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I just want to share my experience with LED bulbs.
The car is an '84 944 which I had around 2014 re-wired to use the additional high beam as daylight running lights. Obviously, the 55 W bulb was replaced by a pair of 35 W ones.
It looked like this:
My reason was that I got complaints from drivers that the T4W bulbs, aka candles, are not actually visible.
All of rennlist at the time said this is not an issue, the wires for the T4Ws are strong enough to be abused. Well, they were for 10 long years. Then I got this super annoying issue where there is no interior lighting and no parking lights. It is actually rather dangerous because you have no lights on at the back of the car!
This is what happened:
This is pin D3 at the back of the fuse box. This red cable goes up to the light switch and carries all the current for the first position. From the factory, that is for a ROW car
2x T4W bulbs for the front parking lights,
2x T4W bulbs for the license plate light,
2x R5W bulbs for the rear parking lights,
~12x W1.2W bulbs for all interior lights (dashboard, center console, ashtray, glove box).
So all-in-all, ~41 Watts.
I added 2x 35 W H3 bulbs to that equation raising the total to ~111 Watts. No wonder why the system couldn't take it for forever.
So I thought reducing the current would be good. Thus I roamed aliexpress for some time to get some really strong T4W-sized LEDs which would get me a similar light output to the H3s!
Well, it worked:
The left side is the single T4W LED, the right side is the traditional T4W and 35 W H3. The LED just uses 2.4 W according to my measurement.
Now the problem is that the colours do not match very well. So time to replace the high/low beam bulb, too!
I bought Osram HL Easy H4 set. It doesn't have an insane amount of light output, but fits perfectly, I had no trouble reusing my rubber boots on the back of the headlight assembly.
I already installed the Hella wiring for the headlight last year to reduce the load going through the ignition switch, but it's still nice to go from 55 Watts to just 18!
The colour is not a perfect match, but reasonably close:
Before and after pictures are pretty insane especially if you consider that the old front setup was using a nominal 188 Watts and the new one is 41 Watts!
Maybe I aimed the lights now a bit too high, will adjust again.
I'm waiting for shipment on my LED orders for H3 and R5W bulbs also from Osram. The license plate lights I also replaced with some weak chinese LEDs that I originally ordered for the fronts.
So with that, the load on the burnt connector will go from 111 Watts to 21 Watts while my daytime visibility remains the same.
The low beams will use 36 Watts instead of 110, the high beams from the factory were 230, that drops to 54. Good for the wiring, easy on the alternator. Much brighter colour as well.
I used this off eBay and wired the power from the alternator, so the switch carries very little power. Also I used the unused plug to power a relay for the driving lights. H4 Headlight Relay Harness Ceramic Socket H6054 7x6 Headlamp Wiring Harness Kit.
I used this off eBay and wired the power from the alternator, so the switch carries very little power. Also I used the unused plug to power a relay for the driving lights. H4 Headlight Relay Harness Ceramic Socket H6054 7x6 Headlamp Wiring Harness Kit.
I think you mean this set for $20? Not a bad price, but if you switch to LED lights, you don't have to bother.
Unlike incandescent headlights, LED lights regulate the current and will not change intensity with higher or lower voltage.
I used this off eBay and wired the power from the alternator, so the switch carries very little power. Also I used the unused plug to power a relay for the driving lights. H4 Headlight Relay Harness Ceramic Socket H6054 7x6 Headlamp Wiring Harness Kit.
I've got this Hella harness and modified it so that I didn't have to loose my rubber boots at the back of the headlight.
Unlike incandescent headlights, LED lights regulate the current and will not change intensity with higher or lower voltage.
Actually, that isn't totally accurate, an LED has a forward voltage rating which turns "on" the diode, once you exceed the forward voltage rating the LED's resistance drops off and it will begin to draw more current, some cases burning out the LED (or blowing a fuse in the circuit). Voltage can also change the intensity of the LED, you can use a resistor to control the brightness.
Most replacement LED headlight bulbs include a resistor which is designed to limit the current passing through the LED.
04-29-2024, 08:04 PM
LED Bulb Upgrade for H4 Lights
