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Headlight upgrade 940

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Old Oct 12th, 2019, 11:45   #41
Laird Scooby
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I have been using French yellow bulb covers for years. I find them far better for night driving and everything looks much clearer with them. Other drivers who have used my car all commented on how good the lighting is (340 and 240) but with the V90's using H1 ones not had a cover for them so been back to "normal" lighting for a while
You're putting the yellow covers in the wrong place - they should be on your eyes! Seriously, amber/yellow night driving glasses can improve vision but yellow bulbs won't. It's all to do with the wavelength of the light and where it's filtered into yellow. I'm not an optician so don't fully understand that bit just know it's a proven fact.

Using yellow light bulbs can hide certain things in the way blue lights are used in public toilets in supermarkets and other places - it prevents junkies from finding their veins so they can't shoot up in the heads. Given many road markings are in yellow or off-white that is almost yellow, that could be a problem!
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Old Oct 13th, 2019, 20:53   #42
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Default LED headlights.

I changed over to LEDs back in February. And, for an Amazon 'Flash' sale, of £24, I'm mostly very pleased. I had nightbreakers previously, at least one would blow within less than a year. The difference is almost 'night and day'.
These bulbs have a single LED per beam- earlier designs had multiple LEDs so multiple light paths, and lots of room for creating dazzle. I've done a quick check 'against a garage wall' and nothing worrying going on. Driving around town and country I've not been flashed by anyone. I don't mind the higher colour temperature- I much prefer it to the ( relative) yellow orange of conventional bulbs.
The drawbacks with the particular LED model I have include:
I had to modify the original Volvo bulb retaining ring, to make it thinner. Almost an excuse to buy me a Dremel! Removing the ring now needs a small screwdriver as a 'drift'. Not a big issue, as I don't remove the bulbs often.

There is a bit of radio interference. On my model year ('97 940), the headlamps are slightly on during the day. At this lower voltage, (poss around 10 volts), the interference is much less. The LED light output is just a little lower in this mode. (I've always driven around with headlights on during the day, a version of Volvo's daylight running lamps, and I have a less visible grey car). I tried different ferrite beads with no joy- this needs in line suppression at least. There are products out there that might resolve this, for a silly price. I could experiment with some components, at low cost- but it's not a big issue.
Annual car test in August was a fail due to these lamps! 9am on a Monday, at a local council centre, probably didn't help either. The sheet said:
Front Headlamp light source and lamp not compatible xenons fitted to OEM headlamp (4.1.4 (c)). It seemed easier not to point out that these where not Xenons! I should have made the effort to put the old bulbs back in beforehand. I have an idea that not all test centres fail people for LEDs?

So. If you are buying LEDs, you'll probably need some that are not as cheap as these! Although they now have four stars plus on Amazon, I'm sure better can be had. The make is Novsight. In spite of the drawbacks, I can't imagine going back to conventional lamps.
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Old Oct 13th, 2019, 22:12   #43
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I changed over to LEDs back in February. And, for an Amazon 'Flash' sale, of £24, I'm mostly very pleased. I had nightbreakers previously, at least one would blow within less than a year. The difference is almost 'night and day'.
These bulbs have a single LED per beam- earlier designs had multiple LEDs so multiple light paths, and lots of room for creating dazzle. I've done a quick check 'against a garage wall' and nothing worrying going on. Driving around town and country I've not been flashed by anyone. I don't mind the higher colour temperature- I much prefer it to the ( relative) yellow orange of conventional bulbs.
The drawbacks with the particular LED model I have include:
I had to modify the original Volvo bulb retaining ring, to make it thinner. Almost an excuse to buy me a Dremel! Removing the ring now needs a small screwdriver as a 'drift'. Not a big issue, as I don't remove the bulbs often.

There is a bit of radio interference. On my model year ('97 940), the headlamps are slightly on during the day. At this lower voltage, (poss around 10 volts), the interference is much less. The LED light output is just a little lower in this mode. (I've always driven around with headlights on during the day, a version of Volvo's daylight running lamps, and I have a less visible grey car). I tried different ferrite beads with no joy- this needs in line suppression at least. There are products out there that might resolve this, for a silly price. I could experiment with some components, at low cost- but it's not a big issue.
Annual car test in August was a fail due to these lamps! 9am on a Monday, at a local council centre, probably didn't help either. The sheet said:
Front Headlamp light source and lamp not compatible xenons fitted to OEM headlamp (4.1.4 (c)). It seemed easier not to point out that these where not Xenons! I should have made the effort to put the old bulbs back in beforehand. I have an idea that not all test centres fail people for LEDs?

