Looking for a cheap nLED headlight?

[Incubus]

For $5.09 and free shipping. You must already have an H4 reflector.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...OC:MOTORS:1123

Patrick

[cywelchjr]

Hey, for that price with free shipping it's worth a try. If it doesn't work I'll hang it on the wall and frame it.

If it does work, it's yet another way to reduce the amount of current draw on the poor electrical system.

[Incubus]

We must have some kind of telepathic connection, Cy....

$5 for an LED headlight bulb? I figure this is a bet I can afford to lose.

Patrick

[cywelchjr]

Of course this will mean finally bypassing the RLU unit on my bike, something I have been resisting doing since there has been nothing wrong with it so far. But I'm pretty sure it won't like this bulb. But since the elegant way is to make a jumper to plug into the plug, that's the way I'll go so it's easily reversible.

[natemoen]

Well I bought one, we shall see what happens. If this works I need to find a h7 led bulb. My wifes car goes through them like candy!.

[Eveready1100]

Hmmmm...............
Read the title, jumped on the link, read their blurb, saw that the sale was finishing soon so I bought one. Gotta try this!
Had a bit of a browse this evening and found some disturbing info about these lights. They only draw about 5 watts of power. Great! Huge power savings there. Then I read that they put out around 460 lumens of light output. That's the worrying bit right there. A standard 55 watt halogen puts out around 1550 lumens of output, so there may be some dim days ahead.
Maybe the framing idea is a good one. Could be used as emergency lighting in a blackout.

Worst part is that I looked around the sellers site after my purchase and picked up a pair of H3's for my driving lights as well. I suppose I could use them on my tractor at a pinch.

[natemoen]

From what I have read in the past about led lights is that you cannot compare lumens between led and cfl/incandescent bulbs because the light is different. What that mean I don't know but that is what I have read. Like you said though, if it doesn't work well for everyday use it would be a good backup/emergency bulb to carry around.

[Eveready1100]

It was worth a shot at that price.

[cywelchjr]

That's what I've heard, that LED's don't compare directly as far as lumens because the light is directional where other light types are omnidirectional. So a halogen bulb putting out 1550 lumens is putting that out in all directions, where an LED putting out say 550 as said is putting it's output all in one direction with none of it wasted by throwing it off it a direction that must be masked off to prevent backscatter. So as far as USEABLE light, it either may be much closer than it sounds if not pretty much the same amount of useable light. The true test will be how much it lights up the road.

[fredintoon]

That's what I've heard, that LED's don't compare directly as far as lumens because the light is directional where other light types are omnidirectional. So a halogen bulb putting out 1550 lumens is putting that out in all directions, where an LED putting out say 550 as said is putting it's output all in one direction with none of it wasted by throwing it off it a direction that must be masked off to prevent backscatter. So as far as USEABLE light, it either may be much closer than it sounds if not pretty much the same amount of useable light. The true test will be how much it lights up the road.

Hi Cy,
OK, the light from an incandescent bulb comes out in all directions then bounces off the reflector to point down the road.
OTOH, the light from the LED array bulb shown in that e-bay ad. mostly comes out sideways then bounces off the reflector to point down the road.
As you say, the true test will be how much it lights up the road.

[soccer4m]

Let us know how it works!!!

I am curious how these LED headlight bulbs work once on the bike,,,,,SO PLEASE let us know whoever gets one, it could be real nice saving lots of wattage if they work even close to the regular bulbs. Thanks,,,Mike in Sun Diego

[Incubus]

Tell y'all what I'll do. My XS takes an H4 and one of my Honda CB750s also uses an H4. When this bulb arrives I will put them side by side to see which is brighter. OK, I'll be really fair and do it in the dark. I'll post a picture.

Just for fun, maybe I'll put the light in the Honda and put it between my two XSes.

Free shipping from Hong Kong to me, however, indicates a very slow boat from China. So it may be two or three weeks before I can do this.

Patrick

[yamtom]

hold your applause people, long but necessary info

Hi All,

Not to wizz on the parade here, but in the past two months, Ive been doing a bit of investigation into the cheapo leds coming from HK. I have bought three sets of LEDs from different hk vendors on ebay. NONE of them worked, I bought the 1157 replacements, three different sets, from three different sellers, and none of them were right. All of them worked just to flash just once if that, on installation, but none of them stayed on at all, when used as a tail light, I reinstalled my regular 1157 s in each case, and they worked just fine as they were before I tried the LEDs.

I also bought a cheap ambulance flashing unit, just to see if that was the same, only one side of the flasher works. About a year ago, I bought a cheapo bicycle LED lite set, and thats failed also, after just a trial check and use. It looks to me, like, they either dont know how to build LEDS yet, or that they are selling their already known scrap on ebay, for absurdly low prices betting that buyers wont neg them due to the trivial amount of money at risk with the very low price.

Doing so, after all, might mean the difference between bankruptcy and making it thru a bad year intact. It would not be the first time stuff came thru HK that was innapropriately made, think of lead painted toys and baby milk that had poison in it.
I did neg them, once, since I am quite sure that they are just selling known scrap at very low prices, betting that ebayers wont demand justice for such a trivial sum of money.

They were real quick to point out that if I send it back, they will refund my money, hahaha. It costs them 21 cents to send this junk from HK to here, but I betcha our USPS wants more to send it back that I paid for it, that is the reason that I left the neg in place and ignored them. I still have to neg them on the two other purchases, I shall see what happens there. Later, they offered to just gimmee my money back if I changed the feedback, not so fast chixxnks, I dont need the three bux as much as they need the neg is what I figured.
To further add to info, I did buy a more expensive LED ambulance flasher set, and since I havnt truly installed it yet, I dont know, but at this point it is still working when tested after being kept in a box for a year. It was so lightly built, that I cant imagine it lasting under any sort of vibration at all. Good luck you all who bought these low priced HK leds, but,,, dont forget to give these things a month of use first before you leave feedback for the seller and neg them when these things fail, since they are almost certainly selling known scrap at low prices just to get rid of it.

My understanding of ebay rules is now that, the SELLER can no longer give NEGATIVE feedback as long as the buyer has paid for the item. I believe that this no negs for buyers came in at the same time as ebay started allowing feedback to be changed by buyers after the initial feedback was left.

As long as they get good feedback, what is gonna stop them from selling us their mistakes..

[Prothec]

Every once in a while I check superbrightleds.com, which is the site where the LEDs were ordered for the LED mods in the Tech Tips to see if they have headlight bulbs.

I figure if they ever show up on that site they will probably be good quality. I haven't done any LED mods on my bikes, but I have spent a lot of time looking up LEDs and have been all over that site they seem to know what they're doing.

[soccer4m]

Hold on and wait for the results

SOO,,I think if we can just hold on for a couple of weeks until the bulbs come in Nathan or Incubus can give us the actual test results on their output. Me, I am really hoping they are even close to a regular h4,,,if so,,,,,lots of wattage is freed up, more than any other mod.......Mike in SUn DIego