Cree LED Headlights

[Dave Richardson]

I'm considering fitting a pair of H7 Cree LED bulbs as 'dipped' lights into my W203 coupe.

These on e bay are advertised as Canbus error free yet later in the ad it states that resistors may be required

Has any other W203 owner fitted them & the big question did they trigger the bulb warning without the additional resistors

If not the bulbs shown in the ads I'm thinking of something similiar


2 x H7 60W XBD CREE SMD 12*5W HIGH POWER CANBUS LED - EXTREMELY BRIGHT WHITE LED | eBay


H7 472 50W CREE LED FRONT FOG CAR DRL XENON WHITE BULBS | eBay

 

[Troon]

Don't do this for public road use. It's not legal.

Even though they may be intense and white, there's no way a "bulb replacement" LED could match the absolute light output of a halogen bulb. Real LED headlamps use bespoke optics designed around the LED die and a lot of cooling. Your headlamp assembly assumes a single bright filament in a carefully-specified position — replacing that with a large area of LED dies will result in poor beam pattern and a lot of dazzle.

This will be worse than HID kits, although thankfully not as bright. You will be without legal headlights, though.

 

[grumpyoldgit]

^^ + 1

As Troon has said, the standard headlight reflectors are the wrong shape for LED bulbs, they will just blind oncoming drivers.

If you want better light, fit Osram Nightbreaker or Philips Extreme bulbs and if your W203 is pre facelift, clean up the lenses if they need it.

 

[Ted]

Dave, I used those exact same bulbs in my DRL post.

1 they are nothing like the 'power' of a normal H7 bulb
2 They ARE bright - but bright as in DRLs, there is no real light cast onto the road - it would be a bit like driving with DRLs only - you would see the road light up a little, but no real illumination.
3 As already said, the reflectors are just not right for these. There is a lot of light scatter - again, good for DRLs but not for illumination.
4 These DID trigger the bulb failure (on the foglights) and also flashed on and off. In my application I kept the original H7 incandescent bulbs in circuit, and wired the LEDs in separately.

 

[KillerHERTZ]

MTECH Bulbs are the whitest halogen bulbs you can get. LEDs should be for sidelights only.

 

[Dave Richardson]

Thank you to all who have helped, I'll give the idea a miss

Dave