LED Headlight (H7) a strange little kit!!!

Birchall

Dick Chown Award 2016
Hi,
While chatting (electronically of course) to the guy at EMtuning about LED bulbs (by the way his set for the A2 is one of the better ones and I have tried a few) He mentioned that he had an LED H7 set on his car but with a fan and electronic unit???

I was intrigued, especially since he said that he was selling his car and so I could buy the one off that for £20 !!!
It definitely works, it was on his car for two years and worked perfectly and bright and white. It still looks brand new.

It has the biggest SMD I have ever seen (hence the need for the fan) and the "bulb" looks very well engineered in aluminium.

The kit is plug and play and looks like this
LED headlight kit.jpg

The bulb is like this
LED Bulb.jpg

The fan is like this
LED fan.jpg

and the electrickery looks like this (you connect the bulb and the fan to this and connect it to the old bulb holder
LED Electronics and connector.jpg

You just use sticky pads to hold the fan in place on the headlamp cover, so that it is blowing towards the bulb and plug everything in (using sticky pads to hold the electrickery bit in place too.

I will report on the installation when I do it later and also try to do a comparison on the light output (old standard to new LED) because this is the most important thing to me!!!!

Cheers
Steve B
 
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So this is to give a more modern look same as doing a xenon conversion?
Looks like a way better package that does take up as much space a xenon kit.
Looking forward to the difference of oem bulb and this one.
 
So this is to give a more modern look same as doing a xenon conversion?
Looks like a way better package that does take up as much space a xenon kit.
Looking forward to the difference of oem bulb and this one.

I just like LED lights and I am still not sure about HID conversion kits? I worry about the laws about self levelling HID lights and they can be a bit bulky. But I am sure that there are plenty of happy HID owners on here.

I think it is just the "quirkiness" of the LED bulbs that I like. I have LOTS around the house and I like the SMD ones, they are very bright and a nice crisp white, so when it came to the headlights I thought I would give it a try.

I too am hoping that the light output matches, or betters the improved 100w halogens.

We will see.

Steve B
 
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It would be very interesting if this gives a better light output than the standard filament bulbs - do you know what brand of kit this is?
I used to run HIDs but had to give them up due to terrible problems with RF interference, and also never really being able to get them aligned correctly, but I've never found the stock A2 headlights to be particularly useful in the dark, so better lighting would be very appealing.
 
I've seen such LED kits on ebay.
Not 100% identical, but same setup with fan, etc.
 
Fitted one side, but it is difficult to judge in daylight.7

I will leave one side as halogen and the cree in the other side so I can get a genuine comparison tonight.

But in daylight the Halogen appeared to be more visible and the cree didn't seem to have the nice straight cut off in the beam shape. It was also much higher, so not looking great so far, but we will see later.

The heat generated from the cree is significant so I can see why they have a fan!!!

Steve B
 
But in daylight the Halogen appeared to be more visible and the cree didn't seem to have the nice straight cut off in the beam shape. It was also much higher...
Steve B

The positioning of the light source is really critical to the output. A mm can ruin the beam as it relies on the source being at the focal point of the reflector. LEDs by their nature are not as slim as the filament of the lamp they are replacing.
In comparison the HID can be similar to a filament.
 
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The positioning of the light source is really critical to the output. A mm can ruin the beam as it relies on the source being at the focal point of the reflector. LEDs by their nature are not as slim as the filament of the lamp they are replacing.
In comparison the HID can be similar to a filament.

The bulb is fully seated and in exactly the proper location.

What did surprise me was the fact that other H7 crees have the cree at right angles to the tab on the bulb holder.

Since the cree shines on only one side of the lamp I would have expected that to point upwards (as it does on mine) (Upwards reflecting off the top of the reflector and therefore shining downwards as it should for a dipped beam)

I will see what happens in the dark tonight but I am not holding my breath!!!

I also have to remember that I have the 100w halogen bulbs in at the moment so the cree might be brighter than original bulbs but not brighter than the 100w ones.

Steve B
 
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What a difference it makes.

In the dark the difference between the 100w Halogen and the new LED bulb can be judged and there is a huge difference.

The picture shows a significant difference in the brightness of the LED bulb, but the camera has compensated a little, in reality the difference is even more that it appears in the photo.

