I design LED bulbs! Hello!

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Welcome to the board. What kind of automotive LED lighting do you design?

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[Deleted by moderator] sells illegal HID kits and (more than likely) non compliant and unsafe LED "replacement" bulbs.

Pauljmccain, please feel free to participate here within the boundaries set by the rules we all agree to follow when we sign up for this board. Rule 11 of this board prohibits advocating illegal or dangerous activity. The lighting modifications and products your company sells and advocates are illegal and dangerous (purported "LED retrofit bulbs" and "HID kits"), so we will not be discussing them here.

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pauljmccain said:

Sorry, I didn't realize such a vague rule would be applied to what I do. Dangerous? There's a whole forum about lasers on here, you know!

... but I get it. I'll just keep my mouth shut.

Paul

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Of course they're dangerous. The HID arc can never safely be substituted for a halogen filament and 99.99999% of the LED replacement bulbs (all but those from one manufacturer, Philips IIRC) simply do not put the requisite light at the focal point of a reflector designed AROUND an incandescent bulb.

I don't understand your reference to lasers. Are the lasers you're referring to being used on motor vehicles being driven on public roads?

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pauljmccain said:

The majority of what I do in HID is in OEM HID replacement and power supply. Lots and lots of people have factory ballasts go out. I agree, without a properly designed housing, HID bulbs cannot be safely substituted for halogen, and can be dangerous.

Philips does not have an LED that replicates the focal point of an incandescent bulb. No one does. It is optically impossible. Philips does have dozens of LED bulbs for signaling and interior applications, that are similar to what I design. However, the LED products I design are more reliable and brighter than Philips bulbs, and are much more omnidirectional.

Scheinwerfermann, if I have overstepped your instruction, please delete this post. I apologize, don't want to get banned my first day here.

Paul

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I believe Philips has, or will shortly have, an LED replacement that does work in place of a filament bulb. I believe Scheinwerfermann has mentioned these in the past. They are being tested on a car-by-car basis and have found to work safely and effectively and compliantly on the 2008 Honda Accord, for example. I'm not sure how Philips is doing this but someone mentioned they may be using light-guide technology. I will do some more research and post a link if I can find it.

Edit to add link:

http://philipsxtremevisionled.com


Link to Schein's comment:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...ulbs-in-cars&p=4368346&viewfull=1#post4368346

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pauljmccain said:

The majority of what I do in HID is in OEM HID replacement and power supply. Lots and lots of people have factory ballasts go out.

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If I'm understanding you correctly, you design (presumably relatively inexpensive) aftermarket replacements for expensive OE ballasts. That's an interesting niche to be in. No problem discussing these as long as they meet all the applicable regulations (electrical safety, EMI/RFI, etc.) and aren't of higher than stock power output.

I agree, without a properly designed housing, HID bulbs cannot be safely substituted for halogen, and can be dangerous.

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Not "can be", is. There is no such thing as a properly designed housing in which HID bulbs can safely be substituted for halogen; the only properly-designed "housing" (lamp) for an HID bulb is a lamp designed and intended to take an HID bulb. The reason why I brought it up is this exact type of product (HID bulbs specifically designed for installation in halogen headlamps) appears to be a major chunk of your company's product line.

Philips does not have an LED that replicates the focal point of an incandescent bulb.

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Philips does have the beginnings of a line of LED retrofit bulbs which, in many applications, as measured objectively and thoroughly, work at least as well as the original-equipment filament bulbs.

No one does. It is optically impossible.

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That's not actually true. Osram is actively working on exactly what you describe as nonexistent and impossible. They already have demonstrated (though not yet publicly released) LED replacements for PY21W, R5W, and C5W filament bulbs with emitting surfaces of the size, shape, position, and orientation specified in UN Regulation 37 for those categories of filament lamp, and they have demonstrated near- and far-field practical identicality of these LED bulbs' light emission.

(Philips) that are similar to what I design.

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I don't see anything in your company's LED bulb listings that could realistically be described as similar to the Philips products.

However, the LED products I design are more reliable and brighter than Philips bulbs, and are much more omnidirectional.

