Oy Vader

[yates ™]

It gets hot in IA

Amen bro.

 

[THE YETI]

Forever alone.

 

[soulsea]

Okay so I finally got around of swapping my headlights back to the HID ones, and I took the opportunity to try a little experiment.

Instead of putting the LED bulbs I had been using before for DRL and Park lights I tried out a couple of sets of blue coated filament bulbs. Now blue coated halogen bulbs to get a whiter light in low/high beams is never a good idea because it robs the output of lumens. But in non critical lighting like DRL/Park it is more than acceptable. The idea for this experiment is simple ... I wanted to see if a similar effect to LEDs could be achieved without the potential drawbacks of LED PnP bulbs, especially the potential for heat runaway issues.

Anyhoot, i tried to take like for like pics:

HID 5000K Osram CBI, LED fogs, LED Park, LED DRL (not on):



HID 5000K Osram CBI, LED fogs, Filament Park, Filament DRL (not on):



I know the second pic isn't as good as the first one, nevertheless, here's my impression from looking at them in RL ...

I was pleasantly surprised how close the color temperature of the filament bulbs matched that of both the LEDs and 5000K HIDs. The main difference tween the filament bulbs and the HIDs is that the LEDs are slightly brighter, wheras the filament bulbs are the same intensity as our stock bulbs with a whiter light.

Anyhoot, I'm glad I did it cause they turned out well. I think I'm going to keep them cause I found myself stressing on long drives with my LED DRLs on that they were going to melt themselves, and with summer coming up and me moving to Florida soon that stress would have gotten worse. They're not as bright as LEDs but they work for me.

 

[Blazed]

Do LEDs really get that hot?
I've never heard of anyone having an issue..

 

[soulsea]

The newer PnP led bulbs often have better heatsinks and are less prone to heat issues. The problem is that vendors are always pushing the envelope and are adding more wattage to their leds in an attempt to impress potential buyers with numbers so the potential is always there.

Honestly I myself have never had an issue, and to the best of my knowledge the worse that can happen is frying the LED bulb sooner rather than later. With higher wattage bulbs the potential for more damage, including to the housing is there. Remember that LEDS watt per watt run MUCH hotter than HID and Halogen bulbs.

The biggest issue with LED bulbs is that no one but the greatest LED experts really ever know what they're getting. None of us can tell if that LED chip is CRee or not, what version, does it have the proper driver, is it properly heatsinked, true wattage etc. So we rely mostly on the rep of vendors like Vleds rather than actual knowledge.

I don't mean to make too much of it, I just wanted to try to see if I could get the LED effect without the LED potential drawbacks is all.

---------- Post added at 08:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:27 PM ----------

I should also note that although one might get a similar result running bulbs like these as drls in their tahoe housings, the blue will be much more visible (read rice) when off ... whereas both my park and drls are capped in my housings so the bulbs aren't visible.

 

[Blazed]

Yea that about the blue look is true my old Tahoe came from the old owner with those types of bulbs in the low beam not only could I only see 6 feet but I hated how you could the blue in housing while its off. Made me feel like I was a wanna be HID haver. Lol

 

[soulsea]

Yeah, thankfully you can't see the blue in mine through the caps.

 

[felixgun]

Do you have a link to the led DRL's you have? Mine just started flickering so I need new ones.

 

[soulsea]

You mean the LEDs I had in the white easy or the filament bulbs I have now in the black one?

 

[felixgun]

Well which one matches the factory hid low beams more?