Everything you need to know about LED headlights

LED (Lighting Emitting Diode) is a semiconductor solid light-emitting device. It uses solid semiconductor chips as light-emitting materials. The excess energy released by carrier recombination in the semiconductor causes photon emission, directly emitting red, yellow, blue, green, cyan, orange, purple, and white light. LED lighting products are lighting devices made using LED as a light source.

 

Concepts of Bulbs’ Data

1. Lumen:Lumen is the unit of light brightness. Generally, guests will ask if the light is bright or not. You can answer that it is bright enough and how many lumens it has.

2. LUX:Illuminance is a unit that reflects the intensity of light. Its physical meaning is the luminous flux irradiated on a unit area. The unit of illuminance is the number of lumens (Lm) per square meter, also called Lux: 1Lux=1Lm/square meter In the above formula, Lm is the unit of luminous flux, which is defined as the amount of light radiated by a surface area of 1/60 square meter of pure platinum at the melting temperature (about 1770℃) within a solid angle of 1 steradian.

3. Watts, this is the power of the lamp, and watt is abbreviated as W.

4. LM/W: Light source efficiency (Lm/w) = Lumen (Lm) / Power consumption (W)

That is, the amount of light emitted by each watt of electricity. The higher the value, the higher the efficiency of the light source.

5. Color temperature

Color temperature unit: K (Kelvin).

Color temperature: refers to heating a standard black body. When the temperature rises to a certain degree, the color begins to change from dark red - light red - orange-yellow - white-blue. When a light source has the same color as the black body, we call the absolute temperature of the black body at that time the color temperature of the light source.

Generally speaking, color temperature is not used as an indicator for evaluating LED light strips, but many foreign customers will make a special requirement due to the use environment.

Different light source color temperatures have different light colors:

When the color temperature is below 3300K, the light color is reddish and gives a warm feeling; there is a stable atmosphere and a warm feeling. It is generally called warm color temperature.

The color temperature is between 3000--6000K. People do not have a particularly obvious visual psychological effect under this color tone, and feel refreshing; therefore, it is called "neutral" color temperature.

When the color temperature exceeds 6000K, the light color is blue, giving people a cool feeling, which is generally called cold color temperature.

 

6. Voltage: V (volt) current adaptation range. The voltage range of general cars is 12-24 volts, so the voltage of the headlights will also be within this range, so it will be adapted to more car models. The voltage of the car is generally a constant current voltage, but some cars are AC, such as some motorcycles, which use AC.
7. Current：A

 

LED Power Supply

According to the circuit structure, it is divided into six categories: (involving the choice of decoder)

 

1. Conventional transformer step-down:

The advantage of this power supply is its small size, but its disadvantage is that it is heavy and its power efficiency is also low, generally 45% to 60%.

Because of its low reliability, it is rarely used.

2. Electronic transformer step-down:

The disadvantage of this power supply structure is its low conversion efficiency, narrow voltage range, generally 180 to 240V, and large ripple interference.

3. Capacitor step-down:

This type of LED power supply is easily affected by grid voltage fluctuations, has low power efficiency, and is not suitable for use when the LED is flashing, because the circuit uses capacitor step-down. When used in flashing, due to the effect of charging and discharging, the instantaneous current passing through the LED is extremely large, which can easily damage the chip.

4. Resistor step-down:

This power supply method has very low power efficiency and low system reliability. Because the circuit uses resistor step-down, it is greatly disturbed by grid voltage changes, and it is not easy to make a voltage-stabilized power supply, and the step-down resistor itself consumes a large part of the energy.

5. RCC step-down switching power supply:

The advantages of this type of LED power supply are wide voltage regulation range and high power efficiency, which can generally be between 70% and 80%, and it is widely used. The main disadvantages are that the switching frequency is not easy to control, the load voltage ripple coefficient is large, and the load adaptability is poor under abnormal conditions.

6. PWM controlled switching power supply:

At present, the LED power supply designed with PWM control method is more ideal, because the output voltage or current of this switching power supply is very stable. The power conversion efficiency is extremely high, generally up to 80% to 90%, and the output voltage and current are very stable. This type of LED power supply mainly consists of four parts: input rectification and filtering part, output rectification and filtering part, PWM voltage regulation control part, and switch energy conversion part. Moreover, this circuit has perfect protection measures and belongs to a high-reliability power supply.