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Those are some pretty tall claims given the designs of the "LED bulbs" your company offers and the actual performance and probable longevity of the Philips bulbs, as well as Philips' reputation and expertise in the field. As for "brighter", I'm not sure whether to believe you here where you say you have an integrating sphere, or there on your company's website which says "We do not list lumen brightness ratings for our products, as we do not have the equipment necessary to provide these measurements (...) We do not provide calculated numbers, as we believe it is misleading to the consumer. Please reference our pictures for brightness comparison." As a lighting engineer, surely you must be aware of how and why pictures of an operating bulb or lamp are utterly useless for determining output in any useful or meaningful way. I had no difficulty obtaining the lumen output ratings from Philips for their LED bulbs, by the way.

I am trying to keep my comments about the products and the companies, here, but please understand that the market is crowded with fast-buck companies selling illegal and dangerous car lighting products with various mixes of pseudoscience and handwaving and expert-sounding assurances to the consumer. At base, though, they -- like your company -- are selling a product that is unsafe and illegal, and that has to be factored in when considering the reliability of information flowing from that company.

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pauljmccain said:

"beam pattern measured fulfills the requirements as stated in the SAE standards."

WAY different than a similar focal point.

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In the context of what we're discussing (bulbs for use in turn signals, brake lights, parking lights, backup lights, tail lights, etc.), "similar focal point" isn't what's important -- not in the regulatory system we have in the USA. What's important is the performance of the lamp. Philips' LED replacement bulbs fulfill that requirement in some (though not all) applications.

As you say yourself:

SAE standards deal with the beam pattern- the light that is actually coming out of the housing, not the focal point.

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True.

Headlamps have to meet those standards too.

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Oops, no. Road illumination lamps (headlamps, fog lamps...) are highly dependent on the size, shape, position, and orientation of the light source to produce a correct beam pattern, in ways that signaling lamps (brake, turn, park, tail, backup...) aren't.

Philips is just trying to do it backwards, by taking a "standard" reflector (those listed on their site) and designing an LED so that it works with that reflector.

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I don't work for Philips, but I've had a close enough seat (not first row, but 2nd) to watch the R&D on this product line to be able to say yours is not an accurate characterization of how it's been/being done. I think you are guessing.

They are not going to design an LED with the same focal point as an incandescent, it just cannot be done.

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Yes, it really can. And it really has, by Osram.

This just means Philips has spent the money to test their LEDs in those housings, and SAE says they're good enough.

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No, actually, SAE does not test, certify, or approve any items of vehicle equipment. Neither does NHTSA or any other agency of the DOT. That's just not how it works -- not even a little bit. You seem to completely misunderstand how vehicle regulations work in the North American market.

They are not some uber-special LED design.

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Neither are yours.

I'd guess if they are able to get more tested, they'll then lobby for regulation to monopolize against anyone like me who can't throw money at the SAE.

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This makes literally no sense. It's so far out of line with any reality-based description of how things work that I'm having difficulty seeing it as anything but uninformed paranoia or marketing-driven handwaving. The start and end of anyone "throwing money at the SAE" is buying technical standards for the products they're interested in making or examining. One technical standard covers all turn signals. One covers all stop lamps. One covers all backup lamps, and so on. You buy the standard once...you own it and use it at will. And that's if you can't find the contents of the standard elsewhere without paying, which you often can. So where is all this "throwing money at the SAE" you're talking about?

There are questionable aspects of what Philips is doing, by the way. Releasing a product that works 100% legally in some applications but renders some other vehicles noncompliant with certain provisions of applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, as a fits-and-lights-up replacement for a product that works 100% legally in all applications, is something of a dangerous game that could expose Philips to civil penalties and other liabilities. That appears to be a gamble they've decided to take. Osram, for now, has apparently decided to wait on marketing their LED bulbs until they are on solid regulatory ground in the UN market (basically, rest of the world outside USA/Canada).

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pauljmccain said:

Thank you. It's very profitable since the OEMs want so much for replacements, and they usually die after 3-4 years. Same power output. No nonsense "55W" or anything like that.

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H'm...there's certainly a market for replacement ballasts, but I can't agree agree that OE ballasts "usually die after 3-4 years".

("HID kits") only makes up around 10% of our sales right now, we deal in primarily OEM HID replacement (bulbs and ballasts) and LED products. Probably not staying in the retrofitting industry much longer for the reasons you've described.

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OK, but as of right now they are a prominent, big part of what's offered on your website, and that makes it hard to regard your company as credible. Another obstacle to credibility: you offer multiple different "LED bulbs" to replace any given kind of filament bulb. I count five different 3157-replacements, for example, at prices ranging from $30 to $90 a pair. It looks like these produce different amounts of light (can't tell for sure, no lumen output stated). However, a 3157 produces only one amount of light from the major filament and one amount of light from the minor filament. How is it that this range of different intensities can all produce compliant performance...?

