JCPanosh wrote:I am wondering why these units get so hot, and how that compares to the halogens they replace? Is there a problem with the head being moved from the globe (central inside headlamp enclosure) to the base (seems to be outside headlamp enclosure into the dust cap)?
The LEDs do generate significantly less heat than incandescent (hundreds of degrees at the diode vs. thousands at a halogen filament). However, what heat they do generate must be removed from the LED itself, or it will cook the diode to an untimely demise. Thus, the LEDs are usually mounted on aluminum (great heat conductor), leading to a heatsink (large surface area), and potentially a fan to help dissipate the heat off the heat sink. One of the reasons LEDs generate heat is impurities in the crystals themselves... they are pumping out so much light these days, that any impurity causes internal reflections and some of the light is bounced around and turned into heat. There's a lot of research going on to growing purer crystalline structures for LEDs. That is what I read.
The air volume behind the headlight reflector and inside the dust cap is fairly cavernous, so I'm not too worried about heat buildup there. A halogen bulb will project a lot of its heat forward via the reflector and through the clear plastic of the headlight. I believe that over time, this heat and intense IR/UV light contributes to clouding of the clear headlight. Perhaps LEDs will be less likely to do this.
JCPanosh wrote:Apart from the fact it is LED, I don't see any advantage to changing the blinkers given you have to place a resistor into the circuit, does that mean it is using the same amount of power? Sort of defeats the point of reducing power by using LEDs, and blinkers do not get the advantage of bright white light you get with LEDs, so wondering if there is something I am missing with that part of the conversion.
You are correct - the blinker circuit is expecting to see a certain amount of power being used by the turn signal bulbs. If less power is used than expected, it blinks at double-rate to warn the driver that a bulb is out. What's funny is a side-effect behavior of the old electromechanical blinker devices has been replicated in virtual, right down to the sound "clack clack" being pumped through a speaker.
The only practical benefits to replacing the turn signal bulbs with LEDs is style and perhaps the instant on/off will attract other drivers' attention more readily. The flip side is it can be visually distracting waiting behind another car with LED turn signals flicking on/off instantly vs. the smooth fade of old-fashioned heaters, I mean, incandescent bulbs. In theory, an amber (or red) LED produces just that color of light, so is again that much more efficient than an incandescent producing white light and then throwing away 30-60% of it through an amber or red filter.
That's all great in theory. I'm not going to bother.
JCPanosh wrote:I started by changing my Parking lights, seems easy enough, but now I am wondering if I need to change the Hi beam due to some comments that the heat of that lamp might damage the LED. I don't use Hi beam very often, so I don't think it is a problem. But I hate that the colour of the Hi beam is so yellow compared to the Lo beam. For me it is almost (not quite) useless having the Hi beam on, it makes so little difference to the visibility.
My LEAF had halogen high and low beams with a combined reflector. The OEM LED headlights use a separate reflectors for the LED low beams and halogen high beams. Many here have reported that the reflector for the high beams on the LED-equipped LEAFs has a compromised design, and that upgrading it to LED doesn't really solve much other than changing the color of the light to more match the low-beam LEDs. I found it interesting that the BMW i3 with LED headlights use the "fog lights" to provide halogen high beams. In both cases I prefer the results of the solution I ended up with on my LEAF, but that required started with a full halogen setup and then converting.
JCPanosh wrote:I'm interested to change the fog lamps and think turning them into DRL sounds like a good idea. I never use the Fog lamps as they add no value to normal driving, and they are not true Fog lamps anyway. On my 2012 Leaf is I leave the Fog lamp switch on, and the main switch in Auto, then Lo beam and Fog lamps come on. Not really the effect I was looking for, but probably Ok.
There is so many LEDs to choose from, and so much information about what works and how to install them, this is a very useful discussion topic. Really appreciated.
I bought, but have yet to install the Philips LED DRLs as noted elsewhere on this forum. A potentially better solution is the Sylvania LEDrive combination fog lights / DLRs. As my LEAF didn't come with fog lights, there is no pre-existing wiring or even mounting brackets, so the Philips DRLs seemed like a simpler approach. However, if I already had OEM foglight, I would consider upgrading to the Sylvania setup. It even has the benefit of adding a bit of direction lighting when a turn signal is engaged left or right.... not quite the same as steerable headlights, but perhaps helpful nonetheless.
I have upgraded my license plate lights to LED (Philips), and my reverse lights (also Philips). Additionally I have replaced my dome light (again, Philips), and the cargo area light (off brand from the auto supply). The interior lighting is much brighter/whiter and gets rid of the incandescent filament buzzing when the dome light dimmed down.