Is it wise to convert to an LED headlight bulb from the standard H7? Thanks.

 

nope

 

You're better off with an HID conversion kit

 

Been there, done that.. LED's .look bright but they don't throw the light far (Google Search and you will see this is the consensus) and only sorta work in the projector low beam. Even the LED backup lights I got for my Jeep were a disappointment .My '09 Halogen C300 headlights were pretty weak but improved considerably with a set of the Vosla bulbs in all 4 ( see link). Short of a Xenon upgrade this worked the best for me. The HID's work pretty well in the projector low beam also but are a hot mess in the high's. You have to mount the ballasts and mess with the cover caps and make sure you get the resistor add ons to prevent Error , Light Out messages. My Op7 HID kit was forever blowing HID bulbs also. Overall i personally was happy with the upgraded halogen bulbs, inexpensive, ease of install, and good lumens.



https://store.candlepower.com/h7headlamps.html

 

To elaborate, this is the difference between lumen and lux: lumen is the measure of total light output per second from a source; lux is equal to one lumen measured per square meter. Usually LED bulbs generate huge amounts of lumen but are not able to maintain the lux output further away from the light source. The lux rating of an LED bulb will be huge close to the bulb, but further away it will drop off significantly. Meaning an LED bulb needs huge amounts of total lumen output to match the total lux measured compared to an equivalent incandescent bulb. This is why LED bulbs appear bright but are not actually bright. This is also why the lumen rating is worthless compared to a lux rating, if the product you're looking at even has a lux rating.

Basically lumen is how much light a bulb is capable of producing while lux is how bright the bulb is actually.

With that said, there have been significant improvements with LED bulbs over the years. Early on the diodes used in LED bulbs were incompatible with incandescent reflector housings because they were not designed for LED light sources. The diodes were not able to focus light the same way that a filament was capable of doing. The headlight would appear bright but would be useless down the road. Now LED bulbs use diodes which focus the light in a much tighter tolerance, mimicking an incandescent filament much better than they used to be able. They're still not a direct replacement but are very close. This all depends on what you buy. Cheap alternatives from eBay will not be designed well, have crooked diodes, and even use no-name or knock-off diodes. Name brand options from brands like OSRAM or Philips are designed to be as closely compatible with incandescent reflector housings as possible since, well, they have the resources.

Despite improvements to LED bulbs or options from reputable brands, they are still not a good choice to use in projectors because projectors harness the light produced by a bulb differently. In a projector all of the light produced by a bulb is utilized whereas in a reflector typically only the sides of the bulb are utilized. Since LED bulbs are two sided, they perform poorly in a projector but fairly well in a reflector.