Headlight upgrade on 987 standard halogen
01-27-2020, 06:22 PM
#16
Okay so you couldn't make the LED work so you went with this? https://www.amazon.com/SYLVANIA-Silv.../dp/B0012ETPUE
I'm fine with that I guess but if someone can point me to the resister pack or install/adapter needed for the Hikari LEDs, I'd probably go that route since I'm hiring a mechanic to do the install and ultimately that seems like the better option given long life and brightness. (But tell me if I'm wrong please).
I'm fine with that I guess but if someone can point me to the resister pack or install/adapter needed for the Hikari LEDs, I'd probably go that route since I'm hiring a mechanic to do the install and ultimately that seems like the better option given long life and brightness. (But tell me if I'm wrong please).
No I didn't say I couldn't make and LED work. I just couldn't find where anybody had done it where the result plus cost and trouble outweighed changing out two light bulbs. I decided to replace the bulbs with higher output halogens. I went to my nearest FLAPS which they are stocked and it took basically 20 min to change them both out.
I was pleased with the result and don't intend on spending all the time and effort to convert to LED'S. Didn't seem like it was worth it........to me.
So the net result was 40 bucks plus 20 mins of my time to pull both assemblies and I am happy. No codes and my wallet is happy too.
Good luck and let us know if you find an easy plug and play for the early Caymans.
01-27-2020, 06:38 PM
#17
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No I didn't say I couldn't make and LED work. I just couldn't find where anybody had done it where the result plus cost and trouble outweighed changing out two light bulbs. I decided to replace the bulbs with higher output halogens. I went to my nearest FLAPS which they are stocked and it took basically 20 min to change them both out.
I was pleased with the result and don't intend on spending all the time and effort to convert to LED'S. Didn't seem like it was worth it........to me.
So the net result was 40 bucks plus 20 mins of my time to pull both assemblies and I am happy. No codes and my wallet is happy too.
Good luck and let us know if you find an easy plug and play for the early Caymans.
I was pleased with the result and don't intend on spending all the time and effort to convert to LED'S. Didn't seem like it was worth it........to me.
So the net result was 40 bucks plus 20 mins of my time to pull both assemblies and I am happy. No codes and my wallet is happy too.
Good luck and let us know if you find an easy plug and play for the early Caymans.
01-27-2020, 06:44 PM
#18
Yea I saw the same.....I didn't get those and I promise you when I get home I'll let you know which ones I got. They were Sylvania's but they weren't those ones. I'll get back to you. Still......I don't do a bunch of night driving and the replacements are so easy to do I just bought an extra set in case I went on a long trip I'd throw a set in the frunk just in case one went bad. I still think the hassle for LED's isn't worth it.
01-27-2020, 07:16 PM
#19
Burning Brakes
i really want something I won’t have to worry about ever again
01-27-2020, 08:33 PM
#20
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These seem fine but basically just slick marketing versus Hikari and others. I really don’t need the brightest — anything is going to be massive improvement over the OEM halogen. What I don’t get is which of all these (if any) will fit and work and not cause problems? There is so much conflicting info out there and some say they work on Porsche but very little actual reviews or anything showing them working. The only ones that seem to really claim they fit is Nineo. But then lots of posts online say that none of these will work in Boxster/Cayman.
these are also 2-4x the price of the others which I will gladly pay if they work — a return guarantee is meaningless because I’m going to pay more for labor and be very unhappy if they don’t work
I’m quite suspicious of these GTR bulbs because they don’t sell them on Amazon from what I can see — red flag that they don’t want reviews
these are also 2-4x the price of the others which I will gladly pay if they work — a return guarantee is meaningless because I’m going to pay more for labor and be very unhappy if they don’t work
I’m quite suspicious of these GTR bulbs because they don’t sell them on Amazon from what I can see — red flag that they don’t want reviews
01-27-2020, 09:04 PM
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Yea I saw the same.....I didn't get those and I promise you when I get home I'll let you know which ones I got. They were Sylvania's but they weren't those ones. I'll get back to you. Still......I don't do a bunch of night driving and the replacements are so easy to do I just bought an extra set in case I went on a long trip I'd throw a set in the frunk just in case one went bad. I still think the hassle for LED's isn't worth it.
