Installed LED HB4 headlight bulbs, as well as LED HB3 High Beams .. all are dim as hell. Tried some plug and play resistors and did not work. Anyone know how to correct this issue?

 

Get rid of those bulbs. That's the only solution. Sorry.

The problem is that even though there are (probably) lots of leds, they only put out about the light of a single birthday cake candle (if even that much) and since the housing is designed to utilize a filament style of light, it cannot focus any of the light effectively.

 

.. well, I don't know if that is the solution. What about all newer vehicles with stock LED driving lights and such, they are gorgeously bright and beautiful .. ive seen LED's at thier full potential so why would i throw away mine?

A friend of mine just installed some interior ones in his Fiero and its light up like sunlight in there, my interior LED's are dim aswell so should i just throw those away too? Come on lol

 

Well, because those lights use high powered leds and have reflectors designed specifically for leds. If you post the pics of the bulbs you are using I can tell you for sure the max lumens something like those can put out, and you can compare it to how many lumens a halogen bulb puts out.

Edit: Ok they probably look like this right?


This paticular bulb has 102 leds. These are 3528 style leds. The most lumens I have ever heard of this style of led putting out is about 1 maybe 2 each, but for the sake of giving the benefit of the doubt, we'll assume they put out 5 lumens each.

So 5 lumens times 102 = 510 lumens. The stock halogen bulbs put out about 1200 lumens, making the led bulbs less than half as bright, and that is not even taking into consideration how the reflectors take the 360 degrees of light and aim them into a useable beam.

The only thing these bulbs are good for is DRLs and nothing else. To get real output, you would need to spend a ton of $$ for something like an offroad led bar, or try to do the work to retrofit one of the new led headlights into your stock headlights (which is unheard of at this time BTW.)

I'm sorry, but physics is working against you here.

 

Ya I could do that, but this whole project is to go away from halogens. If LED headlight bulbs are a bad idea and will be dim no matter what, then so be it, i will go HID. But as for my interior LED's and the license plate, backup lights etc. there's no reason why they should be dim. My friends Fiero interior LEDs are rediculously bright and he didnt do any modifications when installing.. i can see that you are advertising interior LEDs, so what did you do for yours to be as bright as they should be?

 

Interior Led bulbs are great because they don't have to compete with a halogen bulb. The interior bulbs can be much brighter than stock. The reverse lights would be pushing it because they still need to use reflectors. IMO the interior bulbs are great, but for reverse lights I'd use the Cree led bulbs. Like these.

I also edited my last post to better explain the reason those bulbs don't work for headlights.

 

If you have money, you could always try vled's new plug and play headlights.... I would not though, the technology just isnt there yet for plug and play applications for LED headlights.

 

I have a really bright LED flashlight lol!! Sorry I don't know crap about LEDs I got the only info I know from Thogert a long time ago about an engine bay light which I still need to make happen

 

Sorry to be such a buzzkill, I just really hate those bulbs because people buy them all the time not knowing, and the manufacturers know they are **** poor excuses for lighting.

 

1. LED headlights are dim because of a few things. Their lumen output is probably about 500 maximum as opposed to around 1200 for the typical 9006 bulb.

2. LED headlights are generally higher in luminous intensity (millicandela) than luminous flux (lumen). The higher the luminous intensity, the brighter it appears to your eyes due to eye fatigue. It is NOT necessarily brighter. Your eyes have to work harder to "make sense" of what light they're taking in. This is why you can turn your living room light on and stare at the bulb without it hurting too much but you can't look at that tiny LED for longer than a few seconds. The LED is not brighter than your than your typical 60w incandescent light bulb, but it appears to be brighter because of its color temperature. This is why they're perfect for vehicle application. You see that almost all new vehicles come with LED drl strips in some way, shape, or form. They are more likely to catch your attention than regular halogen DRLs.

3. Physics. The reflector bowl on the inside of the headlight has a paraboloidal (it's not quite parabolic in shape) shape across several planes. I'll just talk about the x and y plane for this. Your y plane is vertical and the parabola has its focus right where our 9006 bulb sits. The x plane is vertical and also has its focus where the 9006 bulb sits as well. The light emits in the positive direction of the x axis of each plane we're discussing. The light has to be at the focus for this to work properly. Which brings me to number 4.

4. Do not put HID bulbs in your halogen housings. If you decide to do this, you will be blinding everybody you see. The reason is (again) because of the focal points of the paraboloids. The reason why HID bulbs work so well in projector headlights is that the ellipsoidal shape that is made by the projector has several focal points that are dependent upon another. I won't get into the physics of this, because it gets a little crazy, but the end result is that halogen and HID bulbs have different lengths and will sit further inside the bulb than your the 9006 bulb. Because the light source is not at the focus of the paraboloid, a great deal of light will escape from the housing in all directions and will make it hard for everybody around you to see. This, mixed with the fact that people think HIDs look cooler when they're higher color temperatures (remember our talk about luminous intensity?), makes it downright dangerous to put them in your headlight. You will be a nuisance as well as a safety hazard. On top of that, the optimal color temperature is 4300K because it produces the most lumens with the least millicandela.

So to sum it up...

Don't put LED bulbs in your headlights and expect them to work at night. You are endangering yourself. Just because they look brighter doesn't mean they are brighter. And please, don't put HIDs in your stock housings. Do a retrofit if you want maximum light output.

edit: if i'm wrong about anything that I've said, please correct me with a link disproving me!