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I was toying with the idea of changing out my high beams to either HID or LED, for increased brightness and to match the colour of my low beams (currently the 5500k Morimoto HID kit sold by AZNOptics). I decided against HID because they require an igniter and they take a few seconds to warm up and reach the ideal brightness.
So, today I finally found a kit locally so I could test fit the hardware before purchasing and the LED driver in the kit had CANBUS compatibility built in. The bulbs were almost entirely plug and play, except I had to do some variant coding to get everything working 100%. Of course I completely forgot to take pictures of the installation, however I'll say it's very similar to the installation instructions provided by AZNoptics for the HID kit - requiring me to drill a hole in the housing cap so the LED driver can sit outside the housing, as there isn't enough room inside with the size of the LED bulb/heatsink/fan combo unit. The staff at the store told me they just left their covers off when they did the installation on their cars (not w204), but I preferred to keep the covers on, I want my headlights as sealed up as possible to keep dirt and moisture from getting in over time. Right now, I've sealed up the holes I've created with some gorilla tape (it can actually take the heat surprisingly), but that's temporary until I think of a better solution. For now it works well, even in rain. I'll post some pictures of the setup tomorrow when I take some more, the ones I took turned out too blurry because my phone is old and sh**.
The variant coding was a bit trickier. When I installed them, they were strobing/flickering quite badly - very rapid, hard to notice at first, but once the car was fully on it was very noticeable. The bulbs would not maintain the same brightness and would flicker as if they were about to die. There might be a hardware solution sold by the same company for this, but the store I purchased them from didn't have anything related to it. I believe the reason for the flickering was actually the LED driver in combination with the headlight unit/ FSAM control module - never I never actually read that these lights were compatible with Mercedes anywhere on their site. Turns out the fix is to disable clocking in the FSAM control module for the high beams specifically as pictured below. Just for peace of mind, I reduced the fernlicht (high beam) voltage regulation to 12V as well - it's all that's needed for the LED light anyway, and might possibly reduce the heat output of the unit.
This change made the high beams operate flawlessly - full brightness, zero flickering/strobing
Here's a comparative image of the light produced by the old halogens. I wasn't able to get any other pre-upgrade shots of the light since it was daytime
Here's what they look like installed. In the image they look a bit odd, but walking around the car they fit right in with the appearance and aren't noticeable at all.
Here's a slight side angle
Here's an after shot of the high beams in the same garage - MUCH brighter
They also nicely match the colour of the low beams - not really important since they're not for show, but I just like the fact that they match..
They really are quite bright, beam pattern is good, definitely different than stock halogen, possibly not even optimal, but the increased brightness offsets any potential downsides - but seriously these are BRIGHT
Just remember, this is an upgrade for the high beams, and you're not supposed to be shining your high beams into oncoming traffic in the first place anyway. Bright is good, especially for country roads at night time. First night out trying them, and I've already seen many more little glowy eyes on the side of the road, much farther away than with the stock incandescents.
Annoyingly the video off my dashcam that I was going to upload never actually recorded -my dashcam was unplugged by accident. I'll get another video tomorrow night.
I "stress tested" these tonight by going for a 30-40 minute drive with the high beams almost in constant use - no issues at all!
Funk, you did it again. These look awesome, seem to perform awesome, and are a first for our w204's as far as I can tell... Thank you good sir, I may in fact do this upgrade not so far down the road! Gotta get my suspension on first tho! Hahaha.
Funk, you did it again. These look awesome, seem to perform awesome, and are a first for our w204's as far as I can tell... Thank you good sir, I may in fact do this upgrade not so far down the road! Gotta get my suspension on first tho! Hahaha.
Thanks Josh!
Here's a quick vid of them in action, just to get an idea of what they're like. I intend to upload the other pictures as well, I've just been very busy this week
I installed these about a month ago: www.ebay.com/itm/162130972047
Fit completely inside the housing without modifying the cap and do not give me any flicker issues. But I have the OEM HID headlights running D1S CBI bulbs which have a color of about 5000K. These LED bulbs are at least 6000K so they do not match the CBI's in the low beams.