(Philips LED bulbs working properly) I'll believe it when I see it! I have talked to Philips employees about this at trade shows, and they said it wasn't a big priority.

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Well, that's nice. I've spent time slaving over a hot test bench in a desolate darkroom (that's a joke -- it wasn't hot or desolate), actually evaluating the performance of the Philips LED bulbs, bare and in a large variety of vehicle lamps, as I have with "LED bulbs" from numerous other makers. With the goal of understanding whether and how these bulbs work, I think my methodology here (actual scrutineering and functional testing) probably does a better job than yours (talking to booth flunkies at a trade show).

(Osram LED retrofits)Link? That's news to me. They're much more into bulbs than Philips though, I could see this happening.

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Please see "UN/ECE Compliant LED Retrofits - A New Approach Towards True Retrofit Solutions" by Dr. Oliver E. Woisetschläger, Dr. Daniel Weissenberger, Peter Niedermeier, József Székely, and Sven Seifritz of Osram GmbH. It was presented last September at the International Symposium on Automotive Lighting (ISAL). (Also, what do you mean by saying Osram is "much more into bulbs" than Philips?)

What Philips LED products are you looking at? They use standard 5050-packaged LEDs and some products use their Luxeon chips, put onto a standardized base connector. Have you bought Philips LEDs? Disassembled Philips LEDs? They're nothing special.

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We're looking at the same Philips product. Outside of academic curiosity and an engineer's sense of the gee-whiz, I am not impressed by construction details. What's special about the Philips LED retrofits, compared to most* other attempts that have been made at this kind of idea, is that the Philips items allow many lamps designed for filament bulbs to give compliant performance without a filament bulb -- including the more difficult aspects of LED vehicle lamp compliance, such as output maintenance with prolonged operation.

*Though my experience would justify saying "all", I say "most" because there's always tomorrow

How is that not similar to what we do?

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The design of the "LED bulbs" your company offers is not similar to the Philips product, and while I will freely acknowledge having not (yet?) tested your bulbs, IME bulbs designed along the lines of what you're offering do not permit car lamps designed for filament lamps to perform in a fully compliant manner.

We've been using a basic DIY sphere for comparison testing for years, but finally got a real integrating sphere and full spactroradiometer setup about a month ago. Those descriptions are being changed right now (literally, our marketing team was working on it yesterday) to include the newly-measured information. I'd be happy to post some reports but our company name is all over them.

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That's fine, please go ahead and post. I'm not on a mission to quash any mention of your company's name, it's just that you were a new poster and we've had problems in the past with new posters coming on with the sole intent of spamming/advertising/shilling. You seem genuinely interested in technical conversation, so I don't think that's a concern at this time.

Oh, I know. That's our competition. They have no idea how lights even work.

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You do realize that every company says this, right? It's like every religion claims to be the one and only true, etc. ;-)

-Virgil

pauljmccain said:

It was a generalization of their product development strategy. Yes, I am guessing. That's all either of us are doing.

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No, actually, I'm not guessing. Please re-read the portion of Post 13 that you quoted.

I didn't know I needed to be so technical about my word choices....

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You're on a technical forum full of technical people. Words have meanings.

Obviously SAE does not do any testing. I meant "throwing money" at the SAE standards.

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Mmm...really? If your company cannot afford a one-time $70 for an official copy of a technical standard, then is it really a viable company? Even if we generously count up all the SAE standards you could conceivably want to have on hand for the applications your bulbs will be used in, that's eight standards, for a one-time total expenditure of $560 if you're not a member of SAE, $448 if you're a member. The question still stands: if you can't afford this, is your company really viable? And more than that, if you choose not to buy the basic technical standards that apply to the product you're developing, on what basis are you determining or certifying that your products work the way they're required to?

Geez, give me a break.

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I'm trying, but what should I base any confidence on? You say your products are great...but you also say you don't have the SAE standards used to assess the performance of the products you make...so where does that leave us? Am I just supposed to trust you and whip out my American Express card, just on your say-so? Give me something to lean on here!

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Scheinwerfermann said:

Mmm...really? If your company cannot afford a one-time $70 for an official copy of a technical standard, then is it really a viable company? Even if we generously count up all the SAE standards you could conceivably want to have on hand for the applications your bulbs will be used in, that's eight standards, for a one-time total expenditure of $560 if you're not a member of SAE, $448 if you're a member. The question still stands: if you can't afford this, is your company really viable? And more than that, if you choose not to buy the basic technical standards that apply to the product you're developing, on what basis are you determining or certifying that your products work the way they're required to?

