous Flux: Total light output bounds (e.g., ~$1650/1000 lm

and that's a prime example of why there is no "intelligence" in AI: it doesn't understand contexts, it has no concept of what it does, there is nothing up there; it simply strings together words based on the statistical probability of a particular word following another one.

Because of such monumentally gross errors, I cannot trust anything AI does; did you check FMVSS 108 to ensure that the summary aligns with what's actually in the specs?

displacing a light source by tenths of a millimeter off-axis throws a parabolic or free-form reflector out of focus.

You can design a reflector with a point-like focus; you can also design one to have a fairly wide focal point. Vehicle reflectors are of the latter variety due to manufacturing tolerances of both reflectors and bulbs, and these tolerances are not of the order of tenth of millimeters - they're much larger.

 

[ST Guy]

All this aside, LED’s should never be used in housings designed for halogen bulbs.

 

[tzrider]

No, I'm aghast at the sight of a scientific quantity (in this case Luminous Flux) having units of dollars:

and that's a prime example of why there is no "intelligence" in AI: it doesn't understand contexts, it has no concept of what it does, there is nothing up there; it simply strings together words based on the statistical probability of a particular word following another one.

Because of such monumentally gross errors, I cannot trust anything AI does; did you check FMVSS 108 to ensure that the summary aligns with what's actually in the specs?

The dollar sign was my typo. The originally cited numbers are accurate and I fat fingered the symbol. That must discredit the whole thing, huh?

You'll find those specs on page 31 of this PDF: https://unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/main/wp29/wp29regs/2015/R037r8e.pdf

You'll also find the coordinates for the filaments. Housings intended for use with H4 bulbs have reflectors designed around these paramenters. Put a bulb into those housings with the light source in a different place and you get a different light pattern. This isn't hard.

You can design a reflector with a point-like focus; you can also design one to have a fairly wide focal point. Vehicle reflectors are of the latter variety due to manufacturing tolerances of both reflectors and bulbs, and these tolerances are not of the order of tenth of millimeters - they're much larger.

Of course you can. But that has never been what the conversation is about. We've been talking about dropping LED replacement bulbs into housings designed for halogens. You know, that engineering problem you keep asserting is trivial, but that none of the 800 lb gorillas in lighting have solved. It seems to me your time might be better spent making the fortune that awaits you in solving this problem, but you can keep arguing with me if you'd rather.

 

[ST Guy]

Not only is the task not trivial, it’s an impossible task.