Installed cougar led headlights from Amazon.. Blacked out the Ford logos with plasti dip.. Will likely do vinyl instead. 1 week of ownership.. Anyone else do LED and feel it's less light output than the stock halogen? Certainly looks better though
https://photos.app.goo.gl/BhGc8CEaq2UkO6AC3
As someone who has gone through probably 5 different sets of LED headlight bulbs, it's very much a gambling game finding ones that work well, and in all honesty, I find the light output questionable on all of them (and I tend to agree with someone's comment in the headlight thread that in regards to the bulbs currently available for retrofitting; "it's all cheap Chinese crap").
Lumen ratings can mean absolutely nothing, nor wattage ratings. I've tried ones with single sides, double sides, multiple sides (4 or 5 I think), special chip layouts, you name it.
I do currently use some (with anti flicker devices as I had flicker issues) but I'm not loving them enough to say "run and buy them". Until winter really kicks and I'm driving in darkness most of the time, then I'll be able to say if they're good enough or not.
If you look at the LED projector on modern cars that use them, you'll notice they look quite different than the halogen ones (usually many small ones in clusters, and they are all slightly differently angled).
Here's an article explaining that LED projectors are usually multiples rather than a single. There's a few good articles that go over the functional aspects of a halogen projectors on the net, and many talking about different types of lights (HID vs LED vs Halogen) in general (
here's a good one describing them). However, the best article on LED in Halogens I've found must be
this one as they not only test bulbs, but talk about how the light is reflected. I can also recommend
this 3-year old answer on Reddit, as it sums things up well.
What it comes down to is that the halogen projector is not really built for LED-style headlight bulbs, no matter how much those bulbs currently try to mimic halogen bulbs in how they emit light. In essence, if you want "great LED headlights" you would have to
retrofit the projector to LED-intended projector(s). Neither cheap nor easy. I'm not sure if anyone has tried it on here. There was a post with a picture of a Russian-based Explorer that had something done, but with no info on how or cost.
If I had the money I would happily buy 2 extra Explorer headlight housings and some good LED headlights from another car and try to move stuff over. But I'm not that rich
. In any case, there's a lot of threads on here in regards to LED headlights and such in the automotive lighting section.
