Bringing back a dead thread. There are now publicly available 10w, 30w, 50w, and higher LEDs available on eBay. Lexus has produced LED low beam headlights in their LS hybrids. Anybody feel like being adventurous?

 

I personally am still serious about doing this for at least my own vehicle. In the time since my original post I have probably increased my electrical knowledge 3 fold, so I'd be more willing to buy the parts and start on the project with out worry of destroying the parts in the creation phase lol Though I still am a tad short on funds to partake in it.

What worries me about those eBay items, assuming you are talking about LEDs that are some-what pre-assembled, is not knowing exactly what parts were used. So you could be buying a cheaply made item. Also I've yet to actually find any LEDs that are rated, in terms of their lighting abilities, in watts like we are used to with incandescent bulbs. It is also somewhat hard to compare the watts to lumens :\ If you see them rated in "lux", and it is a high arsed number, don't be fooled by that either. A lux is vastly dimmer than a lumen, just as a lumen is not as bright as a watt That is one of the issues I have when looking at parts, the manufacturers rating their LEDs in both Lumens and Lux While I can understand it, I don't see the point in doing it when the LED is high enough to be rated in lumens. I sometimes think it is just a marketing thing, where a bigger number = better haha

 

This is a 20w:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY6T_3tiVsE

Here are two different 20w variants. They come in 10w, 20w, 30w, 50w, and 100w.
http://cgi.ebay.com/14V-20W-Warm-Whi...item4cef00a344
http://cgi.ebay.com/20W-White-High-P...item58875626b6

 

Just to add to your 3x increase in knowledge...

A watt is a measure of power and is not related to brightness. It is used with incandescent light bulbs to indicate how much power they use. Since ordinary incandescent light bulbs don't vary much in efficiency, there is an apparant relationship between power used (watts) and brightness. When you start using LED or compact fluorescent lighting, power consumption no longer corresponds to brightness in the same way.

Lux and lumens are closely related. Lumen is the measure of illuminance (brightness) at a given point. Lux is a measure of the number of lumens over a specified area. One Lux equals one lumen per square meter. A 1000 lumen light source shining on a one square meter area equals 1000 lux. The same 1000 lumen shining on a 10 square meter area equals 100 lux. LEDs produce light over a narrow angle so multiple LEDs are usually mounted so as to increase the spread. Since lux measures brightness over an area, it is a good way to indicate how bright a bulb is in real use.

 

Well, that is pretty nice except 3 things: 1 it is mentioning that the comparison to a 60W lighbulb which is like 825lumens, and that is only 600-ish. The lack of beam is a bit of a problem. The voltage as well.

While yea I know all my options are similar, but that one guy's flashlight I linked too which I believe used lower lumen LEDs, seemed to be 100x brighter than that one in the video :\

 

Yea, I know that the wattage of the bulb is somewhat indirectly related to it's lighting ability, but as people know how much light they produce it can still give a person a rough idea of how bright it will be.

I probably knew about the Lux and Lumens difference previously, but had forgotten about it. Either way, it makes it difficult (for me) to find out how well something will illuminate an area when rated in lux, as I've never had anything that is rated with lux :\ As for the angle, they vary depending on the type. Some are 120º, some are 60º, 80º, 90º. While others that aren't SMD are closer to 180º. The high angles are those packaged in multiple clusters and not exactly what I'm after for a headlight/foglight (or even flashlight). Those tighter angle units make for a much better option IMO.

(BTW I think you mean illumination instead of illuminance, as the latter isn't exactly a word)

EDIT: Mmm bbrrriiigghhhtttt

 

You're right... watts are such a common way of comparing brightness for incandescent bulbs that even manufacturers are using them for packaging (e.g. "equivalent to a 60W bulb but uses only 15W"). However, I think you'll see that change in the future as compact fluorescents, LEDs, HIDs, and other more efficient light sources become popular.

il·lu·mi·nance intensity of illumination. Optics. the intensity of light falling at a given place on a lighted surface; the luminous flux incident per unit area, expressed in lumens per unit of area or lux.

 

Alternators are capable of producing current up to their rated max, but the exact amount at any given time is load based. Say you have a brand new one on the testing machine at AZ. It produces a nominal 12v at almost zero current, because the only load is the voltmeter. If you add something else, like a load resistor to see if it will produce full current, then up it goes to whatever is demanded, within the physical capabilities of the alt. Keep it at full load forever and it will probably burn up, as I don't think they are rated for a 100% duty cycle.

 

Toyota has done it using multiple 10w LEDs on their 2010 Prius. I think it's possible to figure out a way to make these parts work.

 

First: You avatar a homage to Goatse.cx? lol

Second: Yea I am not worried about getting any of this to work, that is the slightly easier part. It's which LED to go with, from what maker, and then how many. That is why I had planned on going the flashlight route to start with, so I can find out how bright ONE of them are. The one link I posted I think on page 1 had a picture, or I just imaged it in the post, of a guy using a similar one to one I planned. It was SUPER bright and 10x brighter than the one's in that video above, that is why I'm a bit skeptical about them. Granted he was doing it in a partially lit room and with a camera that was adjusting to the illuminance (lol) from the flashlights, so it isn't quite as fair as that picture of the flashlight being used at night. Still, the distance + the intensity makes me believe it would still dominate those ones.

Time will tell when I get the chance to go about doing this. We moved last year and I have just with in the last few months got my room squared away (finished, we built a new place), but my computer had kind of gone **** up. Plus it was old as hell, so I've been purchasing new components for that instead of pushing forward with this project.

Whitebird: And I stand corrected, my apologies I had hit up dictionary.com and it didn't provide but a brief, yet barely worth of the term, definition of the word. Then it went right on to define "illumination", so I assumed it wasn't truly a word. Live and learn!

 

Yep. A little reminder of how effective social engineering is.

The flashlight units are promising, but you will probably get better results by using these larger 10, 20, 30, 50 watt SMD type LEDs (which is similar if not the same as what manufacturers have started using) in a properly focused housing.

 

[QUOTE=ZexGX;13356270]Yep. A little reminder of how effective social engineering is.



Well the one that was used in the flashlight in (I think) my first post was an SMD. What he had used was three of the SMD models, where as the ones I was thinking about using was the same package size but had THREE of the LEDs per SMD unit So if his was as bright as it was with three singles, and I planned to use 3-6 triples... look da fawk out! And since then, they have brighter LEDs available in the tri package, so even better! My initial plan was, as a test housing, to just use a headlight housing and mount these in there. Exactly how I didn't quite get that far, but there is a multitude of ways I could go about it.