What's the latest in LED replacement bulbs? - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

I have been thinking about replacing my headlight bulbs with LEDs. I have done some searching, but I imagine that the products are changing fairly rapidly and that which was good a couple of years ago is no longer the best available. So what do people recommend at the moment? I am lazy enough to want someone else who has done the research and testing tell me what to install. As well as headlights I will likely change various other bulbs as time goes on. I have changed several bulbs on my 928 and I did my own searching then and was happy with the results.

I spent a lot of time researching, and like you said, they change rapidly, so even ones that were highly rated seemed to be hard to find and crazy expensive. I took the low road and just got some cheap ones on Amazon and I'm pretty happy with them. If I get tired of them or they stop working I'll just get the HID retrofit kit and do it right.

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Do you have a link to what you used?

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Yup: "https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B09BQQNN1T" It took a bit of trial and error to get the positive/negative on the plug sorted, and it's a bit of a finagle to get the wire clip around the base (you have to fully remove the wire clip from the headlight and wrap it around the bulb, then put it back) but other than that they seem to work. I read somewhere that the ones with an inline 'ballast' (and I use that term VERY loosely) were 'better', but take that with a grain of salt.

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Thanks for the link, but it raises a new question. There are 2 bulbs at that link. one with a heat sink and the "mini" without the heat sink. Which one did you get? And this raises yet another question for me... what is with the heatsinks for LED bulbs? I thought that LEDs run at lower watts and so should produce less heat yet some of them have heat sinks which the original halogens don't seem to need.

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The heat sinks are for the electronics which are required to control current flow to the LED. Remember that the D in LED stands for diode. A diode is, for all practical purposes, an electrical check valve. Put positive voltage on the output and it will have (more or less) infinite resistance, so no current will flow. Put positive voltage on the input and it will have zero resistance - ie, it will be a short circuit.

My honest opinion? I would not say professional, but a decent opinion. None of the LED plug and play is any good. I had done enough research and testing to realise it is never going to be good. Think of it for a moment. The reflector bowl (projector or reflector - all work same) is a specially designed mirror. It uses a halogen filament as the light source. The light source is very concentrated. Look on your H7 halogen. The filament is tiny. Now, take any of the LEDs and compare them side by side. You will notice LED chip is often small as the filament, although there are some what are much bigger. Then, the biggest difference is the light visibility. It means the chips are on two sides of the metal plate. It is due to the fact the LED chips emit light at about 120 degree angle. So they put 2 of them that would cover a total of 240 degrees. Still 120 degrees are missing... What does that mean? Well, first of all - the reflector mirror will not see enough light where it is expecting it. You will have tow sides of the LED chip assembly with no light: two 60 degree-wide patches. Then the concentration of the light is not the same as in halogen. The LED chip will be different size. Plus you add some metal that sticks out in the light path... In the end the beam pattern is affected. Sometimes more, sometimes less. If you got here, look on my older testing using projector headlights which are less prone to those distortions, but still suck with LED chips. And it does not matter if you get a 50 USD eBay China kit, or 350 USD TRS, still China made, kit. This one talks about LED vs HID vs Halogen. good read, yes, self promotion, but the point is output performance. https://www.forteturbo.org/threads/hid-or-led-debate-comparison-morimoto-4300-k-hid-and-2stroke-led-from-trs.2937/ Same thing on another forum. https://www.fiat500usaforum.com/forum/fiat-500x-forums/fiat-500x-upgrades-and-diy/23764-led-or-hid-or-oem-halogen-comparison-review-9012-morimoto-led-2stroke?27223-LED-or-HID-or-OEM-halogen-Comparison-review-9012-Morimoto-LED-2Stroke= This is what you actually want, but it is a PITA to perform, unless you pay someone. I am planning of doing it, if I decide to keep Boxster for a long time. https://www.theretrofitsource.com/bi-led-morimoto-m-led-2-headlight-projectors-P-M-LED2?quantity=1

While continuing my research I found this thread that I didn't see before. http://986forum.com/forums/boxster-general-discussions/82188-zero-mod-h7-led-headlight-bulbs.html

I used the ones with the heat sink. The headlight output was pretty crappy with the standard halogen bulbs, these are somewhat brighter, and for those of you saying the beam pattern will be screwed up, the stock pattern was garbage, so these are no worse. I did find that with the LED's I bought the bulb part is able to rotate somewhat around the heat sink, so make sure that the bulb part is straight up and down when you install them. It's a bit of a wrestling match to get them in, so it's pretty easy to twist them up. As I said, I went the cheap route to start, if I need to redo it, I will go with the retrofit kit that everyone is saying you should go with. For now, for me, it's fine.

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Thanks for the in depth explanation, you make me question what I want/need. Truth is that I don't drive a lot at night and over 90% is in the city where the headlights are more for being seen than seeing. But I do like the idea of bulbs that last longer and use less current. I assume that in other applications like brake, parking and tail lights LEDs are good, that is what I took away from previous research for these types of bulbs and in comparing incandescent and LEDs side by side. Given that most people do not check their lights regularly (every car that I have bought has some burned out lights) the long lasting LEDs are an advantage (but you still have to do a walk around to check them from time to time).

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No problem. While LEDs last longer (by default) I had more LED failures in taillights than any other tungsten based bulbs. The chips burn out, or PCBs get damaged (resistors or whatever else burns out). I even had the center stop light burn the brake fuse due to failed LED. Headlights - you are limited. Halogen, maybe HID, maybe, very maybe H7 LED Night Breaker by Osram, although Porsche is not on the approved list, so be careful. It may create too much glare. In MI Police does not care, there is no annual inspection... so folks have all kinds of weird stuff. From green headlights to lights held by duct tape (aka not aimed correctly), or even missing pieces of the car. Whatever you chose, keep in mind in the end you want to see down the road. Too much foreground light will create glare what will blind you and no matter how well 200 ft distance is lit, you will not see a thing. Meaning, you want little light up front, but a lot of focused light down the road, at the cut off line. What good comes from seeing a brick on the road 20 ft in the front in fog lights while doing 60 mph? You want to see it at 200 ft distance... or further.

About a year ago I determined that due to aging equipment (my eyes mostly) the standard halogen bulbs did not provide an acceptable level of visibility, especially in the rain. I also determined that the LED technology had progressed to a point in in the last few years that might make LED headlight bulb replacements practical. I started out with a low cost set from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09BKQQNRV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I found the night time visibility WORSE than standard H7s. So I ordered these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BLJLHQQN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Visibility was a bit better but with a few days one started flickering and eventually failed altogether. So I ordered these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B096S291NR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Huge difference! Probably too bright. I adjusted the direction down considerably to avoid dazzling oncoming drivers. Much more nighttime and rain visibility.