LED VS HID

julianzh

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I took this picture this morning when I was parked in front of a glass window and was able to get a good reflection of the light itself. Had to tweak the exposure abit to get it to show.


This is the Hikari Ultra LED (the current gen) . I would think this problem would be common with other brands.
IMG_0256.JPG

They specifically advertise how thin the wafer that the LEDs are mounted on is; “0.8mm Ultra Slim Design. The next gen LED has an incredible slim profile of 0.8mm,same as the filament of a halogen lamp.” But there is still an obviously visible gap and with that a huge amount of forward projecting light is just non existent. I think this is probably a pretty big contributing factor in all the downsides with LED bulbs.


If you think about it, they boast about the thickness of the wafer being equal to the thickness of the filament in a normal bulb; but even if they got the thickness to 0mm it still would not project light straight forward the way a filament based bulb would.




Honda Civic 10th gen LED VS HID {filename}
Well, the stock halogen have a circle/hole in the center if you looked lookly.
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geoken2

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Well, the stock halogen have a circle/hole in the center if you looked lookly.
Might be right, I never noticed it (where as with these LEDs it’s extremely noticeable) but possibly I’m just looking more now that I have these. What I can say is that they are so noticeable that I can even see the 2 distinct light sources when I pull up to a car and see my lights reflected in its tailgate.
 

Penut

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Might be right, I never noticed it (where as with these LEDs it’s extremely noticeable) but possibly I’m just looking more now that I have these. What I can say is that they are so noticeable that I can even see the 2 distinct light sources when I pull up to a car and see my lights reflected in its tailgate.
I noticed it too when I put in the GTR ultra 2 bulbs. When I put the stock bulbs back in, there was the same pattern though.
 

SmokeTacos

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Alright so 50 pages is a lot to go through, so can someone tl;dr me which is the better option - LED or HID? lol
 

86salmon

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Alright so 50 pages is a lot to go through, so can someone tl;dr me which is the better option - LED or HID? lol
HID retrofit > HID dropin = high end led > h9 mod > halogens > low end led

From there it's how much you want to spend
 


SmokeTacos

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HID retrofit > HID dropin = high end led > h9 mod > halogens > low end led

From there it's how much you want to spend
Ah I see, thanks for the response!

In terms of longevity and reliability, which is better - HID drop-in or high-end LED?
 

86salmon

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Ah I see, thanks for the response!

In terms of longevity and reliability, which is better - HID drop-in or high-end LED?
Like anything...
ymmv
 

SmokeTacos

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Leds are getting better fast. Within another 5 years they will blow hid away. Hell they are knocking on that door now.
In this video the lux output of a halogen bulb vs. the 35w Morimoto HID kit in a projector housing has nearly an identical output (around 480 lux). How is this even possible? Everyone in this thread who owns a Morimoto HID kit states it's much brighter than the stock halogen.

I know not all projectors are the same but damn, you wouldn't expect those kind of results.
 

geoken2

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In this video the lux output of a halogen bulb vs. the 35w Morimoto HID kit in a projector housing has nearly an identical output (around 480 lux). How is this even possible? Everyone in this thread who owns a Morimoto HID kit states it's much brighter than the stock halogen.

I know not all projectors are the same but damn, you wouldn't expect those kind of results.
If I had to guess I’d say it’s because the white colour gives the impression of it being brighter.
 

MikeMike

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Just wanted to mention again that GTR Lighting is Headlight Revolution's brand. Of course its totally possible that they are both the in-house brand of the shop doing the review and the best bulbs in the review. Just something to keep in mind when using headlight revolution as the source of comparison.

Not trying to say they are intentionally misleading, but it is possible for unintentional bias. Like if you think x and y are the most important things in a headlight (out of 10 possible things) then you will both design and test to be really good at doing x and y but maybe you pay less attention to a,b and c.
They are intentionally misleading.

In this video the lux output of a halogen bulb vs. the 35w Morimoto HID kit in a projector housing has nearly an identical output (around 480 lux). How is this even possible? Everyone in this thread who owns a Morimoto HID kit states it's much brighter than the stock halogen.

I know not all projectors are the same but damn, you wouldn't expect those kind of results.
Headlight Revolution is conducting intentionally misleading tests.

Honda Civic 10th gen LED VS HID C5i4xhq
 


Rone811

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I guess I should have used [/sarcastic ] lol

That's my trucks retrofit. D2S 5.0, Hylux 45w, Osram CBB. It's the most recent picture of a retrofit I had on my phone lol. My Civic actually has better output with the FX-R 3.0, Morimoto 55w, Morimoto 5500k.

Retrofits are only overrated for people who are too afraid to attempt one.
Do you have any install photos of the fx-r?
 

mahewd

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Recently, I read a blog with the same title. In my experience, the LED is more preferable. It is an energy efficient option for you, and you do not need to be worried about the brightness of it. But you will have to pay a lot for it because there is a big difference between the price of these two. On the other hand, the lifespan of LED is much better than the HID. You can take a look on the blog for more.
 

omgherb

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I read a post of someone who bought the morimoto LED kit and they said they were not impressed with them as they felt they were similar to other LD lights they had
I owned both Morimoto LED and Morimoto HID kit. Started with HID's in my Low Beams with LEDs in my high beams. That combo is insane. Though their were never a time I needed too use both. The output is beyond satisfying. Unfortinely my hids went bad. I had them for many years prior to owning my Civic. Was so impressed with my LED Hi-Beam's, I wanted to see if LED Low Beams bulbs would have such a wow factory. Sadly, I lost a lot of light; was not happy. Dont get me wrong, Morimoto LED kit is better than factory, but not in any way in the same playing field as hid's.
 

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ryox82

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Whatever you chose will only be as good as your housing. I had a garbage aftermarket halogen projector housing on my RSX and it gave garbage output on halogen, HID, and LED. The stock LED on the Si is WAY better than anything I have owned, including an a4 projector used in a proper retrofit I did on my old Civic.
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