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Not concern about the housing, more about the LED component like the LED itself and the driver circuit. Without air circulation how can the heat sink and fan properly dissipate heat? These LED run hot and I don't know how they'll handle being on for a long period of time if all the heat are trap inside a housing.
Not concern about the housing, more about the LED component like the LED itself and the driver circuit. Without air circulation how can the heat sink and fan properly dissipate heat? These LED run hot and I don't know how they'll handle being on for a long period of time if all the heat are trap inside a housing.
This is correct. LEDs generate a high heat temp and that heat needs to be dissipated, hence the heat sinks and fans built into most of these systems, like what the OP used. I am pretty sure the "fan" portion of the OP's units stick out the back of the housing, so they will be able to keep cool.
If you use the ones I posted from theretrofitsource.com (or the Pettit units), then the cooling fans will be left open on the backside of the system so they will keep cool. I wonder though it the fans will be exposed to the elements and if that would become an issue particularly with rain. Probably not?
I don't think the fan sticks out, these are Bi-LED projector retrofit into the clear lens housing, I believe the fan is inside the housing.
Trapping the heat is one concern, if we open up the housing for air flow then the fan will be expose to dust, these are similar fan we see inside a PC, even inside a PC enclosure they get dusty and can kill the fan and overheat the chip.
I see what you are saying. Here is a pic of the unit:
If the OP has the fan inside of the housing - and based on the threaded back end, that is likely - then you are correct to be concerned about heat being trapped inside of the housing. That is not ideal.
You need the cooling fan to be mounted outside of the housing. Then, all is good but that would take cutting of the housing. By contrast, the Pettit units have the fans mounted to the outside and are a better solution - if the lighting is good:
That's why I would consider using the units from theretrofitsource.com provided there is enough clearance which I think there is:
With these, the fan is exposed out of the back, assuming the beam pattern is good, which it says it is.
Not concern about the housing, more about the LED component like the LED itself and the driver circuit. Without air circulation how can the heat sink and fan properly dissipate heat? These LED run hot and I don't know how they'll handle being on for a long period of time if all the heat are trap inside a housing.
Yeah i understand you're worried about the chip. You get conductive heat xfer from the chip to sink. Then convective xfer from sink to air and then finally the housing dissipates the heat by convection.
My point is the housing is part of the heat transfer system and it was able to dissipate the heat from a 60w filament bulb.
The chips run hot locally, yes...but it is lower wattage than a filament bulb. It's also lower temperature than a filament bulb too. The housing was able to dissipate 60w of energy from a hotter bulb just fine without getting the acrylic lens or butyl sealant too hot. It can handle a 35w led.
Could you improve the chip temp by circulating filtered air into the housing? Maybe. Does it matter? Based on the units being sold out there the are designed to go into a sealed housings i don't think so.
very cool. I will have to dig into this for sure. I did see the Pettit versions for $400, but then did find the housings they are using on Ebay and the GTR lighting for $250. For a PNP setup, $400 isnt bad at all.
Alex/all-- for the high beam, the prior owner ripped the small cable on the actual headlight stock, so my high beams do not function it actually shuts the lights off. Wondering if I can order the same and install without the diode for High beams. In all honesty the regular beams are probably 15x brighter than the stock FD lights anyway.
Also thinking I will do this modification on my stock FD lights. Since the reflector in the background isnt being used, is there really any reason to use the new "diamond" ebay ones?
As far as the arguments to heat, I agree with Alex. LED should put out significantly less heat over our old school bulbs.
I see what you are saying. Here is a pic of the unit:
If the OP has the fan inside of the housing - and based on the threaded back end, that is likely - then you are correct to be concerned about heat being trapped inside of the housing. That is not ideal.
You need the cooling fan to be mounted outside of the housing. Then, all is good but that would take cutting of the housing. By contrast, the Pettit units have the fans mounted to the outside and are a better solution - if the lighting is good:
That's why I would consider using the units from theretrofitsource.com provided there is enough clearance which I think there is:
With these, the fan is exposed out of the back, assuming the beam pattern is good, which it says it is.
Ok. Let me ask you this... Why aren't you guys concerned about the heat from a filament bulb being "trapped" in the housing? It is hotter and puts more heat energy into the housing than an LED.
Easy test for temp is to snake thermocouple into the housing and run the lights. COB LED have an ideal operating temp around 80c or 175f. As long as the housing remains below that you should be fine. Again... even with 60w halogen bulbs the housings won't get that hot.
The pettit unit looks like it's just the sonax housing (which has the wrong beam pattern for LHD) with an LED H4 style bulb in a reflector housing. I could have done that for $150 all in 😆. You will blind oncoming traffic while getting no light on the road in front of you.
