Fanless LED headlamps..anyone tried them yet?

[Willygee]

I'm thinking H11 low beams to start with. High beams plenty bright but lows on no stripe roads at night are challenging.

[tp_connectic]

Those just have heat syncs on em the size of the fan. Should work the same as having a fan, just slightly less likely to fail mechanically and slightly more likely to overheat!

[Willygee]

And what the heck is 3d Bionic Technology?

[Fifty150]

  Heat sinks vs fan?  I would choose the fan.

 

Almost all LED on Amazon & eBay are from Shenzhen, China.  One specific city, has a handful of factories, which produces lamps for several dozen labels.  The brand name is just the name that a reseller sells under.  In some cases, the parts are shipped to USA for final assembly.  Which means that they get 2 pieces, snap them together, then claim that item is "Made In USA".  

 

Some sellers have been around longer, have a decent reputation, and will be there to send you a replacement or refund.  The quality of LED lamps is now very good.  There are less failures.  Those warranties don't mean anything if the seller isn't around long enough to honor the warranty.

 

LED technology has not improved, and will probably never get any better; when it comes to how the LED light wave spectrum reflects in a halogen housing.  Your van has a headlight designed to use halogen lamps.  LED lighting is most effective pointed in the direction you wish to illuminate.  LED lighting is less effective pointing at halogen reflectors.  

 

LED drop in replacements are much brighter than halogen lamps.  The beam does not "throw" as far, scatters, and a lot of people claim that there is more glare.  

[Willygee]

Maybe i will install one of those off road KC smiley face light bars...jk

[JackGrimshaw]

I found the low beams on my 2016 terrible.Had them aimed up and problem solved.

Light intensity was not a problem. Cheap fix.

[Willygee]

I did the same..counter clockwise about 2 turns each lamp..helped but could be brighter.

[Fifty150]

On 8/8/2019 at 4:06 AM, Willygee said:

Maybe i will install one of those off road KC smiley face light bars...jk

 

 

I installed an LED light bar on the front of my van.  Works great.  Especially in inclement weather.  LED light bar makes a world of difference in fog & rain.  

[KenR]

 

 

 

 

On 8/9/2019 at 8:51 AM, JackGrimshaw said:

I found the low beams on my 2016 terrible. Had them aimed up and problem solved.

Light intensity was not a problem. Cheap fix.

 

This is the reason for "poor" lighting performance about 75% of the time!  Quite often OEM's aim headlamps low on purpose to minimize the service department warranty claims that come from new customers getting 'high-beam flashed' by oncoming traffic.  When customer's headlights are aimed properly it's not uncommon to get flashed by onconing traffic.  Thus, a customer will bring their carts in to the dealership to get the headlamp aim lowered (costing the OEM money on the warranty claim).  But when they are aimed too low, the customer often just things they have crappy headlamps, and no customer will return their car because of poor lamp performance!

 

Often, a simple reaim is all the is needed 

[KenR]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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On 8/7/2019 at 11:29 PM, Fifty150 said:

 LED technology has not improved, and will probably never get any better; when it comes to how the LED light wave spectrum reflects in a halogen housing.  Your van has a headlight designed to use halogen lamps.  LED lighting is most effective pointed in the direction you wish to illuminate.  LED lighting is less effective pointing at halogen reflectors.  

 

LED drop in replacements are much brighter than halogen lamps.  The beam does not "throw" as far, scatters, and a lot of people claim that there is more glare.  

 

FYI... LED's were NEVER intended to be a 1-for-1 replacement with any other bulb type.  In fact, it's illegal in the US to replace your factory-specified bulb type with a different bulb type.  The reason is because bulbs and their corresponding optical systems (in the case of the TC, a parabolic reflector system for both low and high beam functions) are engineered AS A SYSTEM, meaning that the optics of the system are engineered specifically for a particular bulb type (in the case of the TC gen-2, that's an H11 low beam bulb and an H9 high beam bulb).  No other bulb type will work in it's place.  The same is technically true with projector systems as well -although, they tend to be more forgiving due to their ellipsoidal reflector design.

 

As such, as is the case with halogen or HID lighting systems, modern day LED headlamps are designed with dedicated optics that work only with the light source they were designed for.  When you replace a halogen light source with an LED light source you will get mixed results, often times improving your view of the road (simply by virtue of the adjusted color temperature of the light wavelength that the LED bulb produces giving the appearance of more light on the road), but you'll also increase glare light as well.  And it's glare light that most automotive lighting laws are designed to control because that's the light that shines above the horizon and into the eyes of oncoming traffic.

 

You will likely not get pulled over after having swapped-in LED bulbs, but you likely will get flashed high beams by oncoming traffic a lot more.

[Fifty150]

You are completely correct.  The only way an LED lamp is effective, if it's designed as a LED lighting unit.  Any LED replacement for a halogen lamp is less effective.  With household light bulbs, and commercial style fluorescent tubes, the LED replacements work.  They are okay.  But the best lighting is to install an LED fixture.  The truly effective use of LED in automotive applications is when it's an LED lamp engineered at the factory.  LED drop-in is not as good.