 

Characteristics of LED Lighting

1. High purity, bright and rich colors. At present, LED products cover almost the entire visible spectrum range and have high color purity. The traditional way to obtain colored light is to add filters to incandescent lamps, which greatly reduces the light efficiency.

2. Ultra-long life. The actual life of LED exceeds 50,000 hours, which is several times or even dozens of times that of general light sources.

3. There is no mercury in the light source, and the light beam does not contain ultraviolet rays. LED is a solid light source, green and environmentally friendly, especially suitable for professional places such as perfume shops, jewelry stores, museums, and art galleries, which can meet their special requirements for lighting for displaying goods.

4. Solid light, good seismic performance, firm and reliable.

5. Energy saving, economical, maintenance-free.

6. Dynamic color control, adjustable brightness, and the combination of three primary colors of LED can use PWM to achieve color changes.

7. LED has a strong luminous directionality, high luminous flux utilization, and small size, which is easy to design the appearance of LED lamps and control the light intensity distribution.

8. LED can be powered by DC low voltage, which is safe and reliable.

9. LED is not limited by the starting temperature, can be started temporarily, generally for several ms, and can temporarily reach full luminous flux output.

10. Energy saving. The energy consumption of white light LED is only 1/10 of that of incandescent lamp and 1/4 of that of energy-saving lamp.

11. Long life. The life span can reach more than 100,000 hours, which can be said to be \"once and for all\" for ordinary lighting.

12. It can work at high speed. If the filament of energy-saving lamp is frequently started or turned off, it will turn black and break down quickly.

13. Solid-state packaging, belonging to the cold light source type. Therefore, it is very convenient to transport and install, and can be installed in any miniature and closed equipment, not afraid of vibration, and basically no need to consider heat dissipation.

14. LED lighting technology is advancing with each passing day, its luminous efficiency is making amazing breakthroughs, and the price is constantly decreasing. An era of white light LED lamps entering the home is rapidly coming.

15. Environmentally friendly, no harmful substances such as mercury. The assembly parts of LED lamps can be easily disassembled and reassembled, and can be recycled by other people instead of the manufacturer.

 

LED Lifespan

The service life of LED lamps is generally tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of hours. The most important factor affecting the service life of LED lamps is the matching of heat dissipation solutions, active heat dissipation (with fans); passive heat dissipation (heat dissipation body, mostly aluminum parts; capillary liquid heat dissipation)

 

LED Headlight Bulb Adaptation

It is mainly based on the original car buckle model of the original car lamp to make the adaptation, so what are the main models?

Single Beam: H1, H3, H7, H11/H8/H9, H10/9005/9145/9140/HB3, 9006/HB4, 9012

Dual Beam: H4/9003/HB2, 9007/HB5, H13/9008, 9004/HB1

Related article: How to Choose the Right LED Headlight Bulb？

 

Decoder

The industry meaning of a single lamp is that there is only one light-emitting form. A lamp that does not have the functions of high beam and low beam is called a single lamp. Generally, a single lamp is also often used as a fog lamp.

The industry meaning of a dual lamp is that the high and low beams are integrated, and a bulb has both high beam and low beam functions. It is rarely used in fog lamps. The main models of fog lights are: 880, 881, H1, H3, H7, H8/H9/H11, H16 (JP/EU), 9005, 9006

Most of the time, we cannot determine whether a decoder is needed to install LED headlights, because the output voltage and current of each vehicle are different, and they are also controlled by the on-board computer, which causes problems such as on-board computer errors, flickering, and no lights after installation. A decoder needs to be installed to balance the stability between the LED lights and the circuits in the car, or to deceive the on-board computer.

Our headlight series does not have the CANBUS Error Free function. The load balancer (canbus) can be used to eliminate the super flash (higher frequency turn signal) caused by the replacement of LED bulbs in some vehicles. Correct the super flash and bulb off warning.

When you buy, you should check if there are any comments on the product page. Pay attention to the following cars. Generally, German cars and high-end cars may need a decoder when installing LEDs. General German cars and higher-end cars may require a decoder, but this can only be determined during installation.

1. VOLKSWAGEN,
2. MERCEDES-BENZ,
3. AUDI,
4. BMW,
5. DODGE RAM 2015-17,
6. DODGE CHARGER 2015-17,
7. GMC,
8. ACADIA 2007-17,
9. FORD 2015-2017

The brand of vehicles shows above that they will be hard to install and require modification and will require a specialized technician for proper installation, also they will need canbus.