Why LED, Laser, & HID/Xenon headlights suck.

"The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock" (jukesjukesjukes) 12/27/2016 at 20:04 • Filed to: Hot Take, So hot it burn you, Burn baby burn.

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They suck, shoot them, let them burn. This is why halogen headlights are the king of headlights.

With more automakers no longer offering halogen headlights, I’m sad. Sure from a technology stand point they’re fossils. I like them over other options for some reasons. They emit some heat, and keep the headlight lense from freezing in cold weather.

Ex: The outer one is low beam, in heavy snow it never froze up. The inner one is hi beam, in heavy snow it accumulate on the lense since it was not on.

They also have the yellow tint to them. As the French found out yellow penetrates fog much better, then white. Think of a mirror, when you look in one you see your self. Same for white lights, when the white light hits the fog it want to bounce back. You can argue how its better technology, but you can’t argue with physics.

Design wise I think they are better, most headlights now look so tacky with maze of LED strips. This is the reason why I prefer the 2011-2014 Juke, the 2015+ Juke.

The pre-facelift one, looks great. Also had halogen lights.

The facelift one, that LED boomerang looks so unnecessary. It also has awful projectors.

Some cars that come with halogens, also take any non-halogen light terribly unless properly converted. The ones that are not converted properly, don’t throw the light as effectively. It scatters all over the road, blinding other drivers.

If automaker makes car that offerers non-halogen, & halogen lights, and I want higher trim that only have non-halogens, I will swap in the halogen lights.

Please post halogen headlights.

Captain of the Enterprise > The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock 12/27/2016 at 20:17

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They also don’t blind incoming traffic and aren’t as annoying when they are behind you

gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee > The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock 12/27/2016 at 20:18

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A halogen. Also featuring light by nuclear fusion.

Cash Rewards > The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock 12/27/2016 at 20:28

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The halogens on my 2005 Cooper s were the best headlights I ever had on a car

AestheticsInMotion > The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock 12/27/2016 at 21:08

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I like the newer Juke lights BECAUSE of the boomerang. So much 370z!

Headlights in general irritate me though. Such a pain when you’re trying to upgrade to something that actually illuminates better than a flickering maglight when you have to pick between LED/Hid/Xenon etc. And worry about compatibility, alignment, power draw, reflectors..... Gaaaaah

The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock > AestheticsInMotion 12/27/2016 at 21:12

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I don’t mind the boomerang desgin on the 370z, I don’t like it on the Juke.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock 12/27/2016 at 21:22

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The standard headlights on my Mazda5 are some of the best I’ve ever experienced on any car I’ve driven. Some of my fancy German machinery may have had flashy ellipsoid lights and other fancy things that I can’t remember but they don’t hold a candle to these stock Mazda units...

190octane > The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock 12/27/2016 at 21:23

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Sorry but halogen sucks. You can see so much better with led/projector/hid/bi-xenon lights and they look a lot cleaner than dingy ass yellow halogen lights. Also, yellow might be better with fog, but the solution to that is to have yellow fog lights.

The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock > 190octane 12/27/2016 at 21:32

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It depends on the shape of the housing for the halogen bulb on their effectiveness. Most projectors look like freak pooping their eye balls out of the eye socket.

190octane > The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock 12/27/2016 at 21:50

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Sorry but I’ve never seen a stock halogen set up that was better than a stock projector set up.

Led drl FTW!

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock 12/28/2016 at 00:51

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These are, by far, the best halogen headlights I have ever experienced. They are as good as projectors, possibly better. The only thing that could make them better would be to make them adaptive... They’re better than the fixed projectors on my wife’s 8-year-newer Mazda, too.

Steinjolt > The Crazy Kanuck; RIP Oppositelock 08/07/2017 at 18:42

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Large Response, read with a coffee cup in hand:
Halogen lights in halogen housing, Xenon lights in Xenon Projectors, Led lights in Led Projector and Laser lights in Amplifier projectors; this is how they work the best, now lets talk about temperature, sitting from 2500 kelvin to 3500 Kelvin and putting out enough lumens, the lights under this temperature color, are the design that match the human eye nature the best possible way, the human eye is adapted to see clearly under the sunlight, 3000 kelvin, therefore we have the most advantage at night time and foul weather conditions. Halogen lights are built to output an incandecent light between 2500 and 3500 kelvin, depending on the watts run trough the filament. The crystal can be tinted to appear more yellow or more blue, like the yellow Hella xtreme bulbs or the purewhite nightvision sylvannia bulbs.

