Holley retro bright LED headlights

I'd go with the Holley's if I was planning to replace the OEM headlights. Admittedly, much of that opinion is based on doing a lot of performance work with Holley products over the years and never being disappointed!

 

I think I’ll go ahead and install the Hella H1s I just got fir the 398GT4.

Thank you, Sam. What are your originals?

 

Good day,

Indeed, there are many vendors offering similar products. Although fan tech and reliability has improved dramatically over the past few years, the LED replacement bulbs rely on the fan and this is a single point of failure. If the fan craps, gets jammed, etc then the LEDs will certainly fail but before it does it will get really, really, hot which could cause some significant issues for any surrounding items.

The other issue has to do with the overall optics. LEDs produce light that is very directional and is somewhat narrow. In most cases multiple LEDs are used to provide a broader light pattern which may not be within the focal range of your headlight housing's optic design. The result is your light pattern may be less than optimum and/or produce excessive glare to oncoming traffic.

However, if you are happy with them then that is all that matters.

Cheers,

Sam

 

Good day Jack,

I will have to check and let you now. They are certainly not new and are at least 20+ years old.

Cheers,

Sam

 

Late edit.

 

Good day Mike,

Indeed, the holley lights look great and more original than the other offering. I do not know how long the holley LED lights have been available, but I tend to be somewhat less interested in being an earlier adopter given my experiences with LED lighting technology. I say this, as I have seen many of the largest lighting manufacturers LED products crap the bed. One retrofit LED replacement used in a high brightness warehouse application actually had bits of the LED assembly melt away with bits falling below (e.g. they did not account for the high heat produced). It got so bad that there was a notice that these retrofits had to be used with fully encapsulated diffusers. Another large vendor had their LED light fixtures actually ignite... and they were used in a hospital application which has enriched oxygen in certain areas, which is not a good combination for failures like this. Even the mainstream LED Wifi Bulbs offered at the home improvement stores have had some major issues. All in all, when it comes to LED lighting, you cannot relay on your past experiences with a manufacturer, as if so you could be significantly disappointed.

As for Holley... I do not recall seeing any info on who designed their lights. Was it done internally, contacted out, or simply a rebranded product. Although a lot of Holley's offerings center around auto mechanical items, I have never heard of them being a LED Light manufacturer. That is not to say that their product is not good, etc but for me I would prefer to wait a little to ensure that the product is as good and as reliable as one would expect or hope..

Cheers,

Sam

 

They refer to Morimoto as their lighting partner.

The lens housing are polycarbonate.

They look like a well thought through product, and the internal LED bulb is apparently separately replaceable.

 

Good day moysiuan,

Thanks for the info. The polycarbonite cover does not excite me, as this material tends to scratch pretty easily. On my designs that require lensing,etc I go with borosilicate glass which is very strong and scratch resistant, but is dense, heavy, and a bit pricey. Secondly, polycarbonite is not overly happy with high temps. However, I believe the polycarbonite is used only on the front portion and so it is most likely not anywhere in direct contact with the high LED temps.

I would feel more comfortable if Holley partnered with an LED Manufacturer like Cree, etc... However, Morimoto may be partnering internally with an LED manufacturer for all we know. A replaceable LED is great and if so then one could review and analyze the LED(s) they used, their thermal design, and also their LED driver design.

Did you happen to find an expected lifetime of the lights by chance? Just curious.

Cheers,

Sam

 

https://www.holley.com/products/lighting/headlights/parts/LFRB05

I don't have experience with this product, but I am thinking of doing some lighting upgrade, and these do seem to have some technical merit.

 

Just bulbs the just plug in

 

Those are the repcament bulbs, you buy the enture unit, and they note the bulbs are replaceable as service items. No real world data on bulb life I am aware of.

 

These bulbs have a 30000hr bulb life high and low beam

 

FWIW, I haven't found LED indoor lights of the same lumens to last noticeably longer than 60W incandescent bulbs...

 

In our house, they don't. I like the lower heat and energy use, but they aren't particularly better (nor worse) in terms of light appearance nor lifespan. Seems like I replace them just as often as I did the incandescents.

Same goes for the tube lights in the kitchen that replaced the fluorescents.

 

Yeah - they do use less power/produce little heat but considering the price of the bulbs I don't know if they are a "cost-effective" replacement for incandescent. IOW, given the same life, does an incandescent cost more to operate? Yes, they consume more watts for the same time period but they cost a lot less to begin with...

 

Good day Mike,

This is not uncommon and there are three reasons why this is the case. The first is because of the replacement LED bulbs must be designed to the original form factor so that it can replace the original bulb. The result is that a lot of compromises have to be made... and these compromises result is reduced longevity and reliability. The second is the "race to the bottom" in terms of pricing I mentioned previously. Sadly, the LED lighting industry has become commodity based and so most consumers (residential and commercial) purchase based upon price... which is not usually a good approach. Lastly, the third reason is that it is not to the manufacturer's benefit to sell you a light that lasts a long time... they would prefer you buy regularly... a "lease" as it were, as this seems to be the new business model that a number of companies are pursuing in many industries.

