TIME TO LOOK AT LED HEADLIGHT "BULB" SWAPPING AGAIN

[gregjet]

Right...
A year has passed since the last big look at LED headlights. Lots has happened with these, because they are one of the BIG areas of development in the automotive ( including motorcycles) area.
Also the passing of free photobucket means that there are dud posts now.
Before anyone goes flying off with anti-std dogma based on out of date data lets get some stuff out of the way. Yes the engineers DID know what they were doing, but the world has moved on.

LED headlights were problematic for the following reasons:
The light patterns were often without a cut off at low beam . Illegal in many places.

The light patterns were often aweful with dark patches all over the place. Now this is different for smooth reflector/freznal lens headlights and those segmented reflector/clear lenses. This is caused by the early ( and still available) H4 pattern LEDs with the emmiters of the WRONG SIZE, IN THE WRONG PLACE and THE WRONG ORIENTATION relative to the QI filaments. That meant they were not at the correct focal points and emmision vectors, to work like a QI. This is also true for HID's. Interestingly smooth reflector/freznal lens light suffer considerably less from this problem and are often not too bad a pattern.

The original posts I put up showing the various light patterns for STD QI, HID and LED ( early) went the way of all things photobucket. So I will post them again as they are useful. There are 6 of them . Because the Forum setup is for only 4 posted pics per post I will have to split them . Best comparison is to save them ( if possible) and open them in a viewer then switch back and forward between to see the differences.
NOTE: The camera is on AUTO exposure. This means that you CANNOT compare the BRIGHTNESS. The pics are to compare the PATTERNS ONLY.
There are focus lines on the white board to give reference to the correct manufacturers setting. All pics were on an MT07, but the behaviour will be exactly the same. Possibly even designed by the same people and manufactured in the same light factory.
So first the STD MT07 ( 2015) QI.:
First pic : QI std LOW.
Second pic: QI std high

[gregjet]

Here are the patterns for a HID in the same reflector/lens and for an earlyish LED. The filaments are in the correct place but are way too big so the reflected pattern is lumpy. The LED has been rotated in it's housing ( a trick I learned from putting lEDs in my cars) to give the best pattern, it does have a good cutoff unlike earlier LED efforts. Colour temp was 4000K. You can see the HID has a much higher colour temp.

First pic: HID low beam.
2nd pic: HID High beam
3rd pic: Earlyish LED refocused by rotation low beam.
4th pic: Earlyish LED refocused by rotation high beam.
Again remember that the camera is on auto exposure. You cannot compare brightness only pattern.

[gregjet]

So it was becoming obvious the the simple replacement of a H4 QI with a H4 LED wasn't going to work particularly well.
Phillips was the first as far as I know to make a LED with the emmitters in the right place and orientation to work with current reflectors. This will , of course , become redundant as ALL lights become LEDs ( and they will) and it finally dawns that we don't need reflector lights any more. There is a post on this forum showing one interesting attempt with multi segment separate emmitters. That also will be an interim solution. Eventually we should have much more robust single of double emmiter headlights. But I digress...
I don't have a pic of the last version of the Phillips ( now sold under Lumiled brand owned by Phillips). Here is a link.
https://www.philips.com.au/c-p/12953BWX2/x-treme-ultinon-led-car-headlight-bulb   .
Note the size and orientation of the tiny segmented emmitters to emulate a tungsten filament. These work pretty well. They still have a cooling problem to some extent.


Pic is of the earlier 3 sided bulb that attempted to get a resonable focus but didn't quite manage it. Note the size and orientation of the emmiters. These actually didn't work too bad with smooth reflector/freznal lens type headlights.

[gregjet]

Ok what has everybody else found in the interim. That includes whole headlight replacements.

[mr72]

You want cheap? or good? Maybe both?

I have a headlight much like this on my GS:
https://www.amazon.com/WHDZ-Headlight-Wrangler-Motorcycle-Vehicles/dp/B019I0UBLU/ref=sr_1_8?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1518471327&sr=1-8&keywords=7+round+led+headlight&dpID=51cHNt%252BWNsL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

And I have a pair of them in my Jeep.

