LED headlights, Testarossa

Which one did you get?

 

Good day Jarrod,

High brightness/high lumen output LEDs tend to fail faster than lower output versions primarily because of the localized heat they generate. In retrofit applications, heat dissipation is very challenging, as the original form factor was never designed for the localized heat... and how to get rid of it. This is why many LED conventional-style bulbs fail much sooner than their marketed 50K hour lifetimes. That said, perhaps the ones you are using have addressed the heat dissipation issues and if so all should be fine. They sure look good!

Cheers,

Sam

 

Maybe -- the stock US TR bulbs are a fancy Iodine vapor bulb that reduces the power draw to 35W for each bulb, but give about the light output of a 50W conventional headlight bulb. You've stepped it up to 100W for each bulb:

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so you've tripled the current draw (if their specification is correct). The good news is that TR already have separate relays for the headlight bulbs so the bulb current goes thru them (rather than the headlight switch), but the current going thru the (flaky) contacts in the "a" white vertical connector on the fuse-relay panel will be increased -- you might want to unplug and visually inspect the "a" vertical white connector occasionally - JMO.

 

Certainly keeping closer to the stock power spec would be less risky, but that Termitor ad has a lot weirdness -- it says the light source type is HID in several places, but the picture is LED. Also, I don't see how a 45W bulb can produce 36000 Lumen while the 100W LED bulb only produces 6000 lumen. Good Hunting!

 

Good day Steve,

It is also possible that the LED's 100W spec is a bit of marketing and the LED is driven and/or consumes less than 100W. In the LED fixtures I design, I typically use higher wattage LEDs, but drive them lower in order to reduce the overall operating temperatures which results in substantially longer lifetimes. Secondly, in most high brightness LED applications, the LEDs are never driven without modulating/switching the LED's drive. For example, the LED driver could be providing 100W of Power... but in intervals (full on, then off and so on) and so the "average" power consumption could be far less. If the frequency of these on/off pulses is fast enough the human eye sees the light as continually on. The only way to know for sure how much power these LEDs consume would be to measure the current (average, peak, and with an oscilloscope).

Cheers,

Sam

 

Good day Again Steve,

As mentioned by Jarrod, I suspect the 45W with 36000 lumen output is a typo... as this would translate to an efficiency of around 800 lumens/Watt... which is about 4x larger than the higher end LEDs used in the industry (200 lumens/watt). There are some LEDs that exceed the 200 lumen/watt but these tend to be specialized, pricey, and could have substantially lower lifetimes. On average the higher the lumen output of the LED the shorter its lifetime.

Cheers,

Sam

 

Good day Jarrod,

36000 lumens is very bright... but is not unsual for the original 400W Halide lights (very big bulbs) used in high bay lighting applications you would have found in places like Home Depot, Costco. These Halides would generate around 36000 to 32000 lumens when first turned on... then diminish over a few months to around 20000-24000 lumens. LED versions of these 400W Halide fixtures actually produce less lumens... the reason is because the Halide bulbs would produce light in all directions and so only a portion would actually be directed to the area that needed the light. LEDs light is very directional and so the majority of a LED's output is directed to where it is needed... and so less lumens are needed.

That said, high brightness LEDs can cause eye damage. LED Lights tend to have more of the "blue" spectrum which the eye's iris is not as sensitive to (e.g. the iris does not constrict as much or as fast). The result is more light energy enters the eye which can cause damage and/or overload the eye's internals. When I am designing high brightness LED fixtures, I wear welding googles and/or use indirect lighting during testing.

Cheers,

Sam

 

Do LEDS diminish over time? Do they slowly get dimmer? Unlike icandescent . that just burn out.

 

Absolutely critical to disconnect the battery when changing the headlights to:
1. Minimize the chance of a serious injury from the headlight buckets coming down, and
2. You don't want to be discharging the battery with the headlights "on" during replacement.

There's a rotary battery disconnect switch on the inside of the RH fender above the battery cover - see Section 5 page 90 in your TR OM.

 

Good day David,

In general, the LED's output does degrade a bit over time. However, the degradation is dependent on a number of factors including the LED's design/composition, max light (lumen) output, and intended use (general lighting, architectural lighting, device indicators, agriculture, etc). That said, general lighting LEDs can last a long time and with high reliability... but requires far more attention and specific design considerations that is usually not done in most LED fixtures. These days most customers buy LED products based upon price and so the market has accommodated with a race to the bottom to make LED products as cheap as possible. The result is typically low reliability, quality, and much lower lifetimes than what is marketed. Sadly, people then blame the LED or the technology when in fact it is because of customer demand for cheap solutions. On my side, all of my fixtures have had zero failures and are still working after 10 years since deployment (20 hour per day use) and some of these are high brightness (20000 lumen output) applications which tend to have much lower lifetimes because of the heat they generate.

Cheers,

Sam