Audi's LED's

[1996alnl]

Hello everyone
I'm new here and i must say this is a fantastic forum.It's really helped me out. I'm an avid camper and when your in the woods at night you need a really good illumanation tool...or two. Ever since my buddy used his Surefire E2DL up against another campers $30 gajillion candlepower spotlight and put it to shame i've been hooked.
Last week i spotted a Audi R8 on the road,well actually what i noticed first was a series of white LEDs running underneath the headlights.Looked absolutly awsome!
I could just imagine if they decided to use LEDs on their headlights instead of bulbs...and could you imagine if this technology was passed down to handheld flashlights? Hmmm.

I currently own Surefire G2L,L1 cree,L4,E2DL,E1B. Coast hocus focus. Dorcy 6AAA.

Take care

 

[Fallingwater]

There are some LED headlights already, but their legality is disputed. I've seen one that used a cluster of Crees (or were they SSCs? Can't remember).
I haven't seen any LED high-beams though, presumably that's still one of the few areas where incandescents and/or Xenon lights have the advantage.

 

[Dead_Nuts]

I'm not the post police and I really don't care where you post this question, but there is a forum section dedicated to automobile lighting issues. They probably have more views on this subject.

But, hey, :welcome:

 

[LukeA]

There are some LED headlights already, but their legality is disputed. I've seen one that used a cluster of Crees (or were they SSCs? Can't remember).
I haven't seen any LED high-beams though, presumably that's still one of the few areas where incandescents and/or Xenon lights have the advantage.

The average pair of high beams is about 1500-2500 lumens delivered. That's no problem for LEDs to do.

I think it's just that no big time manufacturer has decided to devote the engineering hours to setting up the lights with a DOT- or ECE-approved beam pattern (for low beam, high beam doesn't have as many constraints.)

 

[phantom23]

The average pair of high beams is about 1500-2500 lumens delivered. That's no problem for LEDs to do.

Halogen - 1000-1500lm each lamp and 3000lm for HID.

 

[tango44]

Hello everyone
I'm new here and i must say this is a fantastic forum.It's really helped me out. I'm an avid camper and when your in the woods at night you need a really good illumanation tool...or two. Ever since my buddy used his Surefire E2DL up against another campers $30 gajillion candlepower spotlight and put it to shame i've been hooked.
Last week i spotted a Audi R8 on the road,well actually what i noticed first was a series of white LEDs running underneath the headlights.Looked absolutly awsome!
I could just imagine if they decided to use LEDs on their headlights instead of bulbs...and could you imagine if this technology was passed down to handheld flashlights? Hmmm.

I currently own Surefire G2L,L1 cree,L4,E2DL,E1B. Coast hocus focus. Dorcy 6AAA.

Take care

The day lights are leds, the headlights are Xenon lamps.

Will be interesting to know wich ones this are?

 

[willstilson]

i thought the Lexus LS600h already has LED hadlights and ive seen a few on the road.

 

[sORe-EyEz]

LEDs are being used for some Toyotas as signal lights.

 

[orcinus]

The day lights are leds, the headlights are Xenon lamps.

Will be interesting to know wich ones this are?

AFAIK, Cree's. There was talk about an Audi/Cree contract some time ago, i think.

LEDs are being used for some Toyotas as signal lights.

Not just Toyotas. Most of european and asian cars use them nowadays. You can spot them easily on the road by the PWM flicker.

 

[qwertyydude]

So far the only car to use full led lights is the Cadillac Escalade Platinum, that means low beam, high beam, and signals. Who says American cars are technologically inferior?

 

[sORe-EyEz]

i wonder if the owners were ever concerned about tints...

"mine's (LEDs') warmer then yours."
"Cree rings on yours?"
"mine's got more flood."
"wow, did you see the new 1s with adjustable focus?"

:laughing:

 

[daribbler]

my car has led's all around except my headlights.

 

[orcinus]

So far the only car to use full led lights is the Cadillac Escalade Platinum

Still hasn't hit the market, AFAIK...
It should be using OSRAM's, BTW.

 

[ledaholic]

And a hi/lo on a military vehicle.

 

[LukeA]

Halogen - 1000-1500lm each lamp and 3000lm for HID.

DELIVERED lumens in a headlight assembly is a MUCH SMALLER number than BULB lumens, especially for HID.

 

[KowShak]

So far the only car to use full led lights is the Cadillac Escalade Platinum, that means low beam, high beam, and signals. Who says American cars are technologically inferior?

Yes, it has LED lighting. It also has pushrods, solid rear axle and a ladder chassis.

 

[DM51]

Moving this to the Auto section.

 

[-Virgil-]

Halogen - 1000-1500lm each lamp and 3000lm for HID.

He said lumens delivered, i.e., contained within the beam. You're citing source lumens. Not the same thing.

So far the only car to use full led lights is the Cadillac Escalade Platinum

Not correct. The Lexus LS600h has LED headlamps (four versions: US/Canada, Europe-RHD, Europe-LHD, and Japan). The Audi R8 has full LED headlamps. And more are on the way.

 

[MichaelW]

Cadillac's Escalade platinum has cool white LEDs
The CCT is WAY too high. 6K? Really, 4K would be better.
So it seems GM is into style over substance.
http://blogs.motortrend.com/6307569...d-headlamps-with-hid-xenon-halogen/index.html

 

[-Virgil-]

Don't be quick to judge based solely on CCT. Remember, the first "C" in CCT stands for correlated — read more about it here; CCT is not a synonym for "color temperature" without the first "C". There are other aspects of light quality that have a greater influence than 4000K vs. 6000K on how "good" (or "effective") headlamp light is. There were a lot of LED headlamp systems included in the night-drive tests at the VISION Congress a couple weeks ago. They varied in almost every possible parameter: developmental stage from prototype to production (there was an R8 and an R8 hybrid present), emitter type and count, optical system (reflector, projector, hybrid), feature set (low beam only, low and high beam, static or dynamic bending light, full AFS), etc. The one parameter that was more or less constant was CCT of around 6KK.

In general, I tend to be sceptical of the purported benefits of higher-CCT headlamp light — this is due in large part to the "closer to natural sunlight!" BS that's been spouted by various marketing departments and thereby picked up and parroted all over the place as received "wisdom". But the light quality from all of them was — subjectively but by consensus — substantially better than that of regular production HID headlamps (with very comparable flux in beam) also included in the night-drive test pool. I don't think this was simply a case of "people like bluer/higher-CCT light"; I haven't scrutinised the SPD closely and offhand I don't know what the CRI is from the emitters commonly used in LED headlamps, but I do know the SPD is considerably more continuous than that of automotive HIDs, and the CRI has got to be better than the low-mid 70s we get from automotive HIDs.

Now, with that said, what might the subjective and objective performance characteristics be of an LED headlamp with lower-CCT white light? Interesting question, because I have one of these (5th device down, p/n SL-MR16-3X1W-WW) on my test bench right now. If I didn't know it were a 3-emitter LED device, I'd have a hard time identifying it as such by operating appearance. The light quality mimics that of a properly-fed, medium-high-luminance tungsten-halogen light source of approximately 3.2KK but with the red output attenuated. Similarly, the 6KK LED headlamps appeared to display significant attenuation of the high blue spike characteristic of HID headlamps. So yes, by whatever measure, the LED headlamps are 6KK largely because of market forces (the arguably-manufactured preference for "bluer" light), but to envision them as bluer HIDs is to bring to mind an inaccurate impression of their appearance and light quality.