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MG MGA - LED H4 headlamp bulbs

Has anyone fitted these bulbs, I am looking for feedback...




dominic clancy

Dominic,
I have tried these in a test setting, not these particular ones, but at least 1/2 dozen of similar design. The result is, they may be bright as advertised, however they aren't bright where you need them to be.

The original reflectors are designed for a coil emitting in light in 360deg. You can see they have 2 LED chips emitting in one direction. LEDs such as this do emit at 120 deg. so, they use about 1/3 of your reflector. That creates all that light in 1/3 of the normal field of view. So instead of seeing from one side of the road to the other, you might have a really bright spot in front of you and no side to side light. That bright spot will also blind on coming drivers.

Also not recommended, but not as bad are some of the HID retrofit kits. They produce alot of light in the right places, if the kit is good.

They probably won't be able to be installed on some vehicles... see that heat sink on back? It won't fit into the bucket on a T series car.

The law pertaining to headlights in Europe is ECE Regulation 37, legal lights will have an (E) marked on them, in the states it's DOT.

I am an automotive lighting engineer and to produce a compliant (legal) LED retrofit light this would be the holy grail. They don't exist at the moment.

Blair
Blair Weiss

I have not used LED front lights on my car but have experienced them on other people's cars.
They are inefficient in lighting up the road ahead of you but blind the oncoming drivers.
Also you are blinded by cars close behind you, requiring you to move the rear vision mirror.
The sooner they are banned the better for everybody.

Mick
M F Anderson

Hi Dominic, They don't sound too good those LED's. My "A" has always had H4 headlight bulbs since I've had it. They were never that good but you may be interested to know I have recently fitted the Osram Night Breaker Plus H4 bulbs. Can't put any figures on it but they are a lot brighter than the original tungsten filament lights.
Peter
PeteT

I second what Peter says. I too have the Osram Night Breaker Plus H4 bulbs fitted and they are excellent. The headlights on my MGA light the road much better than the headlights on my 1999 Jordan Honda Civic do! I am particularly impressed with the way the dip-beam lights the road; the old sealed beam units are like candles in comparison!
I don't know if it is my elderly eyes, but some of these modern headlights are diabolical. They seem to dazzle and flash different colours in a way I find most distracting, and yes, get one right behind you and they are a real pain. I am surprised that they are legal. I'm sticking with good old 'analogue' bulbs!
Lindsay Sampford

Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions. I will have a think, try some alternatives and report back.
dominic clancy

OK, now I have some results to report

The led bulbs had been ordered before I received the feedback from Blair, as generally if there's no feedback after a couple of days, nothing is going to come.

They were ordered here, http://www.dynamoregulatorconversions.com/led-headlamp-bulbs-shop.php
although they can be found at a lower price on eBay.

So having received them, I checked them and found a manufacturing defect on one. I requested and received a replacement for the defective part (the bulb shroud) Today, having my car back, I had a couple of small jobs to do, so took the time to install them and to switch to the LED front indicators using a flasher from the same store as above.

The results.

1. I had to remove the shroud from the bulb, as the H4 reflector units already have a built in shroud! The kit was easy to install, basically just plugging right into the headlamp pigtail) and fits into the standard Lucas headlight bucket with no problem whatsoever. I am assured by the supplier that there is no problem with overheating in an enclosed bucket (I have all the seals in place around the reflector). It should therefore also fit into a T-Series bucket. They have four LEDs and emit both sides of the shaft, so pretty much 360 degree spread of light once the reflector comes into play. No shadows or dark spots are visible.

2. Having made a comparison between the two sides of the car with the new bulb one side and the old H4 halogen on the other, the beam pattern is the same (dictated by the reflector and lens), and the LED is a LOT brighter. I suspect that having a high quality (Bosch) reflector and lens is critical to address Blair's comments. I will have to try the beams in an underground car park to see what scatter and pattern they have in the dark, but in the workshop all looks superficially OK.

3. The white/amber LED bulb from the same store, BAY15D NEG - CE1A, are rated with an unqualified "useless". They sit too deep in the lamp fitting, and only the front board and LEDs are visible. I will try and return these. So I went back to the cheap ones I bought on eBay, item 400745059034, which are 1/6th the price, and although a very close fit in the socket, do fit without any modification. The same problem I had before with the "fluttering" flash persisted. This was in spite of having no problems before with the LED rear lights from http://bmcautos.com, which I had already fitted some years ago complete with an LED flasher from the same source. It worked fine with just rear LEDs, but not with the extra LREDs up front.

4. I fitted the LED Compatible Flasher Unit12v 3 terminal - DD2A, which I also bought from dynamoregulatorconversions.com, and this immediately solved the problem of the fluttering. I now have a solid flashing cycle, and bright LED lighting all round. It seems that all LED compatible flashers are not the same. I will go and take a photo and post tomorrow. There is however no audible indication that the flasher is in operation (I have also modified the relay box using Barney's solid state relay mod), so I will have to install some form of buzzer.