His concern over the life of brighter-halogens is deserved. There is no free lunch in incandescent lighting. If you want brighter you do one of two things, or you do both: You wind a filament with smaller diameter wires in it so it will heat up more when current passes through it, and/or you wind the filament with the coils closer together so you can fit a few more coils into the designed "hot-spot" in the bulb. Both of those techniques are going to shorten the life of the bulb. The bulb will also produce more heat - which some projection light assemblies aren't really happy with, melting reflectors, damaging insulation on the wiring and bad stuff like that. The other problem is - when actually tested in a lab situation - many of the American made high-output bulbs simply aren't. They put out about the same amount of light as a new standard bulb (which will be an improvement over your old worn out bulb.). If you looked at the advert for the high-output bulb linked in this thread, you'll notice the manufacturer advising that bulbs weaken with use. That's actually quite significant - a loss of 40% of light output over the lifetime of a standard halogen bulb is actually common. The high-output one's age even quicker (if they're actually high output.)
OK - so you're asking who is this guy spewing all this stuff? I wrote a series of articles for the BMW Car Club Roundel magazine about 10 (15?) years ago - called "Let there be light" - analyzing all sorts of light sources that could be retrofitted to a BMW light assembly at that time. There were no LED ones at that time, there were HIDs, some very special halogen bulbs (made for the 850 series cars), and I bought all sorts of US made and European bulbs. The lighting provided by each was tested by installing them in a hard-mounted M3 euro headlight housing (glass lens - so no hazing) projecting them at a wall with a grid pattern on them, and measuring the light at each crossing point on the grid using a precision incident light meter (one where the light falls on a diffuser in the meter.) They were powered by a lab power supply which let me accurately determine the current (and actual wattage) they used. The supply kept the voltage at exactly 12.6VDC. The numbers from the grid were then processed in Excel, and I used their charting tool to make a graph showing quite accurately the intensity of the light they put out and more importantly - the pattern that resulted. In general HID's sucked. They weren't really suitable for use on-road since the scatter above the cutoff line was too intense and would blind oncoming traffic (this is on LOW beam...) The US bulbs also were not impressive - a standard new bulb from Europe put out as much light as the high-power US bulbs (probably because the government regulates the actual output.) New high-output bulbs from Europe were impressive actually - often coming close to the 150% light claims (which means 50% brighter, or roughly 1/3rd improvement.) The problem with them was the no free lunch - they burn out much faster than standard bulbs.
In the end - I ended up getting a set of euro M3 light housings (much-improved pattern over the US pattern, and glass lenses) and used some of the standard bulbs that tested well. I tried the secret BMW-850 bulbs - they blinded people. I tried HID's - bight - but very blinding to oncoming traffic. I settled on standard halogen in the euro housing.
Right now I'm using the LED's I suggested above. I'll emphasize: LED's are not ideal in a projector designed for a filament bulb. A filament bulb puts out light in a 360-degree circle around the filament. That's not the case with HID's - all of the ones with LEDs on two sides of a post put out two semi-arcs of light, probably around 120-140 degree arcs. That leaves two dark arcs - and that's not how the halogen projector was designed to work. It's certainly not a perfect solution. It's brighter than the old halogen's I took out, but may not be brighter than new halogens would be. They also have the disadvantage of running at 6,000 Kelvin - a white with a smidge of blue. A much better number for actual night vision is around 4,200K - which is optimal for the human eye, and doesn't cause the really intense reflectivity off reflective signs (that reflection can be blinding - really - so bright your iris closes down and your cones recess in your eye..)
Brain dump over.. that's what happens when you get a retired Bell Labs physicist involved in a discussion of light (my field of research was lasers..)