As for LED lights and their longevity... If the LED fixture and driver are designed properly a LED fixture can last a very, very long time and easily out live an incandescent light by a significant margin. Blame the business model and not the tech.

Cheers,

Sam

 

Interesting info, thanks! Makes sense. The old business model to make something as good as possible - which explains refrigerators from the 50's (and earlier) still running fine - is not a good model for staying in business nowadays.

 

I have used several LED bulbs in our house. I am not enthused with their longevity. I have had 2 out of 7 fail with not many hours on them. One went completely out and the other flickers. A vehicle environment is significantly harsher which does nothing but lessen lifespan. It'll be a long time before I switch to them. To add to this, I have been noticing quite a few late model vehicles with brake or running lights not working.

 

Is there any impact on longevity from cycling LEDs on and off such as for blinkers, … or houselights for that matter?

 

Thank you for this detailed and knowlegable explanation.

I’ve converted 100% of my house’s lighting to LED. Your exlanation helps me understand why some LEDs have not lasted long in my house: they are the ones in fully enclosed (unventilated) fixtures designed for incansescent bulbs.

I have twenty-nine 6.3 watt 400 lumen Ikea LED bulbs in my garage. They are on a lot and seem to be outlasting incandescent lifetimes. Out of curiosity I climbed up and touched the base of one and was surprised how hot it was for a 6.3 watt bulb.

 

I did mine about a month ago. Bought the the conversion headlight for $24.51 each (2) and bulbs for $41.39 (for both). Worked out great. Absolutely plug and play.
So much better.

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Good day Brian,

LEDs themselves really do not care about being switched on/off, however, LEDs are very intolerant if they are electrically or thermally stressed. Effectively if you over-voltage a LED it will significantly reduce its lifetime. Consequently, the electronics driving the LED should be designed to address these type of electrical events. Not all LED drivers are designed appropriately and so the poorly designed ones do allow electrical transients to make their way to the LED and so the LED will fail well sort of its specified lifetime.

As for thermal stresses... this has to do with the LEDs self heating and so a thorough mechanical and thermal design has to be done, otherwise the LEDs will fail prematurely. As I mentioned before, LED retrofit bulbs are crippled because of the form factor which does not lend itself to a proper thermal design. Secondly, because of the confined space and/or the bulbs are enclosed, simply makes a bad problem even worse. Thirdly, the limited space within the LED retrofit bulb limits the LED driver electronics and so trade offs are made.

In a nutshell... LEDs will have their lifetimes significantly reduced if they are subjected to over-voltages (even for a very short time) or if their heat is not removed efficiently.

Cheers,

Sam

 

Good day Brian,

You are most welcome.

In general... LED drivers are critical to LED longevity, however, addressing the heat dissipation of the LEDs can be equally critical. I say "can be" because lower wattage LEDs are easier to thermally design for and so lower wattage LED lights will tend to last longer. I have tested around 100-150 LED fixtures and some of the crappiest low wattage LED lights (5W) have fared very well and have lasted over 10 years. However, my sample set was small... about 10 fixtures. The first batch I bought have and continue to work fine. Subsequent purchases crapped out in a few days and in a few months. Overall, all of the later purchased fixtures all failed within 12-18 months.

Higher wattage LEDs (100W and greater) started to fail after about 18 months. I tested around 40 of these and pretty much all failed within 3 years. Failures were the result of drivers, but also inadequate thermal design of the LED itself despite having a huge heat sink. The drivers were one of the more notable manufacturers and from my forensic analysis I believe there driver also internally failed from heat .... so improper thermal design of the driver.

Going forward if you can avoid not using a retrofit LED bulb then you will be better off, however, this is not always an option. If this is the case, then remove any diffuser or housing that may encompass the light. Doing this will allow heat to dissipate through convection cooling via air circulation. If this is also not an option, then select the lowest wattage LED light that provides a much light output as you require.

As for heat... as you discovered even the lower wattage LEDs can generate a lot of localized heat (heat density). To put it in perspective, one fixture I designed produced over 2000 lumens (about 5x as your 6.3W light) and the LEDs and surrounding assembly only had a 7C increase above ambient... so the room was around 22C (72F) and the LED was around 29C (84F) which was only slightly warm to the touch. However, the form factor of my light was not like yours and so I had a larger area to allow the heat to dissipate plus I was using some very efficient LEDs which I suspect the Ikea ones do not.

Speaking of heat... statistically, in general, lowering a semiconductor (LEDs are a semiconductor) by 10C will extend its life by 10x. So, if one can keep the LED temps as low as possible, the LEDs will last for a very long time.

Cheers,

Sam

 

Good day bl10,

It would be interesting to see what the case temperature is of these retrofit LEDs after 10-20 minutes of use along with how many hours of use you get out of them.

Cheers,

Sam