Hey guys,
So I have LED 6000K 3500 lumen headlights in my aftermarket headlights. I assume the headlights I have are halogen projectors, which is fine. But I noticed when driving at night, they are very bright lights, especially side to side and within the first 20 feet from the car. But as you go down road, the light doesn't really do any better than halogens do. Has anyone else had this with their LED headlights in projectors? Is there a solution to this? The cutoff I have adjusted to is parallel with the road, about 8-10 cars lengths ahead of me. But as I said, as you go further down road, the light really diminishes off quite dramatically.
Any ideas, fixes, thoughts?
Let me start with this... I'm not an expert on automotive lighting by any means, but it is a topic I have studied a great deal. There is a forum where I learned a lot. It is named candlepowerforums - you can google that. It is primarily a forum about flashlights, but there is an Automobile/Motorcycle Lighting sub-forum that is populated by REALLY knowledgeable people, and there's a lot to learn there.
The important thing is that you recognized there is a problem with your current setup. Not only is it preventing you from being able to safely see down the road, but it has the potential to be dangerous to other drivers with whom you are sharing the road.
Let's assume that your assumption that your aftermarket lights include "halogen projectors" is true. The word "halogen" describes a specific type of bulb with which your fixtures are designed to work. Every halogen light bulb (H3, H7, H11, etc.) has very specific output characteristics. A properly-designed halogen projector fixture is designed to use the bulb's output to project light in a certain pattern.
Now, while it's possible to attach LEDs to a bulb base of the same form factor of base for the halogen bulb your fixture is designed to accept, that does NOT mean those LEDs have the exact same output characteristics, therefore the light coming off the LEDs is not going to hit the reflector and lens of your fixtures in the same way a halogen bulb will.
In fact, it won't and it can't. And regardless of what the packaging on your LED "bulbs" says, they're illegal. For example, some will say "DOT approved", which makes no sense (but it sure sounds legal, doesn't it?) because the DOT doesn't approve bulbs! It's simply not within the scope of what they do.
Is there such a thing as good LED headlights? Sure there is. There are OEM LED headlights available today on several luxury cars, and they work well. The difference is, they're designed specifically to work with LEDs, not converted from halogen projectors or anything else.
In fact, let's talk about headlight design for a moment. OEM headlights are designed by factory engineers with two things in mind:
(a) fit the space left available for headlights by the body designer
(b) meet or exceed the specifications set forth in FMVSS 108. (FMVSS is the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, and article 108 is the part that covers exterior lighting)
Aftermarket headlights are designed with mostly different objectives:
(a) fit the space left available for headlights by the body designer
(b) look cool
(c) be cheap to produce
Please notice how the aftermarket headlight designers are NOT designing headlights to meet FMVSS 108. They don't care, because they don't have to. A lot of aftermarket lighting is labelled "For Off-Road (or show) use only". That's because the manufacturers KNOW their lights don't meet FMVSS 108.
By noticing you have a problem, that's the first step to finding a solution. I encourage you to read up on FMVSS 108 and to join candlepowerforums and do a lot of learning about the nature of your problems and how to correct them.