The retrofit source unit you have pictured is not an LED projector. It is a drop in H4 LED bulb just like pettit supplies with a fan on the back. You won't get the brightness or cutoff of a retrofit projector. Might even be worse off than halogen and blind oncoming drivers.
TRS also has a bi led projector for retrofit but it is too long to fit in the sonax housing.
The retrofit source is probably just rebranding units or getting units build to spec from asia and calling them something fancy like morimoto.
Being a retrofit unit their heat sinks and fans are enclosed in the sealed housing as well. They don't have an external fan or heat sink.
Either way... As stated earlier in the thread the morimoto bi LED from TRS will not fit in our sonax housings. It's too long. You have to get down to about 110mm from lens tip to mount stem.
Last edited by alexdimen; Apr 16, 2021 at 09:06 PM.
So i recently purchased a bi led projector similar to the original post. I plugged it in at night to check beam etc and it looks like it's going to be a pretty huge upgrade. What are you guys doing for housings? Everything i've seen is sold out everywhere. I found "spyder" housings, but not sonar. im sure they're all the same just branded differently. Even the spiders are out of stock everywhere though
iceman- where did you find the housings on ebay? LInk by chance? everything i saw already had a projector fitted in and was like ~$400
So i recently purchased a bi led projector similar to the original post. I plugged it in at night to check beam etc and it looks like it's going to be a pretty huge upgrade. What are you guys doing for housings? Everything i've seen is sold out everywhere. I found "spyder" housings, but not sonar. im sure they're all the same just branded differently. Even the spiders are out of stock everywhere though
iceman- where did you find the housings on ebay? LInk by chance? everything i saw already had a projector fitted in and was like ~$400
I don't have them, the OP does. I have stock headlights I was going to put them in. I found the spyder ones as well.
So i recently purchased a bi led projector similar to the original post. I plugged it in at night to check beam etc and it looks like it's going to be a pretty huge upgrade. What are you guys doing for housings? Everything i've seen is sold out everywhere. I found "spyder" housings, but not sonar. im sure they're all the same just branded differently. Even the spiders are out of stock everywhere though
iceman- where did you find the housings on ebay? LInk by chance? everything i saw already had a projector fitted in and was like ~$400
Only 112mm depth units will work and only in the spyder/sonax housings.
Originally Posted by iceman4357
I don't have them, the OP does. I have stock headlights I was going to put them in. I found the spyder ones as well.
Stock headlights aren't deep enough. Plus they have the lens built into the glass covers so your pattern would be crap.
Ok. Let me ask you this... Why aren't you guys concerned about the heat from a filament bulb being "trapped" in the housing? It is hotter and puts more heat energy into the housing than an LED.
The retrofit source is probably just rebranding units or getting units build to spec from asia and calling them something fancy like morimoto.
Being a retrofit unit their heat sinks and fans are enclosed in the sealed housing as well. They don't have an external fan or heat sink.
Either way... As stated earlier in the thread the morimoto LED from TRS will not fit in our sonax housings. It's too long.
Easy test is to snake thermocouple into the housing and run the lights. COB LED have an ideal operating temp around 80c or 175f. As long as the housing remains below that you should be fine. Again... even with 60w bulbs i don't think the housing gets that hot.
The pettit unit looks like it's just the sonax housing (which had the wrong beam pattern for LHD) with an LED H4 style bulb in a reflector housing. I could have done that for $150 all in 😆.
No concern over halogen bulb because the bulb itself is design to run at high temperature, above 250C?. Also it's not a concern of the housing getting hot, the housing can withstand high heat since it was design for halogen bulb.
The concern is the LED itself or the circuit that drives it, it's not a light bulb anymore it is a semiconductor which have operation temperature range. I don't have a spec sheet so I don't know what the range is, but when you snap a heat sink on a chip you are worry it will get hot, add a fan to it you definitely worry it will overheat, unless they are all for precaution. I'm definitely interested in these Bi-LED projector, not for my FD because I already did a HID retrofit years ago and no need to upgrade at the moment. I do need to upgrade lighting on my daily tho, and I'm considering these projector. I do occasionally travel long distance, so I just want to make sure the lights are reliable, last thing I want is they burn out in the middle of nowhere in the dark LOL.
No concern over halogen bulb because the bulb itself is design to run at high temperature, above 250C?. Also it's not a concern of the housing getting hot, the housing can withstand high heat since it was design for halogen bulb.
The concern is the LED itself or the circuit that drives it, it's not a light bulb anymore it is a semiconductor which have operation temperature range. I don't have a spec sheet so I don't know what the range is, but when you snap a heat sink on a chip you are worry it will get hot, add a fan to it you definitely worry it will overheat, unless they are all for precaution. I'm definitely interested in these Bi-LED projector, not for my FD because I already did a HID retrofit years ago and no need to upgrade at the moment. I do need to upgrade lighting on my daily tho, and I'm considering these projector. I do occasionally travel long distance, so I just want to make sure the lights are reliable, last thing I want is they burn out in the middle of nowhere in the dark LOL.