I plan on upgrading to these maybe: http://www.ebay.com/itm/161953025296
The seller showed me pictures of the 4000K and 6000K side by side and I believe the 5000K will match the CBI's very nicely. Not sure how fitment will be, that will have to be trial and error. Hopefully no modification necessary since they seem to be only slightly bigger than the first set.
Also, not to be rude, but in the first coupe of pics the bulbs don't match the low beams very well. Looks like the LEDs are at 5000K and the HIDs are at 6000K.
Also, not to be rude, but in the first coupe of pics the bulbs don't match the low beams very well. Looks like the LEDs are at 5000K and the HIDs are at 6000K.
Although I do agree with you that it looks like diff temps, I find that having too much of the same temp on in the front end makes it look VERY busy. I find having that minimal distinction stops the busy feel but yet doesn't draw your eye to the fact that it's a diff temp. Just my subjective opinion!
Small update here. My makeshift method for sealing off the dust cap didn't work very well and my headlights fogged up like crazy on a rainy night, very annoying. I actually ended up pulling my headlights off the car to clean out the haze and moisture, and at the same time, I was able to make the entire LED package fit inside the housing - ballast, wiring and bulb!
Since they're high beams and only ever really see intermittent use or run for under 20 min at a time, I don't think heat buildup will be a concern. Took it for a test last night, 30 minutes of near sustained use was no problem. I replaced the dust caps with new, intact caps, so once again the whole headlight is completely sealed (the morimoto HID kit for my lowbeams came with a good rubber grommet to fully seal the low beams).
Side note: Removing the bumper and headlights isn't actually a terribly difficult job, but if you're going to, I highly recommend taping off the front of the fender and headlight lenses - the securing brackets for the bumper corners can scratch both quite badly when you're pulling off the bumper. Reassembly is just as easy, but be prepared to make some small adjustments to the headlight mounting before putting the bumper back on, or fitment might look a bit off. I was able to get a better bumper, fender, headlight and hood fitment than before with some careful adjusting.
I've replaced the Lumens brand LEDs with the same brand of LED bulb I used in my LED fog light conversion found here, because a fan failed in one of the bulbs from the lumens kit. I've decided I'll avoid bulbs which use fans, they're a less reliable design.
Old bulb on the left, packaging for the new bulb. Apparently the picture I took of the new bulb didn't save..
But my god does it come with one hell of a bonus. Turns out the old LED bulbs only had a light output of approximately 2500 lumens/bulb, which while much better than halogen, doesn't quite match HID as far as I know. These new bulbs are rated at 4000 lumens per bulb.
Some will say the light output rating is only part of the story, and they're correct. LED bulbs can have a weird light output pattern with no central hot spot, which is what you'd want for a high beam reflector. Admittedly, the old bulb design was not ideal in this sense. Very bright, big improvement over stock halogen, but the new bulbs absolutely blow the old ones out of the water. It's like going from using two tea candles to a high powered spot light.
It seems the new bulbs play VERY nicely with the reflector design for the high beams in w204 headlights without the factory bi-xenon package.
I can't say enough good things about the new bulbs. They're fanless, they've been used for 30 minutes sustained without any sign of overheating, and they're supremely bright. Seriously, after flicking them off I thought there was something wrong with my morimoto HID low beam projectors because they were comparatively "dim".
I flick these on and the countryside lights up for about 1km ahead of me on a straight road. Reflective surfaces light up on the horizon; I can't out-drive the throw distance of my lights.
Best part? These ones don't require any variant coding to work correctly. I reverted the coding to stock, they work without issue - the LED ballasts/drivers are CANBUS friendly, unlike the old ones. They fit in the housing without modification.
Here's the light pattern with the noticeable hot spots created by these bulbs. In comparison, the old ones were more diffused and had a less concentrated hotspot - not ideal for light throw distance. These are EXCELLENT.
I really wish my phone camera could get a down-road shot from inside the car which was representative of what I actually see while driving. Curse you, auto exposure.. just take my word for it, I basically have two small suns for high beams now.
Thanks for the write up. How quickly do they turn on? Do they work well for "flash to pass" activation?