So. If you are buying LEDs, you'll probably need some that are not as cheap as these! Although they now have four stars plus on Amazon, I'm sure better can be had. The make is Novsight. In spite of the drawbacks, I can't imagine going back to conventional lamps.
If they're the ones i'm thinking of John, i've got a set of those in the shed. Been sat in thre for a few years now, since i tried them and pulled them out because they wouldn't give a beam pattern. They'll do for when i hook up some extra lighting in the shed.

I tried several sets before i found the ones from powerfuluk.com, since then i've also found these which are the same almost :

https://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/col...nversion-9-32v



However they have CE and RoHS approvals so might be better for anyone who is fussy that way. That said they're the same as the ones i originally bought.

If you look at the link, you'll see why your single LED per beam jobbies didn't work well for the MoT, kind of obvious when you think about it.
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Old Oct 17th, 2019, 00:11   #44
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Default LED headlights, and oscilloscopes etc.

Hello again Dave. I think I understand what you are saying about single LEDs. Looking again at the ones I have, they have in fact got three small leds per beam. I think I was originally comparing my current lamps to the earlier awful ones that are composed of many leds- which are beyond pointless! But, thinking about the mot tester, could it be, given the fail description, that the lamps were rejected even before a beam test? Either way, I'll put the filaments back in before the next test...
Next time I'm spending, I'll be more careful!
And that 555 'scope looked nice. Elegant design! I went off on a wander, looking again if a microcontroller (raspberry or arduino) could come in to my life. But too much work, it turns out. On a simpler note, I found 'use your smartphone as a scope' eg:
https://www.instructables.com/id/A-P...Oscilloscopes/
Which would suit me fine- as I have a few old phones...
But best of luck with the main project in the other thread (and luck to Andtwenty too)- it will be fascinating to hear of the end story!

Last edited by arctan; Oct 17th, 2019 at 00:12. Reason: spelling!
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Old Oct 17th, 2019, 02:04   #45
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Interesting stuff there John!
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Old Oct 18th, 2019, 12:37   #46
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I have no idea what people are doing with their Nightbreakers to make them last such a short time - poor installation? Its been 3.5 years since I fitted mine and I've yet to blow one.... My last work lease car which I had from new went through more....
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Old Oct 18th, 2019, 16:12   #47
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Simple - being incandescent bulbs, the brighter they are, the hotter they get. As Nightbeakers are pretty bright, they get pretty hot so don't last as long.

If yours have been in 3.5 years, you'll be surprised if you renew them and see how much brighter the new ones are!
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Old Oct 18th, 2019, 17:12   #48
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Originally Posted by Laird Scooby View Post
Simple - being incandescent bulbs, the brighter they are, the hotter they get. As Nightbeakers are pretty bright, they get pretty hot so don't last as long.

If yours have been in 3.5 years, you'll be surprised if you renew them and see how much brighter the new ones are!
They are still brighter than the ones in my brand new Toyota Auris I have as my work lease car, which I could bob some Nightbreakers in that.
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Old Oct 18th, 2019, 19:29   #49
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They are still brighter than the ones in my brand new Toyota Auris I have as my work lease car, which I could bob some Nightbreakers in that.
Chances are that being a lease car, it gets the very basic, only just bright enough to be legal, halogen bulbs - tuppence ha'penny and a brass farthing each but you'd be better off with a Yankee candle inside a jar!

Even if you fitted your old pair of Nightbreakers in your Auris and a new pair in your proper car, you'd probably see a good improvement.

If you don't want to go down the LED or Nightbreaker route, buy some of the ebay cheap "Xenon-look" H4 bulbs. Most of them last well and give a good output for the price. In fact, go back a page or three to where i posted the three cars with different bulbs, the one on the left has the ebay cheapies (Xenon-look) in, the middle one has the LEDs and the one on the right has the Nightbreakers (several months old though).
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