LED blubs

[WD Forte]

Finding the stock H4 and H7 halogenish bulbs a bit on th dim side
we are wondering about swapping for leds for the winter
(Swapping them back for the MOT of course)

Philips/Osram are leading the price range but anyone getting decent results from mor pocket friendly brands?

I see Auxita led bulds on Amazon which score the same as the top two but never heard of them or the others.

That all boast of wonderful results and longevity
but some real world experience would be appreciated
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bikers smell of wee

[stinkwheel]

I've not been disappointed by whatever brand they decide to stock at classiccarleds.co.uk

I have the H4 one in my bullet and the MOT guy commented that it had the crispest beam pattern he's seen for a long time. This was before he found out it was an LED but he'd already passed it by that point..
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[panrider_uk]

Do they physically look at the bulbs to check they're LED?
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Current bikes: Honda ST1100 Pan European. Moto Guzzi V85 TT Travel

[WD Forte]

[A100man]

[panrider_uk]

I plumped for a couple of the Halfords Advanced H4s in the end.

Supposedly twice as bright.

We shall see (pardon the pun)
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Current bikes: Honda ST1100 Pan European. Moto Guzzi V85 TT Travel

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

Oddly, greater brightness (or whiteness) doesn’t necessarily mean greater throw (or distance). I was looking to upgrade the reversing lights on my car but the facets of the reflector won’t work as well with LED bulbs. Something to do with them being designed to work with the single-point emitter of a tungsten bulb compared with the often multi-point LEDs. The brighter but shorter performance was apparent in the promotional photos. Not what I was after.

[WD Forte]

I had look at the Halfords 'advanced' H4's and they're Halogen 60/55W
200% brighter?
that's an easy claim to make and led sellers make similar claims of fantastic output
Most of us don't get a chance to empirically test them, we just want to see where we're gping better
and hope they're better than what we have.
what we usually want is more light (expressed in lumens)
AI tells me
LED bulbs typically produce 75-110 lumens per watt, while halogen bulbs produce about 15-25 lumens per watt. This means LEDs are significantly more efficient, providing more light for less energy consumed.

In theory and assuming the upper figures:
A 60 Watt Halogen bulb would give 60x25 or 1500 lumens
A 60 watt led would give 60x110 or 6600 lumens.
So 4 times the light for the same energy.

The two pairs, 2xH4 2xH7 of Auxito LEDs arrived today and I've Fitted mine in the old scooty
the H4 fitted Ok but the H7 pins were more narrowly spaced than the H7 I took out
so I had to knock up an adapter cable.
They work and they're very white and bright.
On dipped beam there is quite a good cut off, much better than the cheap( sub £10) one I tested a while back
which was all over the place.
Is it MOT worthy? not sure, but it's quite similar to the Halogen bulb pattern which passed an MOT recently.
I want do some tests tomorrow before I close it all up and put a current clamp on it to see how many amps it's burning
which will give me a clue how many lumens it's putting out and how hot it's likely to get.
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bikers smell of wee

[WD Forte]

[panrider_uk]

Changing H4 bulbs is a pain, especially on the Pan where you have very little space for your hands so I don't think I can be bothered swapping them back n forth for the MOT.

The Halfords ones do well in tests by the motoring press.

Any improvement will be welcome
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Current bikes: Honda ST1100 Pan European. Moto Guzzi V85 TT Travel

[WD Forte]

Did some comparisons and tests before closing it up (access is a bit of a faff cos scooty)
I put a board against the wall yesterday and put tape to mark where the old Halogen pattern was
before changing bulbs.
Today the LED dip beam pattern is pretty damn close to the old bulbs at just below the long white line
and main beam is pretty close positionally too.

https://i.postimg.cc/qvvWyn8z/bp3.jpg

I used a bench power supply to compare current and electrical power at 14V
The halogen runs at 4.312A/60.3W compared to the led at 1.194A/16.7W
so uses less power, but the lumens per watt figure suggests marginal improvement
in lumens but luminosity and colour temp? that remains to be seen after I've done a night ride
out of town.

https://i.postimg.cc/m2bnWMp7/lumin2.jpg

I estimate only about 9 watts of the 60 running the Halogen bulb is manifested in visible light compared to 13 watts of the led.

