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Are you measuring Lumens or Lux? Are you using a integrating sphere, a gonio photometer or a spectroscopic sensor. What is the science behind your testing other than a "testing zone"???
Are you measuring Lumens or Lux? Are you using a integrating sphere, a gonio photometer or a spectroscopic sensor. What is the science behind your testing other than a "testing zone"???
I don't have an accurate way to get lumen ratings with what tools I have (and I don't have anything more than a "want" for such tools), and even lux can be difficult to get anything except direct intensity figures. I was hoping to keep this thread's data general enough that anyone with some cheaper, common equipment and provide data for comparison. A tape measure, manual-exposure camera, tripod, tabletop, and flat wall should be enough for many people to provide data.
I think using some fixed camera exposure settings, fixed distances, and fixed "synthetic" output comparisons shots may be the easiest to make it a community effort. If some static shots with overlayed beamshots are adjusted to match real-world shots of specific lights, we should be able to find the best exposure settings that can be used for synthetic beamshot comparisons in real-world environment photos (road, vehicles however many feet ahead, vegetation contrast).
It'd be a little more difficult, but signal and tail lights could also be synthetically compared. Beamshots of these don't tell the whole story of where the light is going.
Since I can't edit old posts on this forum, I'm going to need to post all testing-data in a single reply. I want to make sure I get something that works sufficiently well before doing so.
Okay, I am going to start throwing some data out here. I'm not planning on testing LED bulbs that I've had sitting in my overfull loose-LED bin for years, but if someone wants to see how one of other LEDs compares, I can get some more shots. Most of my loose LEDs are basic components, or a variety of 168/194 and 37/74 base bulbs for when I was attempting to change some