Post Facelift HID v LED

HID was stop-gap technology, IMHO.  GO with an LED setup that will provide enough light.  I don't have any specific kits to recommend, but there should be something out there now that will work well.

The new morimoto led projector setup is what I have my eye on.

Posted by: @lordtakuban

HID was stop-gap technology, IMHO.  GO with an LED setup that will provide enough light.  I don't have any specific kits to recommend, but there should be something out there now that will work well.

HID isn't a stopgap, but it's on its way out in the OEM world. HOWEVER, that's not because LED is better in every way. For a plug and play system, LED may not reach HID levels of brightness for many years because the incandescent bulb design just lends itself so poorly to LEDs. That's why real LED projectors use emitters mounted to a massive heatsink firing up into a half bowl. 

For 03+ headlights, HID is still king and by a longshot. Much better hotspot (most LEDs have none at all, few LEDs can do better than halogen in these housings), much better overall light distribution, MUCH better color and CRI, and still very reliable. Still running the same setup in my MR2 since I got 03 headlights. 

Even in the OEM world, LED still has major downsides that a lot of consumers may soon realize. This is coming from someone who has a car with factory LED everything. 

The main issue with LED's is their limited irradiance/viewing angle which creates issues for any retrofitted lamp style light which originally had an omnidirectional irradiance pattern.

If the entire light assembly is engineered for LED technology, it typically works very well and at a much reduced level of power consumption.

Add the increased reliability factor (MTBF) and LED's are the future not just in automobiles but for home and commercial use as well.

I use LED's in my cabin and the energy savings is substantial for the same lumens generated by incandescent or CFL lamps.

 LEDs still suck for quality of light.  Great for car applications but not so much for the home even though most people have switched.  I really liked those torch lamps from the 90s with the halogen  bulbs as the indirect lighting quality was nice but it ran hot and expensive. Back in my school days we use to light our cigarettes on it using a pair of sunglasses and a stool.   

@dev

It depends on how you define quality of light. 

LED's allow you to pick your color temperature which is something you can't do easily with lamp lighting unless you change lamp technologies. 

I am a fan of LED lighting when its applied correctly and selected based on your personal requirements.

Posted by: @neomr2

@dev

It depends on how you define quality of light. 

LED's allow you to pick your color temperature which is something you can't do easily with lamp lighting unless you change lamp technologies. 

I am a fan of LED lighting when its applied correctly and selected based on your personal requirements.

 I have used a variety of them since 2002 even before they were mainstream and have seen them evolve.  Sure you can pick various color temps and so forth as I have just about replaced them for all my applications  but they just suck compared to a good incandescent or halogen bulbs which I have compared.  Where they suck is their unevenness and color visibility.  It makes everything look dingy and drab.  I have also seen the difference with older modeling  lights that use halogen bulbs and the latests ones that use LEDs and there is a big difference.  Not a fan for any kind of reproduction work either as I ditched  my LED panel lights and went back to florescent or flash.  I can see LEDs improving but not just yet.  The other thing I noticed is they don't live up to their claim of longevity as I had to replace them well before their time. 

@dev

Interesting, I worked for GE Lighting for a few years after I retired from the military and my team designed CFL and HID ballasts as well as LED power supplies/drivers and my testing between the various product types showed quite different results...

Posted by: @neomr2

@dev

Interesting, I worked for GE Lighting for a few years after I retired from the military and my team designed CFL and HID ballasts as well as LED power supplies/drivers and my testing between the various showed quite different results...

  I just checked to see what the CRI rating of some new LED bulbs that was bought this year.  Apparently the bulbs have has a CRI of 90 which is considered very good but I also have incandescent bulbs that are higher from my understanding.  The bases of my testing is from 2015.  It is possible that they have improved quiet a bit for what you can buy in home depot and they now sell for special applications LED bulbs that have a CRI of 95 which is excellent.  My bases of comparison is cheap Chinese LED panels when they were all the rage for videographers but I never found them too be good.  The modeling lamps on my new  mono light are LED and not very good compared to the high quality halogens or incandescent bulbs from what I replaced them with.   

Modern LEDs are quite good in the home. Indistinguishable from incandescent, even if you're sensitive to low CRI light. The Philips LEDs in my Lexus gave me a headache, but even the (nicer) Chinese WiFi LEDs in my home are great. 

I remember going in to the BestBuy near me (closed 2018). The lighting was LED and I felt as though I was looking through blue heat waves. That to me is a function of color rendering. LED is covering more spectrum in a single diode now. Less insidious.

Going back to the 03 ...the SV4 and GTR have decent hot spots, lumen/lux and appear to have consistent and full coverage of the field of view.  Related to CRI that is something I am not sure how to apply to driving. There is a subjective interpretation and also that different spectrum while same lumen/lux illuminate a multidimensional object differently and therefore that object would appear less distinct if the spectrum of light is confined. But while I can imagine this having some measure, I don’t know its relevance. There is a lot in this paragraph, I hope it reads well. I have not thought this through and have not researched it much more than hassling Halo when I come back around to the topic of my imperfect headlights. Any video that discusses any of this that you know of? Luckily I’m in no rush to switch out my HID (although I’m running one low end ballast).

03 housings are weird. Quality bulbs with strong hotspots like the XenonDepot XtremeLED Pro have no hotspot in these headlights. Unsure why.