Thread: New driving lights...which ones?

I'm looking at putting this lightbar on my RRS. 5700K is a bit higher than I would like. No CRI given but when I look up the manufacturer's specs it gives 4 CRIs of 70, 80, 85 and 90 available. I've asked Stedi what CRI the chip they are using is but haven't had a response yet.

Thoughts?

Just had a response from Stedi, CRI of 70 unfortunately.

Originally Posted by Geedublya

Just had a response from Stedi, CRI of 70 unfortunately.

Higher than a lot of offerings.

Still good for slow work or windy country.

I've been thinking of updating my current (cheap Chinese) 12x10w light bar with Stedi's 21" 8x15w bar, or their 31" 12x15w bar.
Just wished they weren't curved.

Originally Posted by Tombie

He fitted +50s, with an applied Blue Filter, which then reduces the light output...

The market is fed by demand.. Certainly not logic..

I'm not sure if the 'filter' is applied or if the glass tube is actually coloured blue .. but yeah!
I'm pretty sure the primary marketing point made on them is the term Ice Blue(or something to that effect).

Originally Posted by AK83

Will try.
Been meaning to get some sample images done, mainly for colour as some have reservations as to the blueness that the kelvin rating of the Philips globes.

if it's not pelting down later tonight I'll try to give it a go. I'll take my D2 lights out and fit them to the D1 for comparison too but it won't be a fair(or ideal) comparison as stated earlier my wiring is in need of an upgrade.

Thanks very much Arthur.
I’d just love to see the spread pattern, there’s so many variables in colour ratings, minimum of 6000k or above is all I look for. And our eyes ignore colour and brightness subtleties rapidly.

And no need to swap them out or anything thanks mate. They work fine on small or old wiring as the power supplies take bless all current and convert whatever’s available to what the LEDs need. Quite OK if they only get about 10volts, as the supplies jump it up as necessary. And i reckon it would take about 3 x 100watt QH to drop it down that far on even dicky old Disco headlamp wires.

For example, a 24watt LED putting out about 2400lumens total light will take about 2A @ 12V (yes I know those figures are rough [actually about 14v charging, 12.6v static]). If the wires are really water closet, they might have 1ohm resistance, and so will drop the voltage down to about 10volts (per Mr Ohm’s law: V = I x R [2 x 1]). LED driver supplies won’t notice or care, and the LEDs will never know.

A QH lamp putting out around the same total light (lumens), would be a Megaplodattractor 240watt jobbie, taking about (again deliberately rough, to maintain scientific controls and professional cred - cold filament resistance is several times less than hot for a start) 20Amps. Mr Ohm then says, they’ll get about 12/20 x 1 = 0.6v. Poor old Megaplod won’t raise a twinkle (but that’s OK, as the Fire Brigade probably have their own lights to see where they’re aiming the foam in the 2018 Rangie’s nests of hair thin wiring way up behind the dashboard).

That’s another one of the beauties of LEDs, there’s no need to rewire for H4 inserts or independent spotties.

Oh ... sorry Arthur, got a bit loquacious there ... thank you very much for any shots of the beam patterns ...


Oops, no edit.

Oh, forgot to mention: a (norty, illegal, uninsuring) LED H4 headlight insert consuming around 14watts puts out roughly the same quantity of light as a 140watt quartz halogen globe, at much more glaring temps.

So driving round town with a pair of H4 LED retrofits in my ‘98 SI would be like having about 280watts of quartz halogens up front - a teeny bit more than the maximum 2 x 55watts in the rules, and a righteously red rag to the Bulls.

Another vital consideration for me, given that the ADRs limit us to around 55/60watts QH as the maximum permitted in traditional filament luminaires, and Philips, Hella, Narva etc rarely make or flog ones that high due to commercial, safety and litigation risks. And the ones you do find have the inevitable ‘not for use on the Kings highway’ underwrite.

Does anyone know the voltage, current, wattage or lumen ratings for any embedded LED headlamps in modern Landrover or other vehicles ? Or will I have to go to the dark sides of the forums to sneak a peek at the nobs’ eruditions ?

Took a few photos last night.
Preliminary perspective is that The Philips LEDs appear to be close to 5500K, where the QH headlight registers about 3700K.
The LED Philips house light that I have a preference for now seems to be about 5966K by way of comparison.
(obviously these are not scientifically obtained values .. just rough estimates, and more importantly relative comparisons to each other).
It pretty much gels with what I reckon I see too: room light appears blue, Ultinon more neutral but a tint of green, QH pretty much yellow/warm(as you'd expect).

LED:
D800E_DSD_2776.JPG

QH:
D800E_DSD_2777.JPG

Not sure how the images will display, but the white one is the LED, the yellow one is the QH. For these images I used a preset whitebalance value taken using my Philips LED house light(only for comparative purposes).
Must be noted as I've said before, my wiring is original, and I reckon not optimal(and why I changed to LEDs). With updated wiring the QH would be brighter and slightly whiter too.
The spread pattern on the LED is pretty close to the spread pattern on the QH(you can see some differences) but I don't think they'll be important out on the road.
And for these images I used the light assembly out of my D2, rather than remove the LED out of the D1's headlight. The D2 and D1 lights are interchangeable, but there may be slight differences in the spread pattern in the D2's glass(is that what you termed 'luminaire').
Other than the obvious differences, they look identical to the untrained eye(that's me!). And both the tested headlights are in tip top condition too. No damage/rust/dirt/ageing/etc on the headlight assemblies.

Those colours are a good approximation of what you would see of those two light types installed on my D1 at the moment.
I did convert both images with a Daylight(5200K) WB preset too, and the differences are minimal but notable. LED is a bit warmer but greener by a percent or two, QH is warmer and more yellowy by a percent or two.

Brightness difference seems to be 'about double' give or take a few percent. I don't think the LED is more than twice as bright, Philips claim 200% brighter on the packaging.
Taking into account my subpar wiring and exposure differences in the photos .. I reckon the difference will be a bit less than 200%.
Given that, the LEDs are probably closer to equivalent 75w QH's. Again just a rough estimate.

I'm curious now as to how much different the headlight wiring upgrade would make to the QH. It'll take me a while to do it, but I'll hack into my parts hack's wiring and make a new wireloom for a single headlight out of some new 15A wiring on a short run direct to the battery to see the difference for myself.

Oh! and an aside, not very important but obvious .. again when handling the QH headlight the warmth on the glass whilst trying to install it onto the car was noted!

When I get a chance too, I'll take both lights out of the D2 and take them for a bit of a drive and do a road spread pattern/brightness test too one day.
That grey card shows a half decent rendition of the similarity of spread, that is that it doesn't just scatter the light all over the place in a random manner. The max distance I could hold it from the light source was about 1.5m or so.
But the spread pattern and well defined cutoff out on the road is what is more impressive, once again for my current .. (pun intended!!) situation.

Hope that helps.