01-27-2020, 10:08 PM
#22
WHAT hassle. Changing to the LEDs I pointed him to takes EXACTLY the same amount of work as installing your halogen bulbs.
His concern over the life of brighter-halogens is deserved. There is no free lunch in incandescent lighting. If you want brighter you do one of two things, or you do both: You wind a filament with smaller diameter wires in it so it will heat up more when current passes through it, and/or you wind the filament with the coils closer together so you can fit a few more coils into the designed "hot-spot" in the bulb. Both of those techniques are going to shorten the life of the bulb. The bulb will also produce more heat - which some projection light assemblies aren't really happy with, melting reflectors, damaging insulation on the wiring and bad stuff like that. The other problem is - when actually tested in a lab situation - many of the American made high-output bulbs simply aren't. They put out about the same amount of light as a new standard bulb (which will be an improvement over your old worn out bulb.). If you looked at the advert for the high-output bulb linked in this thread, you'll notice the manufacturer advising that bulbs weaken with use. That's actually quite significant - a loss of 40% of light output over the lifetime of a standard halogen bulb is actually common. The high-output one's age even quicker (if they're actually high output.)
OK - so you're asking who is this guy spewing all this stuff? I wrote a series of articles for the BMW Car Club Roundel magazine about 10 (15?) years ago - called "Let there be light" - analyzing all sorts of light sources that could be retrofitted to a BMW light assembly at that time. There were no LED ones at that time, there were HIDs, some very special halogen bulbs (made for the 850 series cars), and I bought all sorts of US made and European bulbs. The lighting provided by each was tested by installing them in a hard-mounted M3 euro headlight housing (glass lens - so no hazing) projecting them at a wall with a grid pattern on them, and measuring the light at each crossing point on the grid using a precision incident light meter (one where the light falls on a diffuser in the meter.) They were powered by a lab power supply which let me accurately determine the current (and actual wattage) they used. The supply kept the voltage at exactly 12.6VDC. The numbers from the grid were then processed in Excel, and I used their charting tool to make a graph showing quite accurately the intensity of the light they put out and more importantly - the pattern that resulted. In general HID's sucked. They weren't really suitable for use on-road since the scatter above the cutoff line was too intense and would blind oncoming traffic (this is on LOW beam...) The US bulbs also were not impressive - a standard new bulb from Europe put out as much light as the high-power US bulbs (probably because the government regulates the actual output.) New high-output bulbs from Europe were impressive actually - often coming close to the 150% light claims (which means 50% brighter, or roughly 1/3rd improvement.) The problem with them was the no free lunch - they burn out much faster than standard bulbs.
In the end - I ended up getting a set of euro M3 light housings (much-improved pattern over the US pattern, and glass lenses) and used some of the standard bulbs that tested well. I tried the secret BMW-850 bulbs - they blinded people. I tried HID's - bight - but very blinding to oncoming traffic. I settled on standard halogen in the euro housing.
Right now I'm using the LED's I suggested above. I'll emphasize: LED's are not ideal in a projector designed for a filament bulb. A filament bulb puts out light in a 360-degree circle around the filament. That's not the case with HID's - all of the ones with LEDs on two sides of a post put out two semi-arcs of light, probably around 120-140 degree arcs. That leaves two dark arcs - and that's not how the halogen projector was designed to work. It's certainly not a perfect solution. It's brighter than the old halogen's I took out, but may not be brighter than new halogens would be. They also have the disadvantage of running at 6,000 Kelvin - a white with a smidge of blue. A much better number for actual night vision is around 4,200K - which is optimal for the human eye, and doesn't cause the really intense reflectivity off reflective signs (that reflection can be blinding - really - so bright your iris closes down and your cones recess in your eye..)
Brain dump over.. that's what happens when you get a retired Bell Labs physicist involved in a discussion of light (my field of research was lasers..)
