Headlight LEDs - where to buy the LEDs?

[geoff-r]

As it's winter and I don't fancy subjecting the car to the harsh elements. I'm thinking of things I can do whilst the car is tucked up in the garage and I'm thinking of playing around and having a go at doing the LED headlights so I can achieve this:

 

 

I won't be blacking the housing out as it would just be OTT on a black car.

 

I'm just after some pointers as to where I can get some good quality LEDs, I don't want to buy crap that will break, just imagine the effort in taking apart the headlights to replace an LED if it failed. Anyway I will do a little write up of my own once completed

[BulletMagnet]

PM Husky, he'll know more about LEDs than we know about drinking water.

And while the headlights are apart, you might as well spray the housings black, just make it Matt black for contrast.

[Ebized]

Something like this then

 

[geoff-r]

I don't know about spraying the housings. Do you think it will look okay or a bit OTT? It's never been a huge concern of mine that there's a contrast between the black paint and chrome housings but now you've mentioned it it's got me thinking.

 

http://www.chicagoz.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23206

 

Liking it or is it over kill? Bearing in mind the car will not be standard after winter hopefully.

[BulletMagnet]

See, matt black works

[Husky]

spend good money get good kit. if you buy them from the arse end of china they will be crap. buy them from RS or farnell they will be good because they are reputable companies who have strict quality procedures. The cheap ones direct from china are the cast offs that better companies reject. more importantly spec them correctly! The amount of people that install LED's in automotive applications and spec them completely incorrectly makes me have a breakdown.

[geoff-r]

spend good money get good kit. if you buy them from the arse end of china they will be crap. buy them from RS or farnell they will be good because they are reputable companies who have strict quality procedures. The cheap ones direct from china are the cast offs that better companies reject. more importantly spec them correctly! The amount of people that install LED's in automotive applications and spec them completely incorrectly makes me have a breakdown.

 

Thanks for the info mate

 

I've just looked at Farnell's website, I'm taking it this is the one: http://uk.farnell.com/ I am massively confused by the site I honestly never knew there were so many different kinds, widths, brightnesses etc of LEDs. I'm under the impression 5mm width is about right for the headlights but with regards to what brightness and colour I'm not very sure and I wouldn't want to spec it incorrectly like you say and totally regret it when it's all back together. Sorry to pick your brain but what would you recommend is the correct specification of LED for this application?

[Husky]

depends what you want to achieve really.

 

you might want to take a look at the colour temperature of your headlight bulbs (aftermarket or not) and get LED's of a colour that will match that. Sometimes you may find this a bit of trial and error as they produce the light in a different way and cover different wavelengths. So if you think you haev found the right one, buy a couple of them, hook them up and give them a go comparing them to your headlights before you pull anything apart.

 

for the voltage, it depends on how you will hook them up. It's worth reading into the various ways of wiring them up (parallel, series) and see what suits you. parallel uses more wiring but can be simpler to understand. Remember the alternator works at 14.5V NOT 12V, this always annoys me when people use the value 12V and this is why people burn them out all the time. You need to either spec the LED's based on 14.5V or the better option is to regulate the voltage to 12V using some circuitry.

 

size wise it's dependent on your application, 5mm are by far the most common size however you will find there 3mm, 5mm, 8mm, 10mm, surface mounted of varying package sizes, etc etc.

 

brightness and viewing angle go hand in hand, if you go for a high brightness LED that has a very narrow angle it will provide a very bright but small circle when projected onto a surface. if you get the same brightness with a wide angle it will flood a large area but it will be less bright. it's your choice what brightness and angle you choose and again trial and error is key, remember, you will be limited what angle you can mount them at.

 

 

There is a truck load of info out there on the application of LED's and what it all means. If you get really stuck you can ask in electronics forums like allaboutcircuits but make sure you do not tell them it's for automotive purposes as they refuse to have anything to do with the car modding scene for "legal" reasons. tell them it's for a school project to simulate a car headlight and isn't for a real vehicle.