They are astonishingly good in both cases. And it's only a little more than the cost of replacement lamps, and you get a whole assembly.

Now, in the case of the Jeep, I think I could aim them better. This is of course the problem with variant height of headlights in vehicles. The Jeep came from the factory with max 32" tires and I have 33", plus a 2.5" lift in front, making the headlights sit about 3" higher than stock so I need to adjust the aim so they aim further upward and get better coverage.

But anyway, they are fab.

One thing about using one on the GS is that there is a dark spot directly in front of the bike's front wheel for about 10-15 feet or so. Now, this is no problem when actually riding out on the road but it's kind of unnerving when you are sitting still. You never notice this in a car because you can't possibly see the road there due to the hood.

Anyway, for the $50 or so it's very hard to beat.

You're in AUS, right? Certainly there's something similarly cheap and available there.

[gregjet]

Mr72,
Any pics of light patterns. They look pretty good at a glance though they won't fit a F model GS.
Thanks for the post.
I forgot to add that I have the Phillips "bulbs" in all my motorcycles and cars.

[mr72]

Sorry I don't have a picture nor do I have a remotely level place to take one. Hilly neighborhood.

I didn't consider the F. This headlight fits the stock bucket in an E.

[Bluesmudge]

I use the ADV Monster H4 replacement:
http://stores.advmonster.com/h4-r3-led-headlight/

Aimed as low as possible it has a similar cutoff to the stock bulb on my F model. Of course the color temperature is more of a true white/blue which I don't really like. I paired it with two of their model 30 LED lights on my forks with a dimmer that adjusts with the high/low beam switch.

If the color temperature was closer to stock I would be done shopping for a bulb replacement. There is a little bit of scatter that could be blinding to oncoming traffic but you have to have your eyes basically at the height of the headlight for that to happen. Most road users sit higher than that. I would spend the money on the Philips if they offered it in a color temperature closer to halogen.

[gregjet]

Bluesmudge,
I did a new search before i started this thread. There is a heap of Phillips design LED H4's out there now at a tiny fraction of the price. As low as $50 US from various places ( mostly China where they are all made anyway). China has pretty much a monopoly on Hafnium which is the green component emmiter to give white additive light. As such they get it very much cheaper.
I have an actual Phillips one bought when they first came out at an initial cost of about $120 AUD a pair. The next time I looked the originals had soared to nearly $500. I should do a board pic of the GS light with it in but the shed is too hot at the moment ( 48deg C {118F} the other day inside it). When it gets back to a reasonable temp I will. Takes a bit of setting up.

[gregjet]

Braved the workshop. 7am and already 33 degC in there.
Promised I would do the Phillips new filament design in the GS.
Unfortunately I discovered the focusing ( up/down, left right) adjusters don't seem to be working. I will have to oull it apart and find out why.
Here are pics of the Phillips bulb using the same focusing board . AGAIN remember the camera is on auto exposure so you cannot compare the brightness only the pattern
first pic low beam
second pic hi beam

[Numewsm]

I've put one in my 500f 2004.
It was only £10 on amazon.
Here's my findings.
Low beam:  works well, good light spread + visibility, much much better than stock bulb and doesn't dazzle oncoming drivers, but makes them more aware of you.
Full beam: mmmm... mine uses all the LED array as it would with a normal bulb but just using the passing light button.  If its wet the high beam disappears, if its dry its ok.  The standard bulb works better on high beam.  It could be down to the headlight reflector housing and the LED bulb not working with it well enough.
I'm happy with it.
I've replaced the instrument bulbs with LED bulbs too.

[wightgs]

 I have an H4 LED headlight bulb with a cooling fan on the back ,very bright and gets noticed by other road users only 35 watts in total which leaves a bit of spare power for my heated vest. I have left the instrument bulbs standard though because the give off heat wich keeps the clocks dry 

[ShowBizWolf]

Any chance you have the Native H4 bulb from advmonster.com?