LED car headlights are a promising technology. They have many advantages over filament bulbs (longer life, faster on/off times, lower power consumption) but the technology has still limitations. LEDs can be used as car headlight when the lighting system is specifically designed for LEDs. There are even some DIY projects for this.
The current LED products do not not seem to be ready for drop-on replacement of normal light bulbs used on card headlight. Generally LED bulbs are generally not as bright as standard incandescent bulbs. This is a common problems on many LED products: they consume less power and have higher efficiency, but majority of the LED bulb replacement products have considerably less brightness than the original bulb they try to replace. Also the light is distributed differently so they can appear brighter in some applications and not as bright in others, it depends on the size and shape of the bulb housing and reflector. LED bulbs may cause some newer vehicles to indicate a bulb is burnt out (because of their low power consumption).
H1 68 x 1210 3.4W White Light Bulb (DC 12V) bulb promises a lot: Increased more visibility when driving at night. Easy installation, plug and play with no modification needed. Too bad the beam focus will be a floodlight! The reason for that is that H1 filament is about 1/32″ by 1/4″ and the light reflector optics are designed to produce the intended light beam from that kind of light source. If you replace the small filament type light source with a rod covered with LED’s the resulting light beam be a mess: light everywhere, but not focused. Not what was intended by the original car light designer. And not what the car lamp approval bodies expect the get out from the lamp.
Also the total light output would not be what is needed. most probably “not enough”. A 55w halogen should typically be putting out 500-1000 lumens (maybe more), whereas a good 3.4w led would be about 250 lumens or maybe even less. So you would get considerably less light out output that you would get with the original light bulb and the light beam would be a mess.
H7 6W 190-Lumen 18×5050 SMD LED Car White Light Bulb (DC 12V) is another bulb replacement product. It seems to have also same problems as the previous product. An ordinary halogen reaches an excess of 1000 lumen, as you can see, this led is only 190 lumens. This could maybe used for decorative “day lights” but cannot replace the main lights. The light output would probably be also mess. So the end result would be that installing such bulb to your car would get you very dim lights that would probably not meet the regulations covering the car headlight performance.
Maybe it is not so good idea to replace the car light bulb with LED yet. LED replacement product promise a lot but usually do not live up to their promises. If anyone knows any real LED alternatives to card bulbs, feel free to post comments on them.
146 Comments
2009 Toyota Camry SE Full LED Conversion – Interior & Exterior | Interior Home Decor says:
[...] LED car lights « Tomi Engdahl’s ePanorama blog [...]
Carlota Truong says:
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Since General Motors and Chrysler entered bankruptcy last spring, GM has stolen the lion’s share of the headlines. The General has made front page news with new products, a government loan payback and first quarter profits, while Team Pentastar has quietly gone about the business of returning to respectability. Chrysler took another step towards its goal this week as the company paid back another $1.9 billion in government loans to the federal government. In total, Chrysler has paid back $3.9 billion of the $14.3 billion in loans the company received.
Grover Nickol says:
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tomi says:
I saw some comments related to this type of products somewhere and then did my own research to write the article…
Igor Kholobayev says:
Wow, I cant believe this. I am saving at least $50 bucks a months after changing the lights in the house to LED lights. These LED lights are very efficient, they produce light per watt than incandescent bulbs and their efficiency is not affected by shape and size, unlike Fluorescent light bulbs or tubes. Will buy a few more to change out the busy area in the house. Definitely LED lights are the future of lighting.
John A. Jakobovic says:
Mayor John Tonello said the LED lights will save the city 60 to 80 percent in electric bills. The city has been experimenting with different LED lights for municipal use and street lights. They will also emit a more natural illumination Color: LEDs can emit light of an intended color without the use of the color filters that traditional lighting methods require. This is more efficient and can lower initial costs. Ask your city official to do the same.
Paul Kersse says:
Since LEDs are small, durable and require little power they are used in hand held devices such as flashlights. LED strobe lights or camera flashes operate at a safe, low voltage, as opposed to the 250+ volts commonly found in xenon flashlamp-based lighting. This is particularly applicable to cameras on mobile phones, where space is at a premium and bulky voltage-increasing circuitry is undesirable. LEDs are used for infrared illumination in night vision applications including security cameras. A ring of LEDs around a video camera, aimed forward into a retroreflective background, allows chroma keying in video productions.
Sarah Carl says:
Did you know that our CFL light bulbs are very toxic with Mercury? I didn’t until someone in the office asks me to properly recycle the CFL bulbs because these bulbs have Mercury on it. From there on, I told my family that we have to get rid of the CFL and have something better like LED light bulbs. The LED bulbs are made from silicon which is just basic sand. Did a lot of reading, everyone recommends these LED bulbs. Non-toxic and save for your family. Glad we found this healthy product.
tomi says:
It is true that CFL light bulbs contain toxic Mercury.
They should not be trown out with normal garbage, instead should be brought to a suitable recycling place where they can dispose then properly.
Daniel Snyder says:
Gardeners who are used to traditional grow lamps will find gardening with LED lights a bit different. Here are some things to keep in mind:
–Don’t overwater. The heat from traditional lamps causes water evaporation, requiring indoor gardeners to give their flora extra water. Because LED lights produce significantly less heat, plants require less water.
