Finished headlight mods: HID + De-Amber + LED turn signals, city lights & fog lights

[986_inquiry]

Originally Posted by landrovered

My wife's car has the same problem, the previous owner put 70w bulbs in and melted the insides. I put 55w back in and I am planning to to a projector xenon upgrade which will not use the old burnt lenses.

Are you buying new lenses or cutting the old ones? If buying new, where can we buy them?

[986_inquiry]

Originally Posted by J Tinsby

Maybe off topic. But I was told by a seller of SMD's that although they look white when you are looking directly at them they don't send out light the way a halogen bulb does. IE: They won't be as bright with the light they project onto the ground as opposed to an incandescent bulb. The color will be pure white but that's about it.

As to why this is so I really haven't been given a good explanation. Sure the smd's don't have a filament that radiates 360 degrees like a halogen, maybe that's the answer.

Of course Audi's R-8 has LED headlights so they must have found some way to make them work, how it was done I don't know. They say the low beams aren't good but the high beams are awesome.

J T

Money. A good modern LED flashlight is about $100, so there's no way we can buy a pair of equivalent foglights for less than $100.

[landrovered]

Originally Posted by 986_inquiry

Are you buying new lenses or cutting the old ones? If buying new, where can we buy them?

It is my understanding that the old lens is removed entirely but the reflective housing is reused.

[986_inquiry]

Originally Posted by landrovered

It is my understanding that the old lens is removed entirely but the reflective housing is reused.

That sounds perfect, I've been looking for instructions on how to do this. Do you have links? I'd love before an after photos.

[landrovered]

This is where I got the idea DIY-Bi-Xenon headlight conversion - Really can be done- $300 - Rennlist Discussion Forums

[986_inquiry]

I bought some of the LED foglights listed on ebay
2X Car Auto 120 LED 3528 SMD H7 Xenon White Fog Driving Head Light Lamp Bulb 12V | eBay

If that page disappears they're sold by ouyou2010 titled "2X Car Auto 120 LED 3528 SMD H7 Xenon White Fog Driving Head Light Lamp Bulb 12V"

Photos attached.

I did have to use a dremel on the LED bulb to trim it down a bit because the individual LEDs are square not rounded domes so they jutted out just enough to not fit. Dremeling apparently did not hurt the LEDs though as you can see from the photo of the LED bulb fully lit.

I stood behind the car and took photos to try and get a good view of what the driver would see. The last photo is just the LED fog light on the left. Second to last is the regular fog light on the right. These photos are a good representation of how the lights really look.

To sum it up the 120 SMD LED fog lights are completely worthless and see no reason why anyone would waste their time with these even if they were free. I own LED flashlights that are brighter.

[ohhh my]

I would never recommend using LED's for headlight or fog lights, unless they were specifically designed and research for the application.

Believe it or not, the factory filament halogen light bulb and housing had many hours of research go into it. The point of the filament where the light is produced is strategically placed in a certain spot inside of the fog light housing, so when it illuminates, it perfectly reflects off of the reflector providing light in front of the car and a clean cut off line.

When you replace it with an LED, it's nothing more than a circuit board with a bunch of LED's placed on there with no calculations or consideration on which direction these LED's are pointing. So when you turn on these LED's they're just shining everywhere, in most cases, just lighting up the housing and producing no usable light on the road because very little of the light is correctly hitting the reflector inside the housing to project the light forward.

This same thing applies to people trying to use HID kits inside a halogen housing. The filament(where the light is produced) inside a halogen light bulb is a different location(further back) than where a HID bulb produces light. The difference is just a few millimeters which is why you get decent light on the road, but there is a lot of glare because of these few millimeters...

[Perfectlap]

^ true but Halogen lights are lousy either way. Once I installed Litronics I didn't see a huge improvement in urban driving but once I got out into the dark woods I realized halogen lights were like driving with big flashlights. I can't imagine that HID kits can't be somewhat of an improvement (or at least equal to halogen) aside from being a huge cosmetic upgrade.

[Chuck W.]

Originally Posted by ohhh my

I would never recommend using LED's for headlight or fog lights, unless they were specifically designed and research for the application.

Believe it or not, the factory filament halogen light bulb and housing had many hours of research go into it.

Yes, and no. The "fog lights" are just not practical where most of us live. For most, they end up being a cosmetic look. And the OEM bulb just doesn't match HID lights. The LEDs look better. As a functioning light, they are worthless.