LED Headlamps - Some nastiness on FB
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LED Headlamps - Some nastiness on FB
I have to confess I am confused as well, the self levelling tech on an LED headlight will work exactly the same way as on a HID headlight. Then there is the tech itself, its only adjusting the headlight maybe less than 1 degree on a bumpy road to keep the lights largely on target, its not wobbling the lights up and down and all overt he place. finally the proper benefit of self levelling is when you load the boot up and the lights are angled back down to make sure they are not pointing up. Then actively they still only might move a degree or so on bumps in the road. Its not like someone sat on your bonnet waving a torch up and down to try and light the road ahead.
The problem is not LED lights. it's LED bulbs. A light is the complete assembly and can use LEDs etc as long as it meets ECE requirements and is E marked. Note that ANY mandatory item fitted to a car must be approved and also any accessory that has an effect on road safety including distracting the driver. You must have ALL mandatory lights (for the age and type of vehicle) fitted and working, even in daylight.
LED replacements for bulbs cannot be E marked because the fundamental physics of the fillament lamp and LED are different. You cannot make an exact optical equivilent of a approved filament bulb with current LED technolgy.
Having an MOT or telling your insuance company does not make it OK. In the end only the courts can detemine the legality of a given situation.
The lack of enforcement is an issue but there are more important things for the police to do.
Robert G8RPI
LED replacements for bulbs cannot be E marked because the fundamental physics of the fillament lamp and LED are different. You cannot make an exact optical equivilent of a approved filament bulb with current LED technolgy.
Having an MOT or telling your insuance company does not make it OK. In the end only the courts can detemine the legality of a given situation.
The lack of enforcement is an issue but there are more important things for the police to do.
Robert G8RPI
I'd imagine the difference between self-levelling and not in this scenario...is both end up shining into your eyes as neither are capable of following an undulating road properly but one is significantly brighter than the other when shone directly into your eyes.
Hence why factory fit leds can still annoy it's all very well saying they are perfectly aimed and to spec. The spec still allows them to be blinding...
I'd be interested in if the more advanced LED systems that deactivate parts of the beam could deal with it but very few people pay for those.
Hence why factory fit leds can still annoy it's all very well saying they are perfectly aimed and to spec. The spec still allows them to be blinding...
I'd be interested in if the more advanced LED systems that deactivate parts of the beam could deal with it but very few people pay for those.
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My golf has automatic main beams that turn in and off when the car detects oncoming cars, this still gets it wrong about 5% of the time either dipping the beams when there is nothing there, or blinding oncoming drivers, the technology is far from foolproof so I don’t see that matrix lights will be perfect either. (I also should add the golf has conventional filament headlight bulbs)
Anything will dazzle an oncoming driver if it’s bright and aimed wrong, these rules where created a long time ago when headlights where terrible by modern standards, even back then you could still blind someone if you put some effort into it.
From what I've seen they seem quite impressive. Eg. walking on the pavement unlit and the lights of the car picking me specifically and shutting the beam off once I was out of view. Automatically picking out road signs etc, if it can do that you'd imagine they can write something into it that says if you see two lights...don't shine above that level between them. They seem to be pretty responsive and can track much more quickly than traditional load compensator stuff. The level of cameras/programming required to make this work is probably significantly above what is needed for dim/dip on halogens.
Bright lights mounted high are always going to annoy people in lower cars. The angle of lift required to bring them to eye level is very little if not nothing at which point they become dazzling. Not just a Mini thing, even a hightop transit with halogens can be just as annoying.
I used to have winter and summer seating positions in my old car, summer the seat was literally on the floor, wheel straight out pretty much legs nearly horizontal. Winter seat at max height, with wheel in the bus driver position, obviously you'd adjust everything to make it work. Only reason I did that was commuting in the dark the extra 1.5 inches in height or so made the difference between every crossover and above blinding you and getting blinded more occasionally.