–Provide some heat. On the flip side, the lack of heat generation from LED lights can cause plants to grow more slowly. Plants should be kept in a room that’s 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit, and a small 60-Watt light bulb may be needed for plants that benefit from higher temperatures, such as tomatoes.
Oliver Klink says:
A single kilowatt-hour of electricity will generate 1.34 pounds (610 g) of CO2 emissions. Assuming the average light bulb is on for 10 hours a day, a single 40-watt incandescent bulb will generate 196 pounds (89 kg) of CO2 every year. The 13-watt LED equivalent will only be responsible for 63 pounds (29 kg) of CO2 over the same time span. A building’s carbon footprint from lighting can be reduced by 68% by exchanging all incandescent bulbs for new LEDs in warm climates. In cold climates, the energy saving may be lower, since more heating would be needed to compensate for the lower temperature.
teach me piano says:
Anybody having problems viewing this in google chrome, it looks all messed up. **Edit** Just opened it up in IE8 and it worked good.
tomi says:
Chrome is known to be disastrously terrible in handling RSS feeds. That’s the reason for the problems.
Google support discussion at http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=7d46fd6508f388ce&hl=en
says:
Add the RSS subscription extension. It adds the subscription icon to the address bar and handles the feeds.
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/nlbjncdgjeocebhnmkbbbdekmmmcbfjd
There’s an extension for RSS feed handling. Like the Firefox RSS detection, the Chrome RSS extension will detect RSS feeds available on a web page and displays an icon in the omni-bar that you can click to subscribe. It can be configured to add the selected feed to your preferred reader with or without prompting you.
It’s very popular so you should have no problem finding it. The full title is “RSS Subscription Extension (by Google)”.
tomi says:
Chrome RSS support is very bad. Google support forum recommends installing RSS feed extension to get RSS feeds to work…
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Car LED Bulbs And Lighting says:
Are any of these LED bulbs have built-in Canbus Controller so they can work for European vehicles without error showing on dashboard or causing flickering when the engine is on.
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Generally LED bulbs are generally not as bright as standard incandescent bulbs. This is a common problems on many LED products: they consume less power and have higher efficiency, but majority of the LED bulb replacement products have considerably less brightness than the original bulb they try to replace.
PS3 says:
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Medwin Alvarado says:
Was an interesting article, thank you..
Hunter Reed says:
just make sure to use energy saving garden lights to help the environment.*:;
Gwyneth Seki says:
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spy shot says:
As we were checking out the new Ford Start concept at the Beijing Motor Show, we ran into the head of Ford’s advanced studio in California, Freeman Thomas, and the mini car’s lead exterior designer, Jeff Nield. According to Nield, he wanted to create a vehicle that retained elements of Ford’s “Kinetic Design” language while at the same time create something more subdued, able to stand apart from the noise surrounding the show. Thus the Start has a cleaner simpler shape that’s slightly more serious than past concepts. Nield mentioned the Mini and how it’s always had a cute, happy demeanor about it. He wanted to create something different – a thing of beauty injected with very natural, organic elements.
led street lights says:
Nice post
Trish says:
It’s past time to stop using foreign oil! Maybe we will always need some oil, but we just have to stop depending on Middle East oil. There are 3 fairly easy things that all of us can do now to make a difference. 1- Stop pumping gas into your car! If you have a gas guzzler now, convert it into an electric car (see this blueprint for example). No more gas! 2- Stop using electricity off the electric grid! Either build solar panels (like this one), or build a cheap magnetic generator (like this one). Not very hard! 3- Learn to bike or walk! If you are only going a mile to the shop, walk or bike there. My 2 cents.
tomi says:
I do not believe on those cheap magnetic generator plans.
They sound too much like scams…
Gayle Schrenk says:
Vielen Dank für die interessante Inhalte!
Phil Mcniff says:
Good infomation here, thanks.
Carolin Galimba says:
cam extras have my LED flashlight, sneaky pix,zoom|timer app
car parts online says:
Super-Duper site! I am loving it!! Will come back again – taking you feeds also, Thanks.
Amber Phillips says:
for garden lights, we used Light Emitting Diodes to save some electrical energy.-,~
Classic Mini says:
This is a good,common sense article.Very helpful to one who is just finding the resouces about this part.It will certainly help educate me.
Sara Vandevorde says:
Do you have an email list that you send out updates to your blog that I can subscribe to?. If not, I will check back often to checkout the updates.
tomi says:
I do not have an e-mail list for updates.
You need to use RSS or Twitter…
You can get RSS feed from http://www.epanorama.net/blog/feed/
And Twitter at https://twitter.com/epanoramanet
tomi says:
Sorry. There is no email list.
Portable Solar Panels says:
Portable Solar Panels…
Thank you for sharing..I will vist again very soon….
tomi says:
There is a Group behind this whole epanorama.net
But the Blog is pretty much only made by me (99% me and maybe 1% other).
10 tile saw says:
Not a big fan of LED’s to tell you the truth.
Aaron Stewart says:
the great thing about LED light is that they do not generate lots of heat*”*
tomi says:
Yes.
http://twitter.com/epanoramanet/
tomi says:
True. That’s the place where LEDs are very good.