His concern over the life of brighter-halogens is deserved. There is no free lunch in incandescent lighting. If you want brighter you do one of two things, or you do both: You wind a filament with smaller diameter wires in it so it will heat up more when current passes through it, and/or you wind the filament with the coils closer together so you can fit a few more coils into the designed "hot-spot" in the bulb. Both of those techniques are going to shorten the life of the bulb. The bulb will also produce more heat - which some projection light assemblies aren't really happy with, melting reflectors, damaging insulation on the wiring and bad stuff like that. The other problem is - when actually tested in a lab situation - many of the American made high-output bulbs simply aren't. They put out about the same amount of light as a new standard bulb (which will be an improvement over your old worn out bulb.). If you looked at the advert for the high-output bulb linked in this thread, you'll notice the manufacturer advising that bulbs weaken with use. That's actually quite significant - a loss of 40% of light output over the lifetime of a standard halogen bulb is actually common. The high-output one's age even quicker (if they're actually high output.)
OK - so you're asking who is this guy spewing all this stuff? I wrote a series of articles for the BMW Car Club Roundel magazine about 10 (15?) years ago - called "Let there be light" - analyzing all sorts of light sources that could be retrofitted to a BMW light assembly at that time. There were no LED ones at that time, there were HIDs, some very special halogen bulbs (made for the 850 series cars), and I bought all sorts of US made and European bulbs. The lighting provided by each was tested by installing them in a hard-mounted M3 euro headlight housing (glass lens - so no hazing) projecting them at a wall with a grid pattern on them, and measuring the light at each crossing point on the grid using a precision incident light meter (one where the light falls on a diffuser in the meter.) They were powered by a lab power supply which let me accurately determine the current (and actual wattage) they used. The supply kept the voltage at exactly 12.6VDC. The numbers from the grid were then processed in Excel, and I used their charting tool to make a graph showing quite accurately the intensity of the light they put out and more importantly - the pattern that resulted. In general HID's sucked. They weren't really suitable for use on-road since the scatter above the cutoff line was too intense and would blind oncoming traffic (this is on LOW beam...) The US bulbs also were not impressive - a standard new bulb from Europe put out as much light as the high-power US bulbs (probably because the government regulates the actual output.) New high-output bulbs from Europe were impressive actually - often coming close to the 150% light claims (which means 50% brighter, or roughly 1/3rd improvement.) The problem with them was the no free lunch - they burn out much faster than standard bulbs.
In the end - I ended up getting a set of euro M3 light housings (much-improved pattern over the US pattern, and glass lenses) and used some of the standard bulbs that tested well. I tried the secret BMW-850 bulbs - they blinded people. I tried HID's - bight - but very blinding to oncoming traffic. I settled on standard halogen in the euro housing.
Right now I'm using the LED's I suggested above. I'll emphasize: LED's are not ideal in a projector designed for a filament bulb. A filament bulb puts out light in a 360-degree circle around the filament. That's not the case with HID's - all of the ones with LEDs on two sides of a post put out two semi-arcs of light, probably around 120-140 degree arcs. That leaves two dark arcs - and that's not how the halogen projector was designed to work. It's certainly not a perfect solution. It's brighter than the old halogen's I took out, but may not be brighter than new halogens would be. They also have the disadvantage of running at 6,000 Kelvin - a white with a smidge of blue. A much better number for actual night vision is around 4,200K - which is optimal for the human eye, and doesn't cause the really intense reflectivity off reflective signs (that reflection can be blinding - really - so bright your iris closes down and your cones recess in your eye..)
Brain dump over.. that's what happens when you get a retired Bell Labs physicist involved in a discussion of light (my field of research was lasers..)
Ok....but qualitative and quantitative question for the OP and my self.
His question pertains to the 987.1 headlight assembly. Qualatatively what does not optimal for a projector lens assembly mean? Not optimal over a non projector asssmbly? What lens assembly is optimal that will fit into a 987.1?
Quantitative question:
Do you mean to say that you will not need the high beam led in tje 987.1 assembly? Plug and play....no resisitor and no codes?
How much?