[geoff-r]

Cheers Husky, I really appreciate your reply, it's certainly given me enough to think about and enough to get on with. I want to achieve a compliment to the headlights without being over the top so I suppose my first port of call will be to find out what temp the standard 370 headlights are and I'll take it from there

[Chris`I]

IMO wide angle surface mount LEDs will work best, and are used by most OEMs, but they tend to require some kind of small lense - usually built into the headlight housing - to make them work best and hide the board they sit on. Dont whatever you do buy narrow beam ones and mount them all at different angles as when you look at them they will look gash as they all fire light in different directions. I'm in no way an LED expert, but seeing what has been done in the States and here, wide angle and SMD works best

[Husky]

IMO wide angle surface mount LEDs will work best, and are used by most OEMs, but they tend to require some kind of small lense - usually built into the headlight housing - to make them work best and hide the board they sit on. Dont whatever you do buy narrow beam ones and mount them all at different angles as when you look at them they will look gash as they all fire light in different directions. I'm in no way an LED expert, but seeing what has been done in the States and here, wide angle and SMD works best

spot on, if you do (for some reason) mount narrow angle ones make sure you are damn good at lining them up

 

surface mounted with a lens would be great as they are so small but would be realllly hard to manufacture that into the light.

[geoff-r]

Just been looking through a few of these custom 180 headlights, I particularly like the layout, colour and look of these:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm going to go white, I just need to make sure I get the right temp for the leds, sidelights and match them to the headlights.

 

What is the standard colour temp of the headlights? I'm not going to be changing the bulbs. In the pics I've put up above are the LEDs wide angle? I have so much to learn!

[geoff-r]

Wow here's another spin on LEDs but this looks like a custom job rather than a DIY one:

 

http://www.clearcorners.com/products/nissan/z34/h_lamp1/

[Ebized]

Quality pics and like the 'starburst' look of those LEDs.

 

What also caught my eye is just how the bumper colour significantly changes on that 'grey' 370 in the photos. Its not just the white that suffers

[o0MattE0o]

@geoff-r

 

do you have a pic of the Alloy Wheels they look like you have had them darkend?

[Chris`I]

@geoff-r

 

do you have a pic of the Alloy Wheels they look like you have had them darkend?

Geoff has a 40th Edition car which came with anthracite wheels

[o0MattE0o]

[geoff-r]

Quality pics and like the 'starburst' look of those LEDs.

 

What also caught my eye is just how the bumper colour significantly changes on that 'grey' 370 in the photos. Its not just the white that suffers

 

I know! Nissan and their bumper colours eh!

 

I do love the starburst look of the LEDs, short of just asking Custom 180 what LEDs they use would anyone know? I would expect Custom 180 not to divulge the info as that is their business.

 

@geoff-r

 

do you have a pic of the Alloy Wheels they look like you have had them darkend?

 

Hi Matt as Chris said they came like that from the factory. Not too sure on the colour code (I understand it's a pig to match) to be honest but if you require any better pics let me know

[Husky]

the star burst look of the LED's is due to the photography/photoshopping, you can't as far as i am aware buy star shaped led's

[Chris`I]

the star burst look of the LED's is due to the photography/photoshopping, you can't as far as i am aware buy star shaped led's

+1 Filter on the camera lense

[Dicky]

Something like this then

 

 

All a bit Xmas tree ish if you ask me. Dont like the audi's either . But if its your fancy go for it

[geoff-r]

the star burst look of the LED's is due to the photography/photoshopping, you can't as far as i am aware buy star shaped led's

 

Well...

 

 

I digress, I know the photos add the star burst as no light looks like that, unless I don't have my contact in.

 

I'm going to have to research some more but initial feedback from photos is that they look a bit crap and everyone compares them to an Audi, I suppose all cars will now look like Audis when it becomes mandatory for car manufacturers to produce cars with 'day lights' I have seen the 'landing strip' on a 370z locally although it was in passing and I did think it looked quite good.

[Husky]

in person i think they look good, its a modern feature that brightens up the front. I would say change all your bulbs first as this is a simple yet effective option. get slightly whiter bulbs in the headlights, makes a world of difference