LED Bulbs from Uncle Sam

Yugguy

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Aye, to be honest I ran hids for a while not for brightness but for the colour temp.

The osram nb+ halogens are whiter than ordinary halogens but still not 5k like the rest of my lights.
 

M80

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You need brake hold to extinguish your brake lights............... That's also ace :)

I would really like that, but I wasn't sure if brake lights remained lit.
I would reeeally like distronic, twould be right grand.

If and when I get the Viano as I would like I anticipate it being my daily drive for lots of years, getting these nice gizmos just'aint likely any time soon.
 

M80

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Aye, to be honest I ran hids for a while not for brightness but for the colour temp.

The osram nb+ halogens are whiter than ordinary halogens but still not 5k like the rest of my lights.

Up here we see a lot of fog and the whiter, higher colour temps just get thrown back at you.
Years ago in my 2001 C class I fitted after market HID's, I know illegal, I fitted 4000 Kelvin and they were excellent at cutting the fog. The downside was that everything looked green.
 
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davemercedes

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I can appreciate that electronics will act faster than the mere human, and cut the power and the light dies, although faster with LED as HID's will fade out.
But where it won't be an improvement is when travelling down a rural road at night I / they often see another cars headlights from way off. More often I will dip before their headlights come into view as I can anticipate the bend their rounding or the brow their climbing.

Maybe the experiences I've been having are just faulty slow reaction humans.

That's because you've learned a "dinosaur" instinct over the years and you anticipate that the small light from far away will become a headlight as the car comes around the curve (while the oncoming driver often does not). It also appears you're another rarity these days - a considerate driver! The police manual "Roadcraft" goes into great lengths about this - teaching (young and old) drivers to anticipate what happens with the surrounding foliage/road shape etc - it's a very interesting manual that is actually quite obvious in what it preaches.
 

turbopete

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This is exactly why they are so pointless....(and annoying). At least if they did something there might be a point in them being turned on....
the purpose of foglights is that the beam are a wider beam so aid in seeing the edges of roads better. ive fitted them to most of the cars ive had that didn't have them and do find them a benefit.
 

Craiglxviii

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the purpose of foglights is that the beam are a wider beam so aid in seeing the edges of roads better IN FOG. ive fitted them to most of the cars ive had that didn't have them and do find them a benefit.

Corrected that for you!
 

turbopete

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Corrected that for you!
not necessarily. just look at the 'cornering light' systems fitted to many cars (like a guy at work with a Seal Ibiza for example) they all use the fog lights regardless of if its foggy or not.
 

LostKiwi

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not necessarily. just look at the 'cornering light' systems fitted to many cars (like a guy at work with a Seal Ibiza for example) they all use the fog lights regardless of if its foggy or not.
They also don't operate above 20mph.
All I can say is you aren't looking very far down the road if you need that much light out the sides (unless you're drifting everywhere).

All the folk that drive with them all the time must have fog between the ears (as my other half says).
 

Craiglxviii

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not necessarily. just look at the 'cornering light' systems fitted to many cars (like a guy at work with a Seal Ibiza for example) they all use the fog lights regardless of if its foggy or not.
Nope. They use cornering lamps. If combined with foglamps there are two bulbs each with different beam patterns combined into one lamp unit on each side.
 

C350Carl

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Nope. They use cornering lamps. If combined with foglamps there are two bulbs each with different beam patterns combined into one lamp unit on each side.

Was just going to post about this being so.

Also some cars now have the DRL’s combined in the fog/cornering unit. Which can lead some people to think that they’re driving round with fog lights on when they’re not.
 

Craiglxviii

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Was just going to post about this being so.

Also some cars now have the DRL’s combined in the fog/cornering unit. Which can lead some people to think that they’re driving round with fog lights on when they’re not.

This is why matrix LED is such a great concept. One block of Osram’s finest multichip, RGBW in some cases dependent on what’s required, with the correct optics can do low & high beam, bendy beam, electronically steered moving black spot, DRL, fog, cornering and turn signal all in a package 50 x 25mm.

Oh and apparent colour temp can be tuned to match your preference. And foglamps can be turned “selective yellow” if so programmed.

Needless to say it’s cool as f***.
 

Craiglxviii

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And as expensive to fix when it goes wrong as the space shuttle.....
If. Not when. That’s the trade off of cost vs performance. Properly designed LED lamps will now run for 120,000 hours*. Halogen H7 will run for... 800 hours at OEM spec.

What all that means is that with the levels of tech being brought into production now (actually, thermal management tech) for lighting, these lamps should outlast the car.

*for 99.98% of production. Of course we don’t hear their voices just the 0.02% which fail. Actually that’s nominal, we haven’t seen anything like that high a failure level in auto LED lighting since VAG turned round and gave Philips’ Lumileds a savage beating back in 2008 over the eyeliner failures.
 

turbopete

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Nope. They use cornering lamps. If combined with foglamps there are two bulbs each with different beam patterns combined into one lamp unit on each side.

so how do they get the different beam patterns? internal lense? (the seat outer lenses are pretty much just clear glass, unlike the foglights of old)
and presumably they use 55w bulbs (as is standard I believe) for both cornering lights AND foglights? (the seat owner didn't know the car had them until a local cop told him his 'foglight' was working strangely) id imagine on some cars, running 2 bulbs is also challenging from a space point of view (and probably explains to a degree why I thought cornering lights were a pointless gimmick)
 

turbopete

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They also don't operate above 20mph.
All I can say is you aren't looking very far down the road if you need that much light out the sides (unless you're drifting everywhere).
some of the fog ive driven in you could barely see more than a few yards. on roads where there is no lighting, no line at the side of the road and no centre road markings, being able to see out to the sides can mean the difference between staying on the road or being in a ditch. ive had fog so bad even dipped beam was useless and I could see more with just sidelights and front fogs. whilst such fogs are rare here and tend to be in rural areas, these are the areas ive lived/driven most of my life. before moving to my current house, fog was so bad I couldn't see the car (parked behind the house) FROM the house. a distance (straight line) of 5 yards. and yes I did have to go out in it.
 

LostKiwi

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I think I can count the number of times I've used fog lights on the fingers of one hand (and I mean either front or rear) and I've driven in some very dense fog. 00slk will know about the Waikato fogs... (Great fun rallying in Maramarua in them!)
 

Craiglxviii

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so how do they get the different beam patterns? internal lense? (the seat outer lenses are pretty much just clear glass, unlike the foglights of old)
and presumably they use 55w bulbs (as is standard I believe) for both cornering lights AND foglights? (the seat owner didn't know the car had them until a local cop told him his 'foglight' was working strangely) id imagine on some cars, running 2 bulbs is also challenging from a space point of view (and probably explains to a degree why I thought cornering lights were a pointless gimmick)
Two different beam pattern reflector hemispheres inside the same housing. The outer lens is just a clear cover nowadays.
 
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davemercedes

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You have front and rear hands? :p

The rear hands help when you to paws for a while!
OK... sorry... :oops: my coat's on the hanger...
 

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