The Truth About LED Bulbs

You've chosen an LED headlight bulb for your next illumination improvement, but now you have to choose from thousands of models available online. How do you make your decision? Some feature a large heat sink and a lot of wire. Others are fans without drivers. In this video, I will discuss the reality of LED headlight bulbs and break it down into three factors to consider when making your next bulb purchase.

Note: In the United States, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) regulates lamps, reflective devices, and related equipment. Despite the fact that these LED lights can be used to replace the original halogen light bulb, using them on cars that are registered for on-street use is illegal. This kind of alteration is only permitted in jurisdictions outside of the United States, where it is allowed or in fog lighting applications or off-road applications. Click here for a more thorough breakdown of compliance and to learn more about how to assess if this kind of product is safe to use and permitted on US public roads.

We have films that demonstrate how LEDs and HIDs differ in brightness, videos that discuss the color of headlights, and videos on how to aim your headlights. We've been testing hundreds of LED headlight bulbs for a while. With 300 different LED headlight bulbs available today, it's understandable that choosing the appropriate ones is difficult.

Because we test, we at Ledlightjeep are better at lighting. I began evaluating headlight bulb changes more than ten years ago because I didn't want to believe what people were telling me. It was clear that someone wasn't being honest. They said the same thing when I visited my neighborhood store. "Everything found online is incorrect. Our current situation is correct. I threw myself into it. I upgraded my headlight bulbs for about $3,000 and tested them on my vehicle. I posted the vehicle-specific kit on the website after determining what worked best for my car, and it quickly gained a lot of attention.

Since choosing automobile bulbs is a challenge that everyone faces, they were thrilled that I was eliminating the element of guessing. I had a problem with it. After that, I began evaluating an increasing number of cars, and now you have the Ledlightjeep as you know it today. We even have a book of our own. This is the Big Book of Bulbs for the Ledlightjeep .

Over the past year, we have been testing the beam patterns, brightness, and color of thousands of LED headlight bulbs on various cars. When you contact us, our customer service representatives can use this book to determine which lightbulb is best for you. Since each brand functions differently, it makes no difference which one you like. We can obtain radically varied beam pattern outputs even with identical-looking bulbs in the same headlight housing.

It is for this reason that testing is crucial. In addition to discovering that some LED chips produced better beam patterns than others, we also discovered that some bulbs were incompatible with the headlight housings. Our extensive testing revealed that the degree to which the LED chips replicate the incandescent light bulb filament from your original headlamp is likely the most crucial component of the finest LED headlight bulbs.

Your Basic Bulb 

This is how a normal headlight bulb appears. The plastic base, glass tube, and wire-wound filament are all present. To demonstrate what I mean, I broke off the glass. At this point, we will discuss the LED chips. This large, round Cree COB-style LED produces an enormous footprint. The reason your beam pattern goes haywire is understandable if you consider the light source pattern from the original filament to this new LED.

It all Comes Down to the Beam Pattern in Your Housing

This LED produces a light-filled wall rather than a limited focus beam pattern. This is useless for driving, let alone other people's safety, as you need a focused beam that can illuminate farther down the road without being too tall to blind other motorists. Following that, several businesses switched to a square LED with a bubble on top. The laser could be concentrated because of the bubble, which functioned as an optic. A large, square LED chip with a bubble on it is used for what? If the headlight was made to respond to light from a tiny coil and concentrate it. This LED isn't even close to having the proper form for a headlight. A variety of colors are available for some of the LED chips, which are large blocks of LEDs. How is the original filament going to be mimicked by that? Said it cannot. Both the footprint and the distance between the LEDs are enormous.

LED Spacing

As much as possible, the distance between each LED should resemble the original filament's width. A vast metal bar between the LEDs may cause your beam pattern to get out of focus, lack a hotspot, and glare at everyone on the road. Even some pretty intriguing experimental LED chips are shown, and at first glance, you could say, "Yeah, I can see how that would work." They rotate in all directions. Despite being small LEDs, they are ineffective in real-world situations. We have square LEDs. Then those won't work. We have LEDs that are double-layered. That will never work. What are the ones that work out of all these other varieties that don't? We're trying to find something fragile with a narrow array of LED chips that resembles the original filament in shape. The Diode Dynamics SL1 is a prime example. As you can see, there is very little metal between the LEDs, which enables the LED position to be as near to the original halogen position as feasible.

Examine the LEDs' shapes as well. You will obtain the exact measurements from that LED chip array if you measure the filament's height, width, and halogen bulb. The same is true of the GTR Lighting CSP Mini. Three LEDs that are precisely positioned and have the same form as the original filament are present. The SV4 is an even better version of the same. It employs a multi-core LED, which is a single solid bar of light similar to the solid light source from the original filament, rather than several LEDs forming an array. The GTR Lighting Ultra 2 comes with the same kind of LED chip. It's compact, snug, positioned correctly, and as bright as it can be.

Managing Heat is Super Important  

Long ago, people believed that LEDs produced little heat, which was accurate as long as they were only a tiny flashing light on your dashboard. They do, however, produce heat now that they are attempting to generate enough energy to replace your headlights. When it comes to LED headlight bulbs, you need not only a sound chip but also a decent method of removing heat from the chip so that it can remain bright enough without burning out. This F3 bulb is a nice illustration of what I mean. Look at what happened on a test vehicle after just one hour of operation. This may be one of the brightest bulbs available right now. The bulb's black anodizing burned off when it got so hot. It's a very bright bulb with an adorable top, but the heat sink is too little. There is no way that this tiny fan and heat sink could remove enough heat to function.

