LED Headlights

LED technology has progressed to the point that it's viable for use in vehicle headlights. Higher end newer cars are using them, but how do the eBay kits hold up? I've seen some sell for a couple hundred and I'm sure could go higher. These ones I've picked up for around $80 at the time this was written.


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They say they are guaranteed for 2 years, so we will see how they hold up. On with the install.


In the box itself you have your two bulbs as well as the driver units. These plug right in to your stock sockets, so worst case these things suck, you've not hacked up any wires to get them installed.


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I got these in the 5000k color temp. Driving at night they look a bit blue, but I think that is just the eyes playing tricks on you trying to balance against the sodium street lamps that are well into the orange shade of things.


Either way the more you go past the temperature of natural sunlight the less light you're actually putting out on the road. So those people you see with their aquamarine headlights, well, good on them for not wanting to see where they are driving.


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The bulb itself is pretty neat looking. It's got a diode on each side, set in a reflector. The back side of it is a big heat sink, and has a built in fan to aid in cooling. I think if anything is going to fail it's going to be that fan which will then cause the led to overheat and burn out.


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One issue I did have was that the tabs on the LED bulb are much thinner than on the regular bulbs, this causes there to be some slop in the fitting. This can be cured with some electrical tape or a couple dabs of epoxy on the tabs to give them some more thickness. Of course let the epoxy dry before you insert the bulb, or don't and tell me about it so I can have a good chuckle.


Here is the power converter. It has two holes on it so it can be screwed to any available surface you can find. It comes with some double sided tape, but that's nearly worthless.


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The install itself is dead easy. The part you'll likely have the most trouble with is finding a secure place to tuck the power driver away. You can see below that all you do is plug the driver into your old socket, and the wire from the LED driver into the LED. I saw on a YouTube video somewhere that a guy recommended doing some heat shrink over the screw connector going from the driver to the LED. I'd agree with that. Load that thing up with dielectric grease and seal it up.


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I tucked this one away over here, the passenger side has less viable room to work with, and if I do the high beams, I might be in some trouble locating free space.


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Here is a shot showing the passenger side regular bulb vs the led on the drivers side.


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You can definitely tell the difference here. I need to get some night time shots. I took a few but they all came out too blurry. I'll be working on that though.

Comments

  • NZ-DB8RNZ-DB8R Moderator
    How focused is the beam? Pretty neat little set up!
  • It doesn't really have any projector mechanism to it. It bounces the light up and back so it largely relies on the reflector itself. It's not really any more focused than the regular headlights, but I've noticed especially in driving around the neighborhood more stuff around is lit up. Which around here with all the deer in the neighborhood having more light out there to the sides is pretty awesome for me. I'm going to try to get out there with my tripod in the next weekend or so and take my original lights with me since it's a super simple disconnect and reconnect to swap em out. Then I'll get some real side by side comparison shots.

    I like them so far though. I'm debating doing the brights.
  • EswichoEswicho Band Wagon
    are they really bright or not?
  • My buddy has these in his Cherokee, they eliminated the need to run fog lights for him. He used H4 housings off ebay, and the LEDs from some place I can't remember but were nearly $180 for the set. They're bright as F'k.

    If these $80 ones hold up, I'm going to ditch the TL ballasts and lamps in my hatch.
    Thanks for sharing.
  • AbideAbide Council Member
    ive been following that thread on DSO with the CREE MTG2 info. just pulled the trigger a minute ago on an ebay set to test in the Insight since it still has halogens and is H4 with the high/low. I'll review those this weekend if i have time and see how they look. Then consider pulling my DDMs out of the wagon.
  • Yeah, they are bright, not so much as you get a bunch of people flashing you, but they put out a good amount of light at a good color to boot.
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