Xenon lights are a completely different animal, they are not incandecent, they run a high intensity discharge converted by a ballast, trough a gas charged container, exciting the molecules and producing light as result. The “bulb” can be energy efficient, and produces a superior ammount of lumens, BUT, in order to take advantage of this, the light must be filtered and redirected trough a lens that point it in the right direction, we call it projector. The Xenon lights have a different lightweaves pattern and penetrate the weather in a different way. The manufacturers use the 3500k to 4500k temperature to give it a Warm/cold light color because it fits the wave lenghts the human eye is adapted to use, starting at 3500k at 20 years old age average, and as the human eye ages turning into a blue adaptive color shade, it adapts to 4500k (more blue). The exotic xenon bulb colors (cheap kits) come in a temperature range from 2000k to 25,000k, from orange to pure purple/pink patterns, which are meant for display and show purposes only, since they are road illegal for a simple reason: They are useless to the human eye.

Led lightning, the current system most manufacturers are using, its meant for city driving, where there are lightposts, where there are thousands of cars lighting the road at night, and where basically they function as pilots, like starboard lights, and provide enough illumination for city driving, but oem manufacturers are not stupid, and keep an Ace under their sleeves, LED equipped vehicles always come with HALOGEN FOGLIGHTS from factory! For the simple reason that most vehicles that use the highways and interstate roads are driven by humans with eyes that work at their best in the 3500k to 4500k range! This includes Xenon and LED equipped cars all over the world, all of them have either Xenon HID, or LED lightning systems with Halogen Fog lights.
Laser lightning: Experimental, Bmw is doing its best to apply it to daily driving, for the most simple of reasons, it serves as a sensor for the onboard computer systems, and enact as guidelines for automated driving and assists like the i8 currently uses. They are not meant for human eyes, they are meant to be computer’s eyes. Still bmw managed to adapt the Laser output beam weave lenght to match 5000k temperature, running at a very efficient 30% energy loss trough heat, compared to the almost 60% of a halogen bulb, Laser lightning also projects a beam pattern trough its versatile lenses, that ensures optimum illumination, and is currently the only car using Laser lightning that is not equipped with halogen fog lights from factory, unlike the i3 that is equipped with them. Bmw stated that the i8 is a car that due to its nature in exotic segment, is usually restricted to car shows, expos, and driving short distances with the capability of going from state to state in a green and efficient way.

Halogen lighting has two main advantages over XHID, LED and LASER:
1.- It’s cheap to produce and to replace.
2.- Matches the human eye adaptive nature to sunlight the best.

Halogen lightning has disadvantages, but so the other lightning types do.
Halogen lightning has a low energy efficiency, produces high heat.
XHID lightning demands an oem quality setup to work properly

LED lightning damages the human retina over time due to its diode pulse way to flow the energy trough it, producing a frequency that damages the cilliary body inside the ocular globe, due to forcing the iris muscles with microdischarges that doesnt allow it to contract with the fast lightning changes (thats why when you film any led with a camera, it appears as blinking instead of steady as we see it, because the human brain makes up for the lightning changes faster than our eye proccesses it, hence it damages the eye over time and its why most stop lights are still halogen bulbs surrounded by a low light powered by a led, also the reason why LED independent pixel televisions were banned around the world, leaving fluorescent lit screens as the only ones), This also damages the foton receivers inside the eye, burning them and blinding the human eye over time.

An article in a recent issue of the Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology detailed a study in which the effects of LED light on human retinal cells were examined and concluded that LEDs harm human eyes. The authors of this article came to this conclusion based on an experiment that exposed human retinal cells to 5 mW per cm2 of light from an LED for 12 hr caused blindness over time, Translating this to a daily life, being stuck in traffic behind a car with LED stop lights will harm your eyes and cause blindness faster than any other kind of lightning system. Resuming: LED lightning is dangerous and its being prohibited around the globe as a main illumination system in several countries already.

LASER Lightning: Again, it’s an experimental system, still under development, expensive to produce, requires high maintenance, and LASERS are well known for causing immediate blindness on any kind of eye, or light reception device like any modern camera.
L.A.S.E.R.: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, a device that generates an intense beam of coherent monochromatic light (or other electromagnetic radiation) by stimulated emission of photons from excited atoms or molecules. Lasers are used in drilling and cutting, alignment and guidance, and in surgery; the optical properties are exploited in holography, reading bar codes, and in recording and playing compact discs.

Once stablished all the bases to my statement I conclude:
Halogen Lights are the least energy efficient lightning system, because they lose most of the energy running trough it by producing heat, producing a warm light color that the human eye has evolutioned to adapt to, making them the most optimal illumination device for human use, because it allows us to see the best being the lightning system closest to the one we adapted, the Sun. Therefore the Halogen lights are the best for the human eye needs, while being the most economic and cost effective solution.
Xenon HID Lightning is a good and acceptable Solution, only when being a factory system or retrofitted with OEM quality & safety standards.
LED Lightning is harmful and is being discarded around the globe.
LASER its an experiment to be concluded.
Thank you for reading :)