LED vs HID headlights. What's your preference?

[shadow0460]

Title says it all. What's your favorite headlight technology?
Looking at my garage mine would be LED.

 

[Joey D]

It depends. A properly designed LED system is significantly better than an HID system, but LEDs have issues with clearing ice and snow away from the headlights.

If you're talking about retrofitting LEDs or HIDs into OEM headlights, then neither. Halogen housing should only use halogen bulbs.

 

[shadow0460]

It depends. A properly designed LED system is significantly better than an HID system, but LEDs have issues with clearing ice and snow away from the headlights.

If you're talking about retrofitting LEDs or HIDs into OEM headlights, then neither. Halogen housing should only use halogen bulbs.

You have to aim the retrofit lights different than the original halogens in that case.

 

[Joey D]

You have to aim the retrofit lights different than the original halogens in that case.

No, optically, they don't work. Halogen reflectors are different from the reflectors/projectors used for HIDs or LEDs. LED lights in a halogen housing actually perform worse than halogen bulbs. Yes, they're brighter, but because of how optics work, they don't pass light nearly far enough to be safe. The focus is also worse because the thickness of an LED driver is much larger than the thickness of a halogen filament.

Sort of the go to on the web now is a huge, in-depth study done by a guy on Tacoma World:

3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights

3rd Gen Tacoma HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights This thread covers upgrading the 3rd gen Tacoma H11 headlights and looking at the...

www.tacomaworld.com

Your best bet with halogen housings is to put in overdriven halogen bulbs or get higher-wattage bulbs that use a different base.

 

[Tornado]

You can sorta accidentally have the stars align with retrofits that work and be better than halogens in reflector housings because drop ins can indeed be so laughably absurdly bright that they just accidentally are brighter at distance than crap bulbs with bad wiring in bad reflector housings (especially common when domestic manufacturers first began moving away from sealed beams); but you for damn sure better only be using them in lights that you shut off when cars are oncoming (and at that point why not just use a light bar or something relayed onto the highbeam circuit?) because you will never offset the scatter that will go everywhere.

Your best bet with halogen housings is to put in overdriven halogen bulbs or get higher-wattage bulbs that use a different base.

Or, depending on the age of your car, just wiring a relay instead of running through the headlight switch.

 

[shadow0460]

The person you've linked to does make some good points. I think one of the biggest issues with reliability is heat and it affects all three bulbs. Try pulling an LED bulb from your table lamp. Surprise, it'll be blazing hot!
I've done LED retrofits on a number of things from flashlights to cars with mixed results. I've a 6D Mag that started with a halogen bulb but now throws a half mile beam with a 700 lumen LED. I've anotheriggt with a 12,000 lumen LED with a lens on it. It's a great floodlight but has no projection.

One of my reasons for asking was the Tremor I just bought has one bluish headlight and one yellowish HID bulb. It has HID enclosures. The blue bulb may be a worn down HID bulb or it could be a Silver star or something, I haven't looked it over yet to see what it is. I can tell you that HID bulb pricing was a rude shock: $150 per bulb!

It is very common here to see LED headlights in cars that are too old to have been built with them. Most don't generate glare. I can't speak for the light output on them. I'm happy with the retrofits I've done and have had no citations for them (actually I've no citations at all).

 

[GBO Possum]

Our car has LED headlamps, over 100 individual ones each side. A forward facing camera is used to detect the presence and location of cars in front, and the software turns off the individual LEDs which would shine on these cars. It therefore uses main beams almost all the time, even in heavy traffic, and avoids blinding anyone. So I vote for matrices of LEDs.

 

[Roo]

and have had no citations for them (actually I've no citations at all).

[citation needed]