Bright lights mounted high are always going to annoy people in lower cars. The angle of lift required to bring them to eye level is very little if not nothing at which point they become dazzling. Not just a Mini thing, even a hightop transit with halogens can be just as annoying.
I used to have winter and summer seating positions in my old car, summer the seat was literally on the floor, wheel straight out pretty much legs nearly horizontal. Winter seat at max height, with wheel in the bus driver position, obviously you'd adjust everything to make it work. Only reason I did that was commuting in the dark the extra 1.5 inches in height or so made the difference between every crossover and above blinding you and getting blinded more occasionally.
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vexorg
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HID are fundamentally the same, and they are still banned, LED could be, if they tried.
There's still the same episoidal lens on LED, HID and filament.
Oddly I was looking at the light output on my other car tonight, the amount of light above the dipped beam line is still pretty bright. The roads signs really reflect strongly, so it's no wonder they they appear to dazzle.
HID is not the same as filament or LED. It is tiny poit source. All work with the correct optical system. But a lamp desgned for filament will not perform the same with an LED or HID. The regulations say you can't replace one with the other for good technical reasons.
vexorg
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********, you can put a HID in most projector halogen style and get a perfect beam pattern. (it's not a tiny point either it's a reasonable size blob when you see the bulb on)
It's not optimal because the light point is further in than the filament, but that can be adjusted to get the legal pattern.
If the HID design was modified then they could be a direct replacement for a filament.
HIDs were banned because idiots put them in reflector lenses.
Well on the "light"er side when all cars are driverless they won't need or have bright headlamps that need to illuminate the path in-front and sufficiently far reaching for allowed legal speed limits 
All that will be required are "tell tale" location lights (like aircraft have when flying) and additional passenger loading and unloading illumination.
No doubt some "bright" spark will want to pimp up their chariot which with say "under belly" floor projection etc. but by then that will probably be perfectly OK as it would not constitute or cause driver distraction. So the future does have great opportunities and benefits for all and especially "detailers".
I can see now self driving/flying caskets all pimped up for that final trip to one's resting place.
All that will be required are "tell tale" location lights (like aircraft have when flying) and additional passenger loading and unloading illumination.
No doubt some "bright" spark will want to pimp up their chariot which with say "under belly" floor projection etc. but by then that will probably be perfectly OK as it would not constitute or cause driver distraction. So the future does have great opportunities and benefits for all and especially "detailers".
I can see now self driving/flying caskets all pimped up for that final trip to one's resting place.
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Well on the "light"er side when all cars are driverless they won't need or have bright headlamps that need to illuminate the path in-front and sufficiently far reaching for allowed legal speed limits
All that will be required are "tell tale" location lights (like aircraft have when flying) and additional passenger loading and unloading illumination.
No doubt some "bright" spark will want to pimp up their chariot which with say "under belly" floor projection etc. but by then that will probably be perfectly OK as it would not constitute or cause driver distraction. So the future does have great opportunities and benefits for all and especially "detailers".
I can see now self driving/flying caskets all pimped up for that final trip to one's resting place.
Not too sure about the self-driving coffin bit, I can just imagine a case where people specify they want their casket to drive around forever, leading to coffin jams on the m25
But yeah, if a driver doesn't need to see the road except in the event of emergency intervention (which poses another interesting question - if the driver's doing nothing how do you keep them alert enough to intervene when needed?) then you could get away with pretty much anything headlight-wise, and may take on more of an 'alerting' role, e.g. highlighting sudden movements on the side of the road with a small beam to aid recognition whilst alerting whatever it is that there's a car coming.
Reminds me a bit of a situation years ago where the headlight loom went 'pop' in a work van just after I'd arrived at an army base late at night. A friendly REME guy kindly gave me a pair of brighter sidelight bulbs and I was able to slowly drive off the base and back to civilization (and recovery) just using the sidelights rather than potentially being stranded there overnight, which shows you how little light you actually need once your eyes get used to the gloom, though I wish he'd lent me a pair of night vision goggles instead...
