How to choose a led kit?

 

If you want to change the lighting of your car, you will surely have wondered what to look for and how to choose among the many LED kits on the market.

You will also have lost yourself in a myriad of information that is difficult to understand, so much so that choosing the bulbs for your car has proved to be a really tiring undertaking. In order to understand how to choose the led kit suited for your car, you need to have some information.
 

We will explain step by step what you need to give your car headlights more power, more visibility and a brighter color.

1 - Identify what type of headlights fit your car: parabolic or lenticular

While on the parabolic headlights most bulbs are fine, on the lenticular ones need to be more careful. The lamps must have specific features and must concentrate a very large quantity of light in a single point to reflect it on the road.

The parabolic headlights direct the light onto the road, reflecting it from the parabolic structure of the headlight, consisting of a mirror-like reflective surface. This first type illuminate all the directions, dispersing the light, so the beam is brighter and more extended.

In lenticular headlights, the light beam passes through a lens that regulates its shape and blocks reflections. Due to this extra surface, it can be a little less bright. On the other hand, the light beam is more concentrated, in particular in front of the car where it ends with a sharper and more defined cut.

2 - Identify the type of your stock bulbs

In order to obtain this information, you can simply consult the user manual (ATTENTION: not the vehicle registration document) of the car or by removing the standard halogen bulb which usually has the connection code engraved on it.

Same technique to  identify  the interior light bulbs.

3 - Parameters to consider when choosing: lumen, Kelvin and Watt

In order to buy LED lamps, you must take into account and know the set of features that make up a light bulb and not just some of these.

- Lumens: measure actual brightness in all directions.

- Color: the color tone depends on the Kelvin degrees. Above 4300 Kelvin the light will appear white, from 6000 onwards instead the light will start to turn to shades of blue / purple

- Watt: they indicate the power and refer to the consumption (much lower in the LEDs than in halogen and xenon lamps)

4 - How many real lumens does an LED bulb deliver?

You will surely have found kits that start from 2.000/5.000 Lumen but also from 30.000/40.000 Lumen.

In the second case it is evident that the measurement of these numbers is distorted.

If we consider that a Stadium spotlight delivers about 40.000 Lumens and the measurement of Lumens is difficult and rather vague (the Lumen measurement instrument - luxmeter - can give very variable results even if it is only a few centimeters away from the bulb), how can a car bulb approach this power?

We reveal a secret: to make the product more "attractive" the Lumens are "modified" and this can be seen by doing a quick search on the web or on more or less known platforms.

In conclusion, the lumen by themselves, don’t mean much, as we have seen before, it is good to evaluate the LED kit in all the parameters associated to a correct installation.

5 - What to do if the car reports "lights anomaly"

If the car is equipped with a light malfunction detection system (canbus), a warning light may come on to indicate this failure.

In reality, all the lights are fully functional but the control unit of the car expects a passage of current at a specific power, namely that of the stock bulb. This happens because the LED lights have a lower absorption, consequently the control unit is unable to detect them.

In these cases it is sufficient to intervene with a simple resistor, that is connected between the bulb and its connector, which will vary the absorption of the LED, bringing it to the level envisaged by the circuit.

6 - What to do if the lights flicker?

Another problem that you might run into with LED bulbs is that of flickering lights. In this case, in order to eliminate it, you need to get a canceller or decoder. This item works as a voltage stabilizer thus eliminating the unwanted flicker.

*** ATTENTION PLEASE ***
After of installation is finished it is very important to adjust the light beam !!!
How? Before starting the installation, just take a reference on the wall by measuring the height of the light beam of the original halogen bulbs, and after installing the new kit adjust the light beam to the same height, through the electronic parabola or with the adjustment headlight manual.

 

Identifying the right bulbs for the car is therefore an operation that requires a lot of attention, since during journeys - especially at night - they must guarantee reliability and functionality. Choosing the right lights means guaranteeing our safety and that of other drivers while we are driving.