BUT the light spread is huge too. When you see the difference in light spread it is a little worrying, it looks like it would blind other traffic, but strangely when I looked into the light, lowering my head slowly, I was only blinded when at the same level as the original bulb, so I think that it could be that the headlamps would appear bright but not blinding. This is something like the effect you get with HID bulbs?

It really isn't as bad as it looks, as I lowered my head I could see the straight edge of the dipped pattern.

So I will fit the other LED bulb tomorrow and check the one I did today, to make sure that they are all correctly seated.

But the improvement in illumination is large and this is comparing it to 100w halogens!

I will arrange with our daughter to get her to drive past me in the opposite direction a few times and make sure that it is safe and not distracting / blinding other drivers. If it is OK then these are quite special, they are as bright and as white as HID with none of the drawbacks and a nice little quirky option.

LED Before and after.jpg

Steve B
 
wow that sure is a messy pattern--i very much doubt it would pass an mot test. I do like your concerns about legality of HID but happy to run 100w bulbs. I know HID'S are not legal but with the use of reflector type bulbs the light pattern is still good and the light output is great-life of the parts life is excellent.
Looking forward to seeing your car in the flesh so to speak at AITP. cheers mike
 
Steve,

I wasn't suggesting that the LED wasn't seated correctly, more that the size of the source was going to change the output from the luminaire (headlamp). In that I seem to be proved correct by your photo.
I would only consider using those in a main beam application myself.
 
Yep thats what I was thinking its a very messy pattern and can imagine lots of stray light where it shouldn't be..M.O.T could be a worry with those!
 
Yep thats what I was thinking its a very messy pattern and can imagine lots of stray light where it shouldn't be..M.O.T could be a worry with those!

They do advertise them as MOT compliant but perhaps only as a main beam option.

Strange that the SMD is only on one side of the bulb and the pattern seems full and yet the original bulb illuminates 360% but has a clear half moon pattern of light.

As Techno says, it is a huge blob of SMD and the original is a filament, so hardly surprising that there is a difference in "spread".

Steve B
 
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that seem an improvement at 1 meter far from the headlight.
Not sure that at 20-30m, it would still be the case...

I am certainly not sure about these LEDs yet, but I will keep on testing because the white light and potential improvement is worth pursuing.

At a cost of £20 (second-hand) I have nothing to lose!!

Steve B
 
absolutely :)

My intention was to fit such lamps in the foglights (to use them as some kind of DRL's)
If yours fail as dipped bean, you can still recycle them in the fogs :)
 
absolutely :)

My intention was to fit such lamps in the foglights (to use them as some kind of DRL's)
If yours fail as dipped bean, you can still recycle them in the fogs :)

Yes, a sensible option and exactly what will happen if they don't suit the headlamps.
They would be ok for the fogs but I will need to see how the light pattern will work out since the SMD points sideways

Steve B
 
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I fitted the other side today and waited until dark to try them out properly.

Quite a pleasant surprise actually. They worked!

The earlier scare with the right-hand side fitted was made much worse because the aim was off (when I refitted the original bulb it was clearly too high (probably disturbed during the respray).

They are very bright (of HID brightness) and very white.

As for the beam, yes there was slight "light leakage" but I have noticed the same in traffic with HID bulbs, where the entire headlamp is illuminated and bright but in no way blinding.

The rear number plates on cars around 10 metres in front were not illuminated and did not reflect the beam and there was a clear line at the top of the illumination on the floor.

I walked toward the car with the headlights on, from a distance and was in no way dazzled by them.

I plan to take them to my local MOT station so they can check them to see if they would fail, that is the "acid test".

I hope they pass, the light is just what I wanted and with the simplicity of LED.

I am not biased against HID at all and they are a good option, but I wanted something a little different for the "project"

I will post an update when I have had them tested.

Steve B
 
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Thanks for your "Research" on this topic, Steve! Based on your final assessment, I will incorporate this lighting into my headlight project. (That's the flexible strip-light LED's/indicators into my splittable headlight units.) There's just too much to do outside, at the moment, to divert to my A2's projects! Now here's a question? Those DRL's are dual function .... indicators, too. So what happens in the day, when you indicate and the DRL's are in operation? There's a conflict, there? I would think that the DRL on the indicating side would need to be over-ridden? (or dimmed, during the indicating function?) ...... I doubt that it'll be "built-in"? What do you think about this?

David
 
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