Should you replace halogens with LEDs?

LED bulbs provide a fairly intense level of light without putting too much stress on the vehicle's electrical system. For the first time, this type of lamp, intended for installation in car headlights, appeared in expensive premium models a few years ago. In the first years after that, the owners of "ordinary" cars looked with envy at those equipped with LEDs and dreamed that their cars had the same LED headlights.

After a few more years, such bulbs began to appear in auto parts stores, and now everyone is free to buy a set of LEDs to equip their car headlights. A kit like this was installed on a test machine to make sure it was the best idea. The matter was not limited to their installation, but also a comparison with some types of halogen lamps. The 4 Toyota 1996Runner was chosen as the test vehicle, which features the use of H4 halogen bulbs in the short headlights, which provides an excellent opportunity for testing.

It is impossible to question the high intensity of this type of light bulb. However, this is not the most important factor for automotive lighting. A much more important parameter is the range of the directional light beam. This is a reason to compare which bulbs are better at illuminating the road. LEDs may not emit as bright a beam of light as standard ones.

Halogen lamps have almost the same principle of operation as conventional incandescent lamps. The only difference is the improvement of technology. A glass flask contains a gas of one of two halogens - bromine or iodine. This allows you to increase the heating temperature of the spiral, as well as its service life. The result is a significant increase in the light output of this type of light bulb.

To increase the power of LED lamps, manufacturers installed a parabolic aluminum reflector in their design, which significantly increased the focus of light. From a practical point of view, LEDs have many advantages over standard halogens. First of all, this is an increased level of brightness, as well as a much longer service life. In addition, they are characterized by a lower level of electricity consumption.

Despite the fact that LED lamps have a significant number of disadvantages, they are much better than standard halogen lamps. However, they will not become a full-fledged replacement for halogens due to the short beam of light and its insignificant scattering.