Make sure you have a sufficient amount of heat on top and a sizable enough heat sink underneath. Now, you have something like this on the complete other end of the spectrum. The most significant heat sink in the world is this one. Who the hell thought that making an LED headlight bulb this large would be a brilliant idea? We need something with a lot of balance because it's simply really ridiculous. Consider a heat sink like this one, which isn't very large and can't cool an LED bulb, as well as one with a fan because it lacks fins and fans. "Who cares?" the maker would ask. The LEDs will fail, so make them as bright as you can. A balance is necessary. You need a heat sink that can effectively remove the heat produced by the LED chips, regardless of how much they make.

There are three primary kinds of heat-producing objects to search for. One is active, meaning it has a fan, and the other two are passive, meaning they have no moving parts. Every LED headlight bulb had a fan at first. They now have a fan inside because, even if it's inside a headlight housing, it's still better to move air around than to do nothing at all. People occasionally ask, "Oh, but what if the fan fails?" They don't in most cases. 99% of cars have this installed inside a headlight housing where the fan won't fail or inside the engine compartment, where it's somewhat safe from mud, snow, and ice. From what I've observed, fans are used by the brightest LED headlight bulbs available. It's that easy, really. The Morimoto 2 stroke, which features a tiny fan and heat sink, is an example of something you can use if space is an issue.

Now, if we examine anything like this or the Oracle or Ray Sport bulbs, we can see that they are all passive. On the bottom are large metal heat sinks; they lack a fan. Now, you need to exercise caution if they are increasing the LEDs' brightness too much without using a fan. In order to prevent burning out your lightbulb, you must adopt a balanced approach. In general, it is unlikely to be extremely bright if it has a passive metal heat sink like this one. The LEDs are connected in the middle to a heat pipe design that descends to the heat sink. The fins are then expected to dissipate the heat away naturally and independently. Heat can quickly soak into this heat sink, causing it to stop functioning.

The third sort of heat sink generates a great deal of surface area for optimal heat dissipation by using flexible fins of some kind. Something like this from Phillips Petco with braided fins, or something similar with semi-rigid or rigid metal fins. By spreading them out and fanning them out, you can provide a large surface area that will draw heat away from the LED bulb. When it comes to heat dissipation from various forms, this is a decent compromise. While it's not as good as a fan base bulb, it's still better than one that has nothing.

The Wiring Perspective and Drivers

When it comes to LED headlight bulbs, the wiring is the last thing you need to be concerned about. After that, there may occasionally be a driver in the wire. A driver is a component that connects the LED headlight bulb to your car's wiring.

It specifies the kind and quantity of electricity required to power the LED headlight bulb. Nothing would happen if you were without the driver. On the opposite side is the plugin that resembles your original headlight bulb. There is a driver of some sort in every LED headlight bulb. Actually, a driver of some form is included in every type of LED. Finding one without a significant driver is what you need to be cautious of. It might fit if you had to install this PIAA LED headlight bulb inside your headlight housing, but it probably won't work with all the wiring, this large connector, and this large driver. On the other end of the spectrum, you have a fundamental device consisting of a little lightbulb without a driver and a short wire. Or is there? In reality, the driver is integrated into the LED bulb's body.

Since this style isn't reliable or long-lasting, I no longer like it. The issue is that electronics are destroyed by heat. They initially had fans and heat sinks for that reason. It isn't a good idea to place the driver directly close to the heat source because it restricts the amount of light the bulb can produce. With today's technology, at least, you should be searching for something that has a tiny external driver that can release its heat rather than becoming saturated by the bulb's heat. The Diode Dynamics SL1 and the GTR Lighting Ultra 2 are two excellent choices that represent the most significant kind of cable management. They feature suitable built-in connectors. There are no connections at all, and the drives are sufficiently small to fit in anything. Apart from a point of failure, what is a connection? Your headlamp will be dead if water gets inside a lousy connection. You must now disassemble the entire thing.

 A solid waterproof connection, such as the one included with the Xenon Depot Extreme LED Pro, is essential if you must purchase anything with a connection. There is a lot of wire, indeed. It has a distinctive shape and a watertight O-ring connector on the wiring. If you decide to purchase something with a connection, be sure it is of a high caliber to avoid issues later on. This is the subject of my discussion. When you have a driver that can be disconnected, you obtain a connection similar to this LED headlight bulb. In addition to the wiring being fully visible on the connector's exterior, the connection isn't watertight. There is absolutely no sense in this. In an exterior automobile application, this kind of connector should never be used. You should flee if you see something resembling this.

Cheap LED headlight bulbs with poor electrical connections are no longer the only option. This is a relatively pricey Phillips LED bulb with a comparable design but non-waterproof connections. That's the first strike in this manner. The second issue is that there are two cables, which complicates installation. It doesn't look good and introduces a whole new set of failure points. With so many lights available on the market with attractive cable designs, you shouldn't have to do this.

At Ledlightjeep, that's what we do. Our goal is to find the best automotive lighting items on the market and then educate people so they can receive the compensation they are due. Whether you purchase from Ledlightjeep or another company is irrelevant to me. Whether you're looking at brand A or brand B doesn't matter to me. The features of LED headlight bulbs that I have discussed in this video are universal. Please watch our other videos to see which is brighter, LED or HID. Check out our other videos to learn more about color with car headlights. Please let us know if you would want to see anything else. We're constantly searching for fresh video concepts.