For ordinary car fans, how to choose a suitable car LED headlight bulb is a problem. Due to limited knowledge, car lighting experience and other factors, many car users are very confused when faced with the many styles of LED headlight bulbs on the market.
Based on my years of experience in car repairing and my in-depth research on automotive LED headlight bulbs, I would like to provide some references for car fans:
1. Choose the bulb according to the actual car situation
To talk about which LED headlight is more suitable for your car, the first question is to see what brand and model your car is? Different cars have different LED headlights.
1. Does your car need Canbus decoding?
If it is a Volkswagen Sagitar, Jeep, ix35 and other cars, it is not acceptable to install ordinary LED headlight bulbs, and special LED headlight bulbs with Canbus decoding function must be installed. If you just install an LED headlight bulb on it, there will be a fault light alarm on the car dashboard, which will affect the radio, or cause the lights to not light up, flicker, etc., and even burn the driving computer, so don't be careless.
Therefore, for cars such as Sagitar and Jeep, those with Canbus decoding function and special cars are suitable.
2. Does your car have lenses?
If there is a lens, is it a low beam lens or a bifocal lens? For the headlight assembly with lens, the lens will block part of the light, so choose LED headlights with higher brightness. How to choose LED headlights with higher brightness? Look at the manufacturer's standard data? NO! There are a lot of details here. If you take it apart, you need to type a lot of words, so I will skip it here. If there are car fans who are interested, I will add it!
Low beam with lens, high beam without lens
Both far and near light without lens
Far and near beam bifocal lens
If the original car does not have a lens, it is necessary to choose the LED headlight with "low beam with tangent function".
What is "cut-off line"? The so-called "cut-off line" means that the low beam light pattern is low on the left and high on the right, so that it does not affect the sight of the oncoming driver when passing cars.
Remember, if your car headlight assembly has no lens, if you want to upgrade and install LED headlights, you must choose LED headlights with "low beam with cut-off line function". If an ordinary LED is installed on it, it will illuminate the eyes of the driver on the opposite side when passing by, which greatly threatens driving safety.
Low beam tangent standard effect: low on the left and high on the right, which does not affect the sight of oncoming drivers
3. Is your car suitable for installing LED headlight bulbs?
Not all cars are suitable for installing LED headlights. The size of the LED headlight bulb is larger than the original car halogen bulb, and some car headlight assemblies have a small place to install the bulb, which is only enough to install the original car halogen bulb, and the LED headlight bulb cannot be installed at all.
For example, BYD G5 low beam, the installation space is very small, there is not enough space to install LED headlight bulbs; moreover, the original car dust cover is connected to the wire, which is different from the installation logic of LED headlight bulbs, so it cannot be installed.
BYD G5
2. Don’t always pursue high power
Because of the advantages of the light-emitting principle, the car LED headlight bulb does not need too high power to be very bright. We all know that halogen lamps emit light by tungsten filaments, and when energized, the tungsten filaments are heated to an incandescent state to emit light. Electric energy is converted into heat energy, and then converted into light energy; in the process of converting into light energy, about 90% of the heat is converted into infrared waves that have no effect on lighting and is wasted, only about 10% of the energy is converted into visible light, and the electro-optical conversion efficiency is only about 10%.
The LED headlights are "light-emitting diodes" that emit light. Light-Emitting Diode (English: Light-Emitting Diode, referred to as LED) is a semiconductor electronic component that can convert electrical energy into light energy.
early light emitting diode
Light-emitting diodes are made using the "injection electroluminescence principle", which directly converts electrical energy into light energy, avoiding the conversion of electrical energy into heat energy and then into light energy like halogen lamps, and skipping the step of converting into heat energy. The electro-optic conversion efficiency is very high, as high as 60%.
Therefore, "bright and energy-saving" is the most prominent feature of LED lights. LED lamps only need about 60% of the power of the original car halogen lamp bulbs, and the brightness is more than three times that of the original car halogen lamps. The power of LED bulbs is generally 20 to 30 watts, and there is no need for a halogen lamp with a power as high as 55W.
3. Choose the headlight color temperature according to your personal preference
At present, there are two main color temperatures of mainstream car LED headlights on the market: 6000K pure white light and 2500K super yellow light. 6000K pure white light is like sunlight at noon, with good color rendering, clear lighting, and less visual fatigue;
2500K ultra-yellow light has strong penetrating power, which is more suitable for use in rainy and foggy days.
If there are relatively few rainy and foggy days in your area, you can choose 6000K pure white light.
If there are relatively many rainy and foggy days in your area, you can also choose "two-color temperature LED headlights", pure white light for sunny days, and yellow light for rainy and foggy days.
2500K gold lighting road renderings
4. Accurate selection of headlight bulb models
The commonly used models of car headlight bulbs are: H1, H3, H4, H7, H8, H9, H11, 9005, 9006, 9012 and so on.
Whether it is a halogen bulb or an LED bulb, all bulb interfaces are produced according to uniform specifications; as long as the headlight bulb models correspond, the interfaces must be the same. Therefore, before upgrading and installing LED headlights, you must first figure out what type of headlight bulb your car is using. If the type of headlight bulb is wrong, you will definitely not be able to install it.
The picture shows the car LED headlight bulb H7 plug connected to the power connector
5. Choose LED headlight bulbs with "radiator + fan" heat dissipation method
There are three main heat dissipation methods used by mainstream automotive LED headlight bulbs on the market. The first type: radiator cooling, the second type: copper strip cooling, the third type: radiator + fan cooling. By far the most efficient way to dissipate heat is the third.
Schematic diagram of car LED headlight bulb using high-speed silent fan for heat dissipation
6. Try to choose headlight bulb products from professional factories
In the process of daily car repairs, many car friends bring LED headlight bulbs to me and ask me to help them install them. I saw that some car friends brought the lights without certificates, without manuals, rough workmanship, and simple packaging. It seems that they are made by small factories. How can such light bulbs be installed in the car? The price is indeed cheap, but what's the use of being cheap? Car headlight bulbs are related to driving safety, how can we do so? !
Therefore, it is recommended that riders try to choose the ones produced by professional factories. Among the many LED headlights that I have come into contact with in repairing cars for so many years, the ones that left a deep impression on me, such as POPNOW, are all professional factories.
7. Whether the dust cover should be sealed
To upgrade and install car LED headlight bulbs, just use the original car dust cover. The current LED headlight bulbs are non-destructively installed, no need to change the wiring, no need to open holes in the dust cover; take out the original car halogen bulb, and then replace the LED bulb, just like changing the original car halogen bulb.
Moreover, there are now special-purpose LED headlight bulbs for special cars, such as Volkswagen Sagitar, Haima S5, Trumpchi GS4, Baojun 560, Baojun 730, etc., all of which have special-purpose LED headlight bulbs for special cars, equipped with special dust-proof covers, and the seal is very good, as shown below:
The picture shows the appearance of Sagitar after installing Sagitar special dust cover, the seal is very good
The dust cover must be well sealed. If the seal is not done well, the headlight assembly will fog up, or even water will enter, which will affect the normal use of the light bulb.
