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I don't like my ILS 640/641/642 LED headlight system, this is the highest variant of headlight on a W212 money can buy.
First of is the overall poor level of illumination, aka NOT BRIGHT enough for a modern car.
The high beam is super lame, but I have added an ECE complaint 53cm led bar as an awesome and Europe legal high beam add-on.
I am very happy with the high beam.
2 parameters I still am not happy with.
01. The low beam brightness level at its furthest reach, which is set by MB Indonesia at super close range while I have an auto leveling headlight system.
02. The cornering light.
Let's discuss Low Beam.
On white/grey concrete road, it is fine. If on black asphalt, it is lame.
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On black asphalt and it was dusk, where my eyes are still contaminated by the light in the sky.
See the video second is still 0:03 for image below, when that minor pot hole came out from its hiding, due to my low beam illumination level not bright enough 0.2 to 0.5 seconds ago.
I hit that pot hole, as I was not expecting there was a pot hole when I scanned the road as per 1st image.
I care more of other vehicles and concrete barrier, not pot hole on this bridge I often use.
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Last week I got my friend's W204 C200 headlight improved. This oldie all halogen headlight is beyond lame, it is pure garbage.... where my cheapo older Toyotas were having a bit better halogen headlight.
Cut the story short, the projector lamp assy of H7 halogen were replaced by a complete projector assy of a LED and it can do high beam too, using those window/shutter like how
MB Bi-Xenon lamp create Low and High beam from a single bulb.
It was a great sucess for the conversion. Now his W204 Low Beam is actually better than my E400, because his wattage is 55 watts each side, while E400 is no more than 35 watts each side.
The beam cut foff is also very nice, like a high end SAE legal/compliant fog light.
His high beam is RUDE, because only the H7 bulbs were replaced with a LED version H7 bulb and this is a typical normal reflector part of the light for high beam.
Good thing headlight is a RUDE light beam height wise.... but I call it rude is because my 53cm led bar as high beam is a more "polite" beam spread and height.
The new aftermarket projector lamp assy replacing MB projector assy. Yep, need to tear open the headlight shell.
High beam section, using H7 LED and was using H7 halogen
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Here I learnt something.
If you want proper low beam from a LED based bulb, if it still uses a normal refelector , it won't be good and/or it will give dangerous scatter to other drivers.
I seen some are decent, but no way you will have the beautiful cut-off from a good projector light assy.
Cutt off is the line where the bright light at maximum height of beam spread , is suddenly gone, as to not shine to other drivers.
Go to the very bottom of this link to see cut-off : https://www.auxito.com/blogs/news/he...0cutoff%20line.
If you buy a complete projector assy with the LED module already built in, it can be good because the light beam spread is built around the led module itself.
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Here is a good example of projector headlamp low beam, halogen and 2 other LED aftermarket projector assy.
Do note the last one, the Morimoto brand, the low beam height adjusment in my opinion is a tiny bit higher, but I have to admit it is indeed brighter than the cheaper LED.
It is no bull-shiet that the a good projector LED assy produces not only bright lights, it is high density aka very even illumination from front bumper to say 40 meters away.
Go to 11:36 to see the beam spread better when hand held.
I was googling when I found this S-Class W222 owner not happy with his headlight brightness level for long distance out of town.
I understand where he is coming from, I been there too.
So owner requested to have a non-obvious add on lights, stand alone switches for Low and High beam from 2 pairs of the mini LED projector aftermarket light.
I can understand the stand alone part, to prevent installer from messing up MB can-bus based headlights.
I don't agree with stand alone switch for the extra high beam, as it is too slow to turn off when using stand alone switch but it is the simplest form of install though.
............... The title reads" Owner complaining original headlight is not bright enough, so we give him a solution"-------------------------------
Car original low beam
Car original low beam added by 2 of the mini LED projector light of Low Beam assignment, in red marker.
Since the camera in use is auto exposure, the added brightness of the extra mini LED projector light of Low Beam assignment seems not too "bright".
I believe this extra mini LED projector is at 25 watts each.
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Green circle is car original HIGH BEAM. Red marker is aftermarket Low Beam over laying the car original low beam.
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After market low and high beam. So 2 mini LED projector as Low Beam and 2 more as High Beam.
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Green is car original HIGH BEAM, and those two red markers are Low and High Beam of the aftermarket mini LED.
How small is the mini LED projector ? Very small. Below is the generic size. Different brands will give different beam pattern and some can do Low and High Beam, where the high beam is yellow light.
About 5 x 5 cm is the frontal dimension.
So, what do I want to do for my low beam improvement and cornering light ?
Low beam improvement is straight forward, cornering light capability while my ILS LED has it, it is only for very slow speed of 40KM per hour or less and it needs steering input to start activation.
So I will kill two birds with one stone.
I enjoy roads like below and in night time, where less traffic : I call them horse shoe bends
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When this road was first asphalt well, from originally pebble roads, it was in 2004 there about.
This is approx 30KM long and after 8 PM, I only need to overtake no more than 5 cars on a 30 KM stretch....it is that lonely a road.
Electricity avaibility was also not 24 hours a day, day time only or no electricity at all for some area.... at this area back then,
so total darkness after 7PM is so good for me, as no villagers will hang out on the road when it is that dark.
I only fear of human being jay walking at night and crossing the road while I was doing high speed rallye like driving on this road.
This road I pass thru every other week if not 20 times a year ... while in 2004 to 2005 , because of a great diving spot on the south side of Java island .
Some area is still a palm tree plantation, hence not much houses there.
When I first drove this road in 2004, my only dissapointment was I do not have a proper super wide angle wide beam AUX light as cornering light.
That took the fun out of the drive as I want to attack the bends as fast as my traction allows a minor skid/slide ( not drift crazy slide ) .
LED aux light does not exist back then, I had to use Hella products, halogen based.
Basically I was setting the AUX light as DITCH LIGHT hahahaah
Today with LED techology and cheap optics, I have found a very wide angle super mini LED aux light and a decent wide angle one.
The two types of light I choosen to test, should arrive in myJakarta home when I get back to Jakarta in a few more days.
I will test them to see if their beam spread forward and maximum spread angle can suit my purpose for them.
One with the widest beam spead angle wise and quite a dense forward beam.
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Single unit only, not two units. In the dark
On a road with well lit illumination and a black car using halogen....as comparison.
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The beam density when against a wall. Tester was also suprised how wide left to right the beam is.
This baby sized AUX light has low beam mode in white LED and high beam mode in YELLOW LED.
I am not interested in the YELLOW LED portion.
This is combo beam Low Beam white and High Beam in Yellow. Why such arranggement ?
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This unit can be a good wide angle fog or ditch light set , set it at very low horizontal beam spread as to never glare anyone.
It does look at least 110 degrees beam spread.
Will update...................... when my itchy hands mess with them two types of lights next week
Btw, is the ILS working fully in Indonesia version? if not perhaps you can ask benzninja to enable it for you. LED should be better than bi-xenon. I saw demo videos of ILS working man that is awesome for driving at night.
My w212 bi-xenon is bright enough for me. What I dont like is the long start up times to get the light into full brightness, not instant on like LEDs. I did replace the xenon bulb to LED bulb and suprisingly gives good results. Sadly for yours the only option maybe add additional light such as those mini projectors (I personally dont like them).
I keep the new osram as backup in case the LED fails, but so far its been a year or so been great!
Oh my other car I retrofitted it by adding additional bi-led projectors since its japanese car, no need to worry about light control unit/canbus thing.
Today, 06:37 AM
