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  1. #41
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    Gold 'N' Brown's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rise94 View Post



    It's not always possible to make a judgement based upon photos, particularly those taken facing the lights rather than facing down the road in the direction of the light. But in your photos the actual light output on the ground looks brighter and projected further from the halogen. The lights themselves look brighter on the LED side, but this could be purely down to the light being scattered in all directions rather than focused. On a LHD drive vehicle I'd expect the LH light (i.e the right side in your photos, the halogen) to be aimed lower and therefore not project as far down the road as the RH (the LED in your photos), but to me it looks like the halogen is projecting further.
    2001 V70 T5 (Manual) - The Turnip
    1999 9-5 Aero (Manual) - Sven

  2. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gold 'N' Brown View Post
    Ref LED conversions, you really need to do a lot of research in to them. I've just been through that.....uncertainty.... myself (swapping Halogen H7s to H7 LEDs for the dipped beam in reflector headlights on my Ph2 V70). THe biggest issue to my eyes is that quality is massively variable - different LED types/brands, different LED layouts, different shapes, and different (often Chinese) manufacturers. Even if you go by good reviews there's no guarantee unless someone has used a particular LED in the same headlight unit as you.

    I was initially going to just get a set from eBay setting myself a max budget of £20 on the basis that they would be a gamble and so £20 was all I was happy to lose on the chance. And of course I was fished in by the charms of going for the highest lumen ratings going But then I started doing more research. I found some excellent videos on Youtube, one in particular where an American supplier of aftermarket lighting kits did bench tests on ~10 popular brands. Pretty much none of them met their claimed lumen output. Most were brighter on low beam than a good halogen bulb, but some were actually worse (and much worse!). None were brighter on high beam than the halogen (this was an H4 bulb by the way). More important was the beam pattern and this was massively variable between the bulbs on test. This got me thinking, I didn't want or need an ultra bright bulb, but what I really was concerned about was beam pattern (particularly to avoid MOT issues and dazzling other drivers).

    The outright winner was a bulb called the Gen3 by GTR Lighting in America. Not the brightest, though still very bright, but excellent beam pattern, and well constructed. More research showed the bulb getting praise after praise everywhere. Problem is, you can only buy the in the US and they are like $200! BY chance, during my eBay trawls I found a near identical version (is it a chinese copy, or did both brands in fact come off the same production line? Who knows?). £40 off eBay, and I can't see a single difference in the design/construction between the two aside from branding stickers. They are branded Sealight.

    I can't give any feedback on performance yet aside from confirming they work and the light output is clean white as you would expect. I need to remove my headlights to fit them and check alignment/beam pattern. It's not strictly necessary as you can install them with the headlights in situ, but I want to make a clean job of it and need to install some resistors as well, plus there's some other bits I need to do with the lights out so it's a good excuse.

    Sorry for the long reply
    Your right in many respects but if your going to spend £20 on what is supposed to be a quality, performance light unit, then what did you expect?

    The problem with most cheap chinese units is they solder cheap SMD LED's, which, being surface mounted, don't last 5 minutes if not cooled correctly. There in lies your problem.
    To have proper, effective cooling and quailty LED's - your going to pay more than £20, no matter where you buy them from.

    The best LED's on the market are CREE. CREE LED's are manufactured by CREE in the USA. So if you want quality, longevity, great light output with actual true lumens and the correct colour temperature, then you gotta spend a lot more than £20......probably closer to £120.

    Best to just avoid anything from China (where LED's are concerned) and don't pay over the odds for multicoloured housings. Be mindful that some heatsinks require fans to cool them. Using cheap fans will result in the heatsink not being cooled and the chip overheating and subsequent failure of the LED. Also, be mindful of the burn time of the LED. Most will last between 20,000 and 50,000 hours.

    I've been running CREE LED's on my R fogs as DRL's for nearly a year now with no issues. I also run CREE LED's in my 'high beam' H7. They are insanely bright and well worth the money. The colour temp between fogs and high beam is identical too at 6000k.
    Light output is crisp, clean white and light up the road 'simply lovely'!

    Bottom line is this....buy cheap, buy twice! If the bulbs cost less than £50 for the kit, then it's probably not worth it and I'd be wary of the spurious claims of high lumens and likely incorrect colour temperature.
    2014 V60 Polestar 6spd Auto :: Polestar map peak boost 17.4psi :: IPD 3" DP + 150cel :: Polestar 2.5" exhaust :: Paddle Shift Geartronic :: Black glass :: Maxton Splitter :: K+N Filter :: IPD Aluminium Top engine mount :: Brembo 6 pots :: 20" Polestar rims :: Brembo 371mm floating discs :: Sensus RTi + DAB + BT + WIFi :: D3S XENARC 6000k Active bending headlights

  3. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by LeeT5 View Post
    Your right in many respects but if your going to spend £20 on what is supposed to be a quality, performance light unit, then what did you expect?
    With all due respect Lee, that's kind of your default answer to everything. As I've said before, if you want to spend out hand over fist for the very best parts then that's your prerogative, and how nice it must be to have that disposable income. I do agree that more often than not "buy cheap buy twice" rings true, but I certainly DON'T subscribe to the ideology that the most expensive parts are the best or superior by default. In the bench test I mentioned in my previous post, they had a broad range of bulbs from cheap to top of the range bloody expensive, and it certainly was not the case there that the more expensive bulbs were superior to the cheaper ones in all cases (tested on the same headlight unit in the same conditions using a light meter to measure true output and taking beam pattern in to consideration as well). They even had a genuine Philips bulb (many brands claim to be using Philips LEDs) and the beam pattern was one of the better ones but light output was at the lower end, though still brighter than halogen.

    Personally there's not a chance in hell I would sink over £100 in to a set of LED bulbs knowing they are a lottery unless I've seen them working on the same headlights and have faith in them. The £40 I've spent is palatable to me, and I'm treating it as measured risk based on them being near as damnit identical to the GTR Lighting Gen3s I mentioned. They could still be total guff though.
    Last edited by Gold 'N' Brown; Thursday 26th October 2017 at 12:28.
    2001 V70 T5 (Manual) - The Turnip
    1999 9-5 Aero (Manual) - Sven


 

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