New project, gonna blow even my own socks off...

[Dregan]

So, it's common knowledge that I turn a side penny or two playing with LEDs for car and home lighting.

A friend of mine issued a challenge earlier this month, and I've just figured out a way to do it.

I'm following Lexus' lead and making a set of LED headlights.

In case that sounds a little lame, let me throw some number out. A typical stock (or halogen) filament-based headlight throws out about 1500 focused lumens. HID's will toss out 3000 or so. But, HID's have ballasts that need warm-up and burn-in periods, and are very current sensative, as in if you run your battery low, you have the risk of frying your ballasts, which cost ~$400 each to replace. Also, both are glass-bulb based, and can have an "energetic thermal reaction" when heating up or cooling off in the winter (which is why more bulbs blow when it's cold out)

I've figured a way to squeeze 2400 LED-generated lumens in a 80mm lense. I could to more with a larger aperture, leaving room for high beams that could toss out as much as 5600 lumens. :shock: I'll probably have to tune those down, tho'.

My new challenge is to find large focusing lenses that also function as acclumators and to design a custom heatsink. I'm thinking liquid coolant. Either way, this is gonna take me the better part of a year (which is good, because I bet that I could do it by the next time I saw my friend, which will be in about a year)

But yeah. LED headlights. BRUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

[Hasid Lafre]

Well for one thats gonna have to be dot legal, which I think its not gonna be.

HID "Kits" are illegal cause they dont have the properly designed lense casing. Theres ford escort folks that take the whole bmw headlight assembly and alter the grill a bit and fit the wiring and boom there done. They can get away with it cause they got the headlightcasings that have the proper reflector in them to direct the light beam properly.

H4 halogens are awsome but require an upgrade in the lights wiring to something a bit thicker than the stock wires.

Projectors are my favy headlight systems.

I have never heard of proper hid headlights failing for any reasion other than normal wear and tear on things like the bulbs, things need to be replaced every now and then and hid arnt excluded from this.

I have looked into many forms of after market lighting systems and projectors are the best out there for dot legal.

Remember luxeon leds are in the class 2 lazer catagory so your lenses need to be properly placed so oncoming trafic are not blinded and go off the road.

FYI dont get cought with that setup, Your best bet is to not do it for the safty of others.

Thts why they invented fog lights. so its easyer to see at night with the lowbeams on and not ahve to worry about adding another source of blinding the on comign traffic. But people are morons and direct them up which dont help.

[Dregan]

As long as the focal point of the beam of is adjustable to drop 3" over 20 feet, the system will pass DOT inspection. There are a few other fine points, but this is the big one.

You're right about the majority of the aftermarket HID's being illegal though. Changing the light generation point changes the focal pattern of the cheap reflector assemblies used in most cars. Even some projo's are sensative to this.

There are a ton of people like myself who have retrofitted Bosch E55 and Valeo projo's (legally) into our cars, though. I have a Jeep Grand Cherokee with Bosch E55 HID projo's that originally came out of an Audi, and new burners and ballasts. If you want more information, PM me. For my LED project, I've already sourced a set of Valeo's.

(On a side note, now that I've played with both, the Valeo's are a lot better for US cars)

This project isn't about legality, although Lexus is putting them on the road. It's to see if I can do it, and do it better. I might eventually adapt the high beam design (if it works) to be used as a auxillary light on my Jeep, but I have to make it work first. I'll make it legal after that.