It's not about the bulb... or the housing. It's about the energy put into the housing. A halogen bulb pumps 60w into that housing. Do you really think the housing gets hotter than the max operating temp of a COB LED which is around 200F?
Now take that energy and cut it in half. That's the led bulb at 35w. That housing isn't getting hotter than it did with the halogen bulb in there with 2x the wattage.
Only 112mm depth units will work and only in the spyder/sonax housings.
Stock headlights aren't deep enough. Plus they have the lens built into the glass covers so your pattern would be crap.
Alexdimen,
any leads or insight on sourcing a
set of the housings? Everything seems
to be drop-shipped and out of stock. Months and months ago I saved them
on eBay for as cheap as $100 but now I can’t really find anything. As soon as
i can find housings I’m ordering some to
do this retrofit. I really
like these biled projectors. Thanks for
putting the thread together.
It's not about the bulb... or the housing. It's about the energy put into the housing. A halogen bulb pumps 60w into that housing. Do you really think the housing gets hotter than the max operating temp of a COB LED which is around 200F?
Now take that energy and cut it in half. That's the led bulb at 35w. That housing isn't getting hotter than it did with the halogen bulb in there with 2x the wattage.
I’m not sure why we are talking about the housing still, has nothing to do with my original question. Talking about how hot the housing get is like talking about how hot a laptop gets instead of the CPU inside, your laptop is not burning your hand does it mean your CPU is not overheating?
The LEDs are likely fine, I’m not try to knock on their product, but heat should be valid concern.
I’m not sure why we are talking about the housing still, has nothing to do with my original question. Talking about how hot the housing get is like talking about how hot a laptop gets instead of the CPU inside, your laptop is not burning your hand does it mean your CPU is not overheating?
The LEDs are likely fine, I’m not try to knock on their product, but heat should be valid concern.
Because IN THIS CASE the headlight housing is part of the heat transfer system. All the heat energy generated in the housing will pass through the housing. The housing isn't an insulator so it conducts the heat to its outside surface. As an analogy...If the bulb is your engine, the air is your coolant, and the housing is your radiator. You can measure your radiator temp at the inlet to get a good idea of the engine temp.
A laptop has direct convection to ambient air from the heat sink. A laptop is a different system so the housing temp is mostly meaningless except for user comfort.
There are plenty of examples of this in the world. Any time you have a non ventilated enclosure with electrical components dissipating heat inside it is the same thing. You rely on the housing to dissipate the heat.
Applied heat transfer is something I did as a profession for a number of years. Not trying to talk down to anyone but it's frustrating for someone who hasn't studied or applied heat transfer engineering to doubt the established heat transfer concepts I've stated here.
Last edited by alexdimen; Apr 17, 2021 at 12:54 PM.
Because IN THIS CASE the headlight housing is part of the heat transfer system. All the heat energy generated in the housing will pass through the housing. The housing isn't an insulator so it conducts the heat to its outside surface. As an analogy...If the bulb is your engine, the air is your coolant, and the housing is your radiator. You can measure your radiator temp at the inlet to get a good idea of the engine temp.
A laptop has direct convection to ambient air from the heat sink. A laptop is a different system so the housing temp is mostly meaningless except for user comfort.
There are plenty of examples of this in the world. Any time you have a non ventilated enclosure with electrical components dissipating heat inside it is the same thing. You rely on the housing to dissipate the heat.
Applied heat transfer is something I did as a profession for a number of years. Not trying to talk down to anyone but it's frustrating for someone who hasn't studied or applied heat transfer engineering to doubt the established heat transfer concepts I've stated here.
A laptop use a fan to pull air from the heat sink to the outside via a vent, this projector heatsink has a fan but no access to outside air... That's the reason why I compare the 2, I would not use that as a comparison if the projector doesn't have a fan, it would be more like an iPad in that case, which fully rely on the housing to dissipate heat.
You are right, I'm not expert at heat transfer. I never thought a headlight housing was design to dissipate heat, I thought it was more made to withstand heat as halogen bulb is made to operate at 250C, and they sit near a hot engine bay and above radiator/oil cooler etc.
As an EE I just want to make sure the semiconductor get proper cooling, since LED draw more current with increased temperature, and more current will create more heat and so on, and heat directly relate to LED life span.
So I need the LED projector kit, a 15A rectifier diode, and a standard H4 pigtails for the high beams. Silicone to re-seal the headlight housings. I have random bolts and tools. I also have a JDM car, not sure if that makes a difference for any of this?
Has anyone regretted doing this? Wish you went with a more expensive option?