Lumens, luminosity, radiant flux, colour temperature etc is all very well but
Ultimately, if you're happy with your lights don't change.
If your bike has limited electrical power, LEDs will definitely help.

My lad uses his scoot on a lot of country roads and felt a bit of a lighting boost was needed
I only did mine out of curiosity.
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bikers smell of wee

[stinkwheel]

I fitted them to Mrs stinkwheels Honda Wave to free up some power (it has a fairly limited DC output) so she could have heated grips.
____________________
“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[WD Forte]

Sounds like a good move for a smaller bike now leds seem to have improved.
That Mobylette I worked on a few years ago had a pitiful 6V headlight
until I upgraded it to 12v and stuck led bulbs in it.
Chatted to the guy recently and it's still working fine.
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bikers smell of wee

[Tierbirdy]

Swapped the stock incandescent bulbs in my '06 FZ1 for these, as the stock bulbs were utter shite, basically like holding up a tealight when riding in the dark.

I couldnt be arsed retrofitting projector headlights and HID kit and doing it properly so wanted to try the quick, easy and cheap option of LED bulbs, I think technically illegal to fit LED bulbs to a reflector style headlight, and they should fail the MOT but they dont. I think it was on the FZ1 owners page that I got linked these, its been a while but cant remember and may be talking utter shite, but I believe they said the reason theyre ok and dont cause issues with beam scatter in a reflector headlight like mine, is that the shroud around the LEDs prevents it. Seems to be working fine so far - theyre absolutely brilliant, gone through 3 MOTs with no problem, and dont get flashed by oncoming traffic so assume the beam pattern is fine and not dazzling. Full beam with these on is like turning the sun back on.

[Easy-X]

They test the beam pattern with the MoT. As long as there isn't too much light escaping above a certain line, no one cares what tech is making the photons.
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Royal Enfield Continental GT 535, Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[WD Forte]

[UncleFester]

The thing to watch out for is what the reflector / lens does to the beam pattern. Leds are not designed to work in reflector units.

I built a set of headlights for my old Jap Honda car - you can buy retrofit HID projector units that bolt through the old reflector bowl, you retain the old adjustment and the wiring runs out of the old H4 holder.

You then get a set of clear lenses, not the old ones with the beam focussing pattern cut into them so you don't change the beam pattern the projector throws out.

https://retrofitlab.com/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20877988709&gbraid=0AAAAAoVcnfyW_-xhk31lj0k5QajKLpasM&gclid=Cj0KCQiA-8XXBhDaARIsADnEOrBXSWybVLWqLyB9fsSaDJjhn0ZKMm8wfaYUdS2BMe7HugtCdET5xGcaAoZnEALw_wcB

These guys are excellent for kits for this stuff and whilst times move on, at the time, HID was still a better light output than an LED 'equivalent'.


YMMV
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2017 Z1000SX

[A100man]

I note that some of these LED lamps (bulbs is what you plant in the ground right) have fans fitted - odd that, I guess its for the 'driver' tronics..
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Now: A100, SRX250, XJ598, FZ750, SL1000

Then: Fizz, RS200, KL250, XJ550, Laverda Alpina, XJ600, FZS600, Skorpion, GT 250

[WD Forte]

All LED blubs create heat, brighter=moar powah=moar heat.
if the control circuits used older type linear voltage and current control they'd get pretty hot too, but most use hf switching circuits which being more efficient, generate less heat.
If the leds get too hot they'll fail cos they dont like it up em see?
so heatsinks and/or fans are used to keep temps within a bearable range.
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bikers smell of wee