Well I thank the collective for the reasoned and detailed responses.
I decided it must be me as a 'gentleman' approached me yesterday to tell me my EU style number plate was now illegal as we have left Europe.
I pointed out one of his headlamps was not functional. He didn't seem bothered.
Life!
I decided it must be me as a 'gentleman' approached me yesterday to tell me my EU style number plate was now illegal as we have left Europe.
I pointed out one of his headlamps was not functional. He didn't seem bothered.
Life!
Well there is no such thing as an EU style number plate being illegal in the UK if fitted BEFORE 1st Jan 2021 so unless your number plate has a 2021 date stamp you are OK. Next the UK EU style number plate would have to be IN and driving on EU roads AND not accompanied by a separate UK (black letters on white) to break EU law.
So clearly your "gentleman" was one headlamp short on 'brightness' and as you commented breaking UK law himself!
Popitinpete
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Hello
My understanding is the problem first arose when they first came to the market, people just stuck a non directional beamed LED in the headlamp and it was as if the light was on full beam.
The more expensive and one's sold correctly have beam benders fitted to them so they 'behave' like a normal bulb.
I'm in favour of them as long as they are installed both correctly and sensibly
Both hid and LED are banned from being retrofitted into not approved light units and are both not failures
vexorg
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Yes, and that is what I've said. But when it wasn't illegal, I know a lot of poeple that upgraded to HID and passed the MOT every year since the light pattern was correct. Changing the law to make them illegal didn't magically change the beam pattern output from the headlight (that part has never changed on the MOT!), it was just a blanket approach by people that dont understand the problem.
Had this shared with me to day. Now Phillips enter the market and it looks a whole lot more engineered that some of the stuff out there.
www.philips.co.uk
Usual disclaimers on the website but selling now on Amazon. Just for info.
Ultinon Pro9000 LED car bulbs | Philips
The Philips Ultinon Pro9000 sets a new standard in retrofit LED bulbs. It offers up to 250% brighter, whiter light for optimal performance and a compact design for easy fitting to most vehicles.
www.philips.co.uk
Usual disclaimers on the website but selling now on Amazon. Just for info.
Had this shared with me to day. Now Phillips enter the market and it looks a whole lot more engineered that some of the stuff out there.
Ultinon Pro9000 LED car bulbs | Philips
The Philips Ultinon Pro9000 sets a new standard in retrofit LED bulbs. It offers up to 250% brighter, whiter light for optimal performance and a compact design for easy fitting to most vehicles.
Usual disclaimers on the website but selling now on Amazon. Just for info.
Yeah I've seen these, was debating messing with the front lights on the C3...but as it has reflectors not projectors you'll be able to see the bulbs directly.
So at 250% it'll be a full 150% more glare than standard even if the beam pattern is right. May be usable in projectors where the bulb is not directly viewable but while it's not me that would suffer don't think that "solves" the issue.
A manufacturer led set up will tend to be a set of slightly dimmer leds over an area not one set of really bright ones. But to provide a decent beam pattern that's that it needs to be.
Still illegal. From Philips website "The lamps are not permitted to use on public roads."
As @g8rpi point out.
"It is your own responsibility to ensure that the use of the LED retrofit lights complies with applicable local legal requirements.
The lamps are not permitted to use on public roads."
I suspect that if the UK "Anti-tampering proposals and legislation gets passed the in the UK Philips would not be allowed to market let alone advertise these with such a *small* disclaimer at the end of all the marketing and the picture example of the difference of standard verses Pro9000 taken on what appears to be a public road
"It is your own responsibility to ensure that the use of the LED retrofit lights complies with applicable local legal requirements.
The lamps are not permitted to use on public roads."
I suspect that if the UK "Anti-tampering proposals and legislation gets passed the in the UK Philips would not be allowed to market let alone advertise these with such a *small* disclaimer at the end of all the marketing and the picture example of the difference of standard verses Pro9000 taken on what appears to be a public road