I looked and searched for this subject and never have seen a working example of an early Cayman 987.1 with. Plug and play LED for the headlights. Not that is hasn.t haoppened.
Look forward to your comments.
Edit:
Sorry for my fat finger mispellings...I.m on the train ride home.
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deilenberger (01-27-2020)
01-27-2020, 11:06 PM
#23
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I.m just a civil engineer...not quite retired but your physics outranks my statics!
Ok....but qualitative and quantitative question for the OP and my self.
His question pertains to the 987.1 headlight assembly. Qualatatively what does not optimal for a projector lens assembly mean? Not optimal over a non projector asssmbly? What lens assembly is optimal that will fit into a 987.1?
Ok....but qualitative and quantitative question for the OP and my self.
His question pertains to the 987.1 headlight assembly. Qualatatively what does not optimal for a projector lens assembly mean? Not optimal over a non projector asssmbly? What lens assembly is optimal that will fit into a 987.1?
The Boxster/Cayman low beam projector is a combination of a reflector, a fixed shutter (that gives the top cutoff pattern) and a lens that's used to collimate the output from the reflector. That seems to be the common design for any line-source light in a "projector" headlight.
One night I got carried away reading/looking at custom made projector/reflector inserts on a website somewhere.. all the designs are similar. The thing is - a halogen headlight uses a cylindrical filament, with output from 360 degrees around the filament. The reflector is designed to capture as much of that light as possible and shape it into a beam, roughly the size of the front projector lens. the front projector lens is matched to the reflector in size, position and focal length so as to "collimate" (make straight is the easiest way to think of it) the light coming off the reflector and make it into a beam with a specific divergence and pattern.
Where trouble arises in using LEDs is - they don't provide the 360 degree circular light source as the designed light source, so there will be dark areas in the projected light caused by the dark arc between the two LED elements. This is also where "clocking" comes in - the LED should be rotated so the light sources point to each side of the light housing. This is as close to the pattern the reflector was designed for - where the filament was oriented in the same horizontal fashion. There are also issues on the LED lights in that the actual light sources are not really at the focal point of the reflector. The LED sources are mounted on either side of a post - that makes a much wider light source than the projector was designed for.
HIDs are another interesting problem - the HID discharge is a linear discharge - but it's actually only microns thick. It also is a shorter source than a filament bulb would provide. This once again means putting one into a halogen designed projector system the reflector isn't doing what it's supposed to do - and there is likely to be quite a bit of "scatter" and "hot spots" in the pattern due to the misfocused reflector.;
The website I was browsing was of interest because they were designing light modules (made to replace the factory modules) where the reflectors and projector lens were optimized for the light source being used. Most of them were HID units, but they had started making a number of LED units. These were meant to replace projector housings in cars with halogen lighting - and provide optimal use of the light source.
The idea of a bi-xenon light is - instead of a fixed block to shape the beam, the block is tied to a solenoid that can move it into or out of the beam, depending on if you want high or low beam.
On factory equipped HID and LED vehicles - the "high-beam" light is really just a flasher light (hence halogen since HID takes time to come up to output) - it's actually not part of the normally used lighting. That's why most hi-beams on bi-xenon HID systems (like Porsche) are halogen bulbs - they light instantly and are simply way less expensive and trouble-prone than other light sources. This will probably change with the adoption of LED lighting since the LED source is cheap and nothing like a "ballast" is needed to light them. 12.6V will work fine on a correctly designed LED.
Quantitative question:
Do you mean to say that you will not need the high beam led in tje 987.1 assembly? Plug and play....no resisitor and no codes?
How much?
I looked and searched for this subject and never have seen a working example of an early Cayman 987.1 with. Plug and play LED for the headlights. Not that is hasn.t haoppened.
Look forward to your comments.
Edit:
Sorry for my fat finger mispellings...I.m on the train ride home.
Do you mean to say that you will not need the high beam led in tje 987.1 assembly? Plug and play....no resisitor and no codes?
How much?
