Led lightbulbs any good?

[Boosh]

Hi all,
I'm in the process of swapping headlight clusters for continental ones as RedZed and I moved south, and I'm wondering whether it is worth upgrading the bulbs to led bulbs, similar to these: http://www.horizonleds.co.uk/hb4-9006-cree-led . I've seen some setups on the net that come with little fan units, but I would like to avoid the faff.
Would any of you have any experience with non-fan led bulbs?

Also, slightly off-topic: though with original clear indicator lenses, the second-hand units I've purchased do not have angel-eyes effect chrome bits framing the circular cups for the lightbulbs. Mine do have them, and I got quite used to their look. Was there two kinds of headlight clusters? Ill try to link up some pics when I do the swap tomorrow.
Thanks,

Boosh.

[Southernboy]

On your 2nd point...you can de-tango your old headlight units and remove the chrome / silver parts if you really want them. The interior reflective unit is removable as a complete part, so should be a relatively easy or straight swap. It'll mean de-tangoing all 4 units to do the swap.
On your first point, LED headlight and Fog light bulbs are not as effective as standard because the reflectors inside the light unit are not designed specifically to enhance an LED light source. LED's are useful for the smaller light fittings like park and side marker / indicator and tail / 3rd brake light units, and in the interior dash, map and console lights.

[Boosh]

Thanks, Barry,
I guess I'll stick with ol' fashion technology, then. I did suspect that led bulbs would not produce as much light, maybe apart from the fanned version, but I don't particularly want to go down that route.
As for my new (to me) clusters, they have original clear indicator lenses. I was just surprised that the ones on my car have the chrome trims, and not the others. I wrongly thought that OEM clear clusters all had them. But as I'm not convinced that mine haven't been changed, perhaps these chrome trims were originally fitted to different spec'd cars.

Boosh.

[deni2s]

Chrome trims were on facelift z3 cars, pre-facelift were without them.

LED's are useful for the smaller light fittings like park and side marker / indicator and tail / 3rd brake light units, and in the interior dash, map and console lights.

I don't think this statement is accurate. LEDs have brighter, more directional light and it's color temperature usually is much higher (5000+K). And they anticipate lots of heat (that's why there are fans). So because they are more directional and color temperature is much higher, they have bad light throughput through anything - that's why fogs are sometimes yellow (lower color temperature), and original OEM xenon lights usually have just 4300K temp. So putting a led behind red lense of originally non-led brake light is actually not very good idea. It will not be visible very well, and it will not be visible mostly at all at bad weather (fog or rain).

So you can put LEDs in headlights, if you wish, but I would recommend then to put the ones with a fan. And keep in mind that in bad visibility (when you need them most - rain or fog) they will not help much, so it will be more for visual purposes, not functional. But if it's not your daily driver and you drive it only in good weather - why not.

[Boosh]

Thanks, that's what I thought. But I don't want to go through all the faff of fitting leds and fans, especially if there's not that much to gain.
And yes, the car is my daily driver. And I like it that way!

Boosh.

[BladeRunner919]

The problem with anything other than haogen bulbs in a fitting designed for halogen bulbs is that you just get a lot of light scatter. A halogen bulb emits light from a very small, precise point (the filament) and the reflectors and lenses are designed to direct light originating only from that point. Any other type of bulb (led, hid) that emits light from any other point causes that light to scatter. It gives the impression of brighter lights just because when you look at them so much of the light shines in your face, whereas a halogen bulb will give the correct cut-off meaning less light shining where it's not supposed to be. The net result is often that the 'brighter' lights actually provide less illumination where you actually need it.

[Robert T]

LEDs produce a tiny amount of heat in comparison to a filament bulb, but the LEDs themselves do not like to get hot, hence the need for better cooling. I have an 80W-equivalent LED spotlight bulb and you would not believe the size of the cooling fins on it! LEDs continue to get more efficient, and gradually this should be less of an issue.

Whilst a single LED is more or less a point light source, in order to produce the equivalent of a 55W filament bulb, you need lots of them as such they produce a very different light pattern, which, as said above, produces scatter when combined with a headlight unit designed for filament bulbs. Not only does this waste light from where you want it, but the stray light can easily dazzle other drivers. It would also be an MOT failure.

We have seen "projector" headlights produced for the Z3, and I am wondering if the same people will start to produce such a unit that utilises LED bulbs.

Cheers R.

[peter2b]

I find those bright head light might give the driver better night vision but tend to blind those either in front or coming towards them, had a small vw behind me the other night, his head lights were so bright I had a clear shadow of my freelander showing on the back of a lorry in front of me, I turned my rear view mirror so it faced the car behind which made him stamp on his brakes he then sat over the centre white line till I turned off, hopefully he will get his lights adjusted
peter2b

[deni2s]

I find those bright head light might give the driver better night vision but tend to blind those either in front or coming towards them, had a small vw behind me the other night, his head lights were so bright I had a clear shadow of my freelander showing on the back of a lorry in front of me, I turned my rear view mirror so it faced the car behind which made him stamp on his brakes he then sat over the centre white line till I turned off, hopefully he will get his lights adjusted
peter2b

Cruel!