Am I happy with the results? I will have to try a night drive to be sure, but the first indications are promising.

I did also buy a cheap HID kit last year to see how that would function, but the wiring harness is a lot more complicated, and would have required a lot of work to both the harness and the car to fit and still look original - and one bulb kept going out on the testing setup I erected on the workbench, so it went into the trash.

Hope this is useful to those enquiring about LED flashers as well as the headlights.
dominic clancy

here are the two different amber/white LED bulbs, useless one on the left at £10 plus shipping, one on the right much better at £1.60 with free shipping




dominic clancy

And here's a picture of the LED H4 without its mounting collar and shroud. The mounting collar fits into the reflector, the bulb then slots in and s fixed with the bayonet fixing visible in the black plastic collar. This is the whole assembly that all mounts into the headlamp bucket.

It is resting on a plastic back with two hood blocks for a midget, just to keep it at an angle that the four LEDs are visible


dominic clancy

Excellent report Dominic!

Good to hear that the LED headlight bulbs potentially work ok, I am very keen to hear the final verdict. It would be interesting to hear also from anyone, who has not been satisfied, what light units were used, as well as the LED/supplier used.

I put new reflectors on some BPF lenses that had halogen bulbs, although I know halogen bulbs can be fitted directly in BPF light units. The result is excellent, but I would prefer LED to reduce current through the switch as I haven't used a relay.

I also heard that the optical qualities of the reproduction Lucas lenses was poor and in particular the P700 was not fit for use.
Neil MG

Dominic, is the"fluttering" you're talking about the same as the "strobing" of LED tail lights? Here in the states, I find that many cars with LED tail lights are as bad as LED Christmas lights when is comes to flicker, like a strobe light. Being behind such a car, as you move your eyes around the road, you're treated to trails of red dots as the LEDs blink on and off at a rapid rate. It drives me nuts, and would be completely intolerable with headlights.
David Breneman

No, the fluttering was only on the direction indicator, more of. Twin flash in the duty cycle, which reduced the effective brightness of the bulb because it was only lighting up briefly. It was was cured by replacing the 3 pin flasher unit.
dominic clancy

Dominic,

Is the heat output of the LED headlights much less than the others you have used?

Do you know the equivalent output in watts?

Thanks,
Mark
M Wellard

Hi David - It's not just me then - the residual image of LED tail lights is very distracting at night - what exactly is causing it - is it a strobing effect - do the LEDs switch rapidly?
Cam Cunningham

Cam and David, that's reassuring to know. I thought that trail of little red dots when I turned my head whilst looking in the direction of tail lights was something to do with my eyes, or worse still, some kind of brain malfunction!
Lindsay Sampford

Mark

You can find all details on the link I provide. I hadn't compared heat output but am assured by the supplier that they are ok in the buckets. He still hasn't answered my request to return the useless bulbs, so I will try and find an alternative source to recommend, because I don't recommend him.
dominic clancy

Cam
The LEDs do not strobe, they are constantly lit. The effect that you see is because some auto manufacturers control the brightness of the LED bulbs by strobing them at 200 Hz. If you move your head, you get the residual strobe images on your retina (in the same way it stays when you look at a bright light like a welding arc) and in your peripheral vision you get a trail effect because of the strobing. If the frequency its high enough, your eyes can no longer resolve them, and you just see the averaged intensity without any strobing - this was the principle effectively used in TV cathode ray tubes, which scanned at a frequency that allowed the electronics to produce the picture without any visible flickering on the screen (once the snowstorm had been overcome!)

The LEDs I am using are not being strobed (there are no control electronics to do this in any of the bulbs as far as I know, but I would have to check on the headlights to discover what is in the driver box).
dominic clancy

Dominic,
My apologies, I spend most of my time over at the TD-TF topic... Our MGA is new to us and sitting, while we collect parts for the restoration.

If you could take a photo of the headlamps on a wall at night, I would really like to see it. 20 feet back would be a good distance...

Blair
Blair Weiss

I'll probably drive it to our AGM tonight so I will see if I can take a photo
dominic clancy

I'll probably drive it to our AGM tonight so I will see if I can take a photo
dominic clancy

Yes, Dominic, but the difference with CRTs is that the persistence of the phosphors causes them to glow for a split-second after they have been scanned, and that "bridges the gap" between frames, so you don't see ghost images as your eye scans the picture. The effect from the flickering LED tail lights is extremely annoying and distracting, and with the way that the automobile industry is hyper-regulated, I'm surprised that they're allowed on the road.
David Breneman

This thread was discussed between 20/10/2014 and 21/11/2014

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