I looked and searched for this subject and never have seen a working example of an early Cayman 987.1 with. Plug and play LED for the headlights. Not that is hasn.t haoppened.
Look forward to your comments.
Edit:
Sorry for my fat finger mispellings...I.m on the train ride home.
As far as use on a 987.1 vs the 987.2 - they both used light systems that are basically identical, depending on if you got the halogen lights or the upgraded HID factory lighting system. In the case of the halogens my suspicion would be if it works without error codes in the .2, it will probably do the same in the .1 - but I haven't done it, so I can't swear to it.
The LEDs I used have a high-speed cooling fan in the base, which I suspect is drawing enough current that the light monitoring system thinks it is still seeing the current draw of a working halogen light. That's if they're still using current monitoring (which only works when the bulb is ON..) Newer systems use a very short pulse of electricity sent periodically through the halogen bulb filament. It's short enough the filament doesn't have time to heat up. If the bulb died - even when it's off - that pulse of electricity is monitored for at the other end of the circuit, if it goes missing the system knows there is a break in the circuit and triggers the warning. If they're using that system - since the cooling fan motor is across the power input that feeds the LED's - it should let the pulse of electricity pass through, so no warning is issued.
Once again - more than you ever wanted to know.
My gut feeling - the LED inserts I'm using should work with the 987.1, I can't see any reason they wouldn't.. buy from Amazon and return them if they don't. It's certainly easy to install them. And the price is cheap. As far as how much - click the link to the Amazon listing and find out. I seem to recall less than $40 for the pair.
01-28-2020, 02:04 AM
#25
Track Day
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Ok I’m still confused and I do see so much conflicting info online. I open to trying these lower priced Hikaris though — the ultra’s may be too bright. I also wish someone made H7 LEDs with cooling at about 4000-5000 temperature but I’ll live with 6k. Would be nice to see one video or something online of someone installing one of these into a 987.1 though. And oh yeah explaining this to me like I’m a 5th grader. Because the headlight stuff is pretty foreign to me.
Last edited by mkdc; 01-28-2020 at 07:38 PM.
01-28-2020, 02:17 PM
#26
Ok I’m still confused and I do see so much conflicting info online. I open to trying these lower priced Hikaris though — the ultra’s may be too bright. I also wish someone made H7 LEDs with cooking at about 4000-5000 temperature but I’ll live with 6k. Would be nice to see one video or something online of someone installing one of these into a 987.1 though. And oh yeah explaining this to me like I’m a 5 year old.
I did go into the garage to see what H7 I used in lieu of an LED replacement if you are still interested. They were the Hella 50+ and available at your local FLAPS.
Looks like deilenberger's solution should work though for the LED. I'm only worried about if the "minifan" dies will it still trigger a "DIP" code and if that fails does the LED overheat the plastic headlight assembly cause those are expensive to replace. Too lazy right now to look of the specs on his LED and the heat output. Maybe he can chime in.
Also.. you say you have a 987.1 Boxster. I have a 987.1 Cayman, and I'll only assume the housings are the same....assume is always a dangerous word.
01-28-2020, 04:37 PM
#27
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Looks like deilenberger's solution should work though for the LED. I'm only worried about if the "minifan" dies will it still trigger a "DIP" code and if that fails does the LED overheat the plastic headlight assembly cause those are expensive to replace. Too lazy right now to look of the specs on his LED and the heat output. Maybe he can chime in.
02-24-2020, 04:36 AM
#28
The US bulbs also were not impressive - a standard new bulb from Europe put out as much light as the high-power US bulbs (probably because the government regulates the actual output.) New high-output bulbs from Europe were impressive actually - often coming close to the 150% light claims (which means 50% brighter, or roughly 1/3rd improvement.) The problem with them was the no free lunch - they burn out much faster than standard bulbs.
Here's a test someone did on the Sylvania Silverstar bulb in a Stanley projector ... barely better than their much cheaper "Basic" line of bulbs. I guess we can at least say that Sylvania wasn't lying when they said the Silverstar sucks in projectors!