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It's obviously not the cost of the standard docs, it's the cost of the equipment needed to conduct measurements to determine whether or not those standards are met. We could do color right now, but we still need all kinds of equipment to see if the products meet the standards for photometry, vibration, waterproofing, corrosion, dust, all kinds of fun stuff. Test equipment is not cheap, paying someone to do it for you is not cheap. I don't know why I am having to explain this.

Paul

pauljmccain said:

You're making many assumptions here. I work in a well-equipped electronics lab. I spend all day, every day working on electronics and lighting. It's not a hobby.

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No assumptions here, I'm just reacting to your statement in post 12, where you said "I have talked to Philips employees about this at trade shows". For the third time now, my information on the R&D of the Philips LED bulbs is considerably closer than that.

"Output maintenance with prolonged operation" is a pretty basic qualification.

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It's one that even name-brand, purpose-built LED vehicle lamps sometimes have difficulty meeting.

I'm not sure what kind of operating timeframe you're referring to

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That's strange, given that we agree (as you just said) that it's a basic qualification of the products you're designing. If you were to read the technical standards that govern this basic aspect of LED vehicle lamps -- SAE J2938 and SAE J1889 -- you'd know exactly what kind of operating timeframe we're talking about and how it's to be tested.

Philips' current Xtremevision offerings exhibit very average or below average flux maintenance over a normal warmup.

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That's interesting for a couple of reasons: it doesn't align with the test data I've seen (and collected myself), and also, if you're "not sure what kind of operating timeframe" is involved in the tests...how are you defining the average and judging certain bulbs as above or below it?

Their 194 bulbs are actually pretty bad at it, because in my opinion, they are running them at a slightly high current for most applications, leading to excessive heat. I think they need to dial them back a little bit, but that's really just my opinion.

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Perhaps you're right about their 194 bulbs, which are explicitly marketed as being intended for interior-lighting applications, not exterior (regulated) applications. Their bulbs for regulated applications (tail, stop, turn, backup...) appear to give acceptable lumen maintenance.

Spectrum: http://diodedynamics.com/docs/spectro/xpg16_dual/7443-xpg16w_S2H_spectrum.pdf
Warmup: http://diodedynamics.com/docs/spectro/xpg16_dual/7443-xpg16w_S2H_warmup.pdf

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That's a nice, complete report. Looks like it's for a white 7443 bulb, presumably the major (bright) function, and it's showing 329 lumens (which, referring to the "warmup" plot, suggests it's at about 12 minutes of runtime). The bright function of a 7443 is required by the relevant regulations and technical standards to produce 440 lumens +/- 15%, that is 374 to 506 lumens, at 13.5v. So how are we going to be compliant with a bulb that produces only 75% of the nominal requirement and 88% of the minimum allowable requirement?

I'm just saying, try calling a random company out there... ask them something like "do your LEDs have P-N junctions?" 99% will have no clue what you're saying.

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That is certainly true. Most of the vendors of products of this type just go shopping on Alibaba or similar and arrange to bring in a containerload of whatever they're promised by an overseas outfit, then spend their time and money on marketing. Even if I am skeptical (so far) about your products, at least you've got a lab and some appropriate equipment, and enough know-how to generate a relevant test report (though my questions still stand about what you're testing to, in the absence of the SAE standards).

pauljmccain said:

It's obviously not the cost of the standard docs, it's the cost of the equipment needed to conduct measurements to determine whether or not those standards are met. We could do color right now, but we still need all kinds of equipment to see if the products meet the standards for photometry, vibration, waterproofing, corrosion, dust, all kinds of fun stuff. Test equipment is not cheap, paying someone to do it for you is not cheap. I don't know why I am having to explain this.

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Because of a lack of clarity in your previous statements. You're right, the necessary test equipment or contracted testing isn't cheap. But these are regulated items of vehicle safety equipment we're talking about, and this kind of testing is a necessary part of the process -- it isn't optional (except that certain things you mentioned aren't tests that apply to signal lamp bulbs).

And aside from the legal/regulatory issues involved: If you're not able to do the tests in-house, and you're not willing to farm it out to a lab...what are you basing your claims on, when you say your bulbs are good/awesome/super/better-than-Philips/etc?