Very quickly, more so than traditional halogen bulbs. While LEDs have a small amount of time to reach full brightness, instant on brightness is around 95% anyway. Flash them fast enough and it's almost like a camera flash
I don't see any H7 LED's listed on their website...can you clarify or point me in the right direction since you said no modification needed..can plug in Hi Beam and use cover cap?
THX
Originally Posted by Funkwagen
Update!
I've replaced the Lumens brand LEDs with the same brand of LED bulb I used in my LED fog light conversion found here, because a fan failed in one of the bulbs from the lumens kit. I've decided I'll avoid bulbs which use fans, they're a less reliable design.
Old bulb on the left, packaging for the new bulb. Apparently the picture I took of the new bulb didn't save..
But my god does it come with one hell of a bonus. Turns out the old LED bulbs only had a light output of approximately 2500 lumens/bulb, which while much better than halogen, doesn't quite match HID as far as I know. These new bulbs are rated at 4000 lumens per bulb.
Some will say the light output rating is only part of the story, and they're correct. LED bulbs can have a weird light output pattern with no central hot spot, which is what you'd want for a high beam reflector. Admittedly, the old bulb design was not ideal in this sense. Very bright, big improvement over stock halogen, but the new bulbs absolutely blow the old ones out of the water. It's like going from using two tea candles to a high powered spot light.
It seems the new bulbs play VERY nicely with the reflector design for the high beams in w204 headlights without the factory bi-xenon package.
I can't say enough good things about the new bulbs. They're fanless, they've been used for 30 minutes sustained without any sign of overheating, and they're supremely bright. Seriously, after flicking them off I thought there was something wrong with my morimoto HID low beam projectors because they were comparatively "dim".
I flick these on and the countryside lights up for about 1km ahead of me on a straight road. Reflective surfaces light up on the horizon; I can't out-drive the throw distance of my lights.
Best part? These ones don't require any variant coding to work correctly. I reverted the coding to stock, they work without issue - the LED ballasts/drivers are CANBUS friendly, unlike the old ones. They fit in the housing without modification.
Looking back at Funk's post he said he used the same bulb in the headlights as he used in his foglight conversion..looking at that post there was a fair amount of use of a step drill and looked like an adaptor was also in play. Please correct me if there is an H7 setup which can be Can-Bus happy and fits.
Originally Posted by gamma300C
I don't see any H7 LED's listed on their website...can you clarify or point me in the right direction since you said no modification needed..can plug in Hi Beam and use cover cap?
THX
Last edited by gamma300C; 07-16-2017 at 08:54 AM.
Reason: apparently I can't spell anymore!!
Looking back at Funk's post he said he used the same bulb in the headlights as he used in his foglight conversion..looking at that post there was a fair amount of use of a step drill and looked like an adaptor was also in play. Please correct me if there is an H7 setup which can be Can-Bus happy and fits.
Sorry, I meant same brand. The fog light mod actually uses an H11 bulb instead of h7.
For the high beams, the h7 bulbs plug right into where the bulb is normally inserted. The LED ballast/driver is small enough to fit inside the headlight housing and the cap can be put back on without issue.
Strange I can't find the H7 model on Enthuze's website. I believe Enthuze is actually a "rebrand" for this type of LED bulb which can be found under different brand names, I'll see if I can find a link for these bulbs elsewhere
So I have a 2013 with the adaptive HID light option, but the high mean is the standard halogen. Can I still use the H7 led with it? Does it need to be reprogrammed to work?
So I have a 2013 with the adaptive HID light option, but the high mean is the standard halogen. Can I still use the H7 led with it? Does it need to be reprogrammed to work?
No need to reprogram anything. There should be no flickering or CANBUS errors. At least I didn't have any problems on my 2010.
You may have issues with space though. Any of the LED bulbs with a bulky heatsink that is bigger than the H7 mounting plate will not fit. The cap at the back of the headlight is not directly behind the high beam. Part of the headlight housing comes up right next to the highbeam mounting spot so to one side there's a lot of room, but to the other side there is hardly any room, that's why fitment is problematic.
Ideally you want one of those bulbs that has the braided steel straps for heatsinks.
08-14-2016, 02:32 AM
I'll get another video tomorrow night. 
