LED H4 bulbs on Ebay..

HollywoodMX

Coast to Coast
Ok there are like a 1000 different styles, wattage etc. Anyone have experience with these? I'm guessing the ones with the heat sink last longer. There are different LED combinations/counts. I could sit down and figure it all out seeing if people have experience thoughts about these.

I cant remember is there a different pattern when you see a pair for a car for example like the left is different than the right for LDH? Or do you think these are expecting the housings are different in the car so the pack of 2 are the same?

Thanks!
 
I'm definitely a bit biased when I say you should get one from us, too, but hear me out...

A lot of the reason we started carrying these is because I was caught out several times by crap on eBay. So many of them barely qualify as fog lights, let alone actual lights you can ride by. We ended up testing four different brands (this counts only the actual bulbs that worked and doesn't include the stuff that would only be useful as a running light).

The one we carry was definitely the most expensive, but the quality is head and shoulders above all of the other offerings. This is one of those items we carry to help support the community rather than helping to support our business. After our expenses and shipping costs, we make about $5 - $8 on each of these things, and we don't sell to many because of the price. A lot of folks are not willing to pay $55 for a bulb.

That said, I highly recommend these on all your vintage bikes, but especially the Honda twins (which have anemic charging systems). These have a 20W draw, which is a huge improvement over the original 35W bulbs. Additionally, these bad boys are brighter than most 55W halogens I've seen. I've been running one on my Ducati for a year and a half with zero problems. Expected life span on these bulbs is 10,000 hours, so it's unlikely you'll ever need to buy another for one of your bikes.

The down sides is that the bulb includes a heat sink and so it's both longer and fatter than a standard bulb. If you're stashing all of your wiring in your bucket, it's going to be a very tight fit. Some folks (myself, included) use a hole saw to drill out the back of the bucket to make more room and it works just fine. Other guys have reported no fitment problems at all. Seems to be hit and miss, depending on your setup.

Pic attached of the light shining down my drive way (over 100ft) and lighting up the house across the road.
 

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Thanks for the response. Just curious why not 40w or 60w? I'm not restricted with wattage like some other older bikes and would never complain of the headlight shining further/wider.
 
Wattage is not a rating of brightness, it's a rating of power usage.

Our 20W bulb is just as bright (if not brighter) than a 55W halogen bulb.
 
Sonreir said:
Wattage is not a rating of brightness, it's a rating of power usage.

Our 20W bulb is just as bright (if not brighter) than a 55W halogen bulb.

Sure, lumens or candle power is the brightness rating but all things the same one would expect that more watts would increase the brightness if the components could take it.
 
For the same format of bulb, usually. Not always, though.

This almost always holds true for an incandescent light, but other types not so much.
 
Even incandescent varied a bit on lumens even though they had the same wattage. Heavy Duty incandescent bulbs are generaqlly less bright than regular duty, and Halogen are generally brighter for the same watts.

Look at flourescent bulbs. A 13 watt bulb can have the brightness of a 75 watt incandescent.

I have slowly replaced my household lighting to LED. in my Bathroon, Five 40 watt incandescents have been replaced by five 5 watt LED bulbs. The brightness is the same. So 200 watts of incandescent is replaced by 25 watts of LED with no change in brightness.

As Sonreir said, wattage is power usage, not brightness.
 
Sonreir said:
For the same format of bulb, usually. Not always, though.

This almost always holds true for an incandescent light, but other types not so much.

Ah OK.

Mydlyfkryzis said:
Even incandescent varied a bit on lumens even though they had the same wattage. Heavy Duty incandescent bulbs are generaqlly less bright than regular duty, and Halogen are generally brighter for the same watts.

Look at flourescent bulbs. A 13 watt bulb can have the brightness of a 75 watt incandescent.

I have slowly replaced my household lighting to LED. in my Bathroon, Five 40 watt incandescents have been replaced by five 5 watt LED bulbs. The brightness is the same. So 200 watts of incandescent is replaced by 25 watts of LED with no change in brightness.

As Sonreir said, wattage is power usage, not brightness.

Ya but I'm not comparing led to other types. I'm comparing 20w led to higher Watt led for brightness. I completely realize 20 Watt led isn't the same as 20w halogen. Some vintage bikes only have 35 watts of power to give a headlight where mine has the regular 65w so I was curious if sonier picked the 20w led to be friendly to all vintage bikes.

My one bike has two x 35w led headlights. And it's bright! Being at one bulb in my other bikes I wouldn't mind a led bulb that can take advantage of the extra watts available if it could use them.

I did notice some led lights are 20w low beam and 40w high beam.
 
Sadly for LEDs the higher wattage for more light doesn't work as well..

Found these two gems, First one is 22/30W and 2000/2600 lumens and the second is 25W/50W and 1800 lumens (assuming thats low beam for their sake..) This is of course assuming that those are tested numbers and not just BS..
https://www.lifetimeledlights.com/led_lights/h4_led_bulb_h4_led_headlight_bulbs
http://www.headwinds.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=8-9030-H4&Category_Code=


I should probably spend more time working on my bike and less time searching the web.. but anywho...

Cheers
 
This one is Hi 30W Per Bulb / Lo:20W Per Bulb 2400/2800 Lumens.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CREE-60W-5600LM-Pure-White-6500K-Car-LED-Headlight-Kit-H4-H-L-Daytime-Bulb-Lamp-/271571894368?hash=item3f3af24060&vxp=mtr
 
Looks like these LEDs..
http://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/XHP70A-01-0000-0D0BN40E1/XHP70A-01-0000-0D0BN40E1-ND/5303424

Couple things I notice..
1. The LEDs are over driven to get the high output, not a great design decision, but not a huge issue if it has enough cooling. (note that even if the ones I found are wrong, CREE doesn't make any in the 2800LM range).
2. Both LEDs are on the same side, no idea what this will do but I can't imagin that it will end up with a nice even light distribution.

They could be the greatest lights ever or they could be just fair, that's the fun of buying LEDs from hong kong on ebay ;)

Cheers
 
The Digikey page you linked to says" 140 lm/W

140 Lumen per watt at 20W is 2800 Lumen. 20 Watt at 12V is 1.6 amps. That is less the 2.4 amp maximum draw the Digikey page says.

The E-Bay spec, assuming it is not incorrect, falls within the Cree Spec on Digikey. I bet the High beam spec is like my LED bulb, (12W/18Watt). The low beam is 2 6 watt LEDS, the High beam is an additional 6 watt LED. On "high" both the low beam leds and the high beam are on, for a total of 18W.

So 30 w High beam is likely to be low beam at 20W, High beam is additional 10W on the HB led, giving a total of 30w.

So all within the normal operation for the Cree Bulb, if it is the one you linked too on Digikey.
 
Shawoops, only read the heading 60W/5600LM and made the brash assumption that it was per bulb (also an issue with ebay purchases lol).

With the LEDs I posted you could easily exceed that rating at the normal rating (~1.2A inferred from the graphs in the spec sheet).


From the pictures I think there are only two LEDs on those ones, probably just setup to run more current on high beam. I would be really curious to see if there is a driver or just a couple of resistors on them.. someone should buy one and take it apart ;)

Cheers
 
Low beam is power through the lower led. This is the focal point for a wider beam. The led closer to the tip is the focal point for a narrower beam (high beam). The difference between high beam and low is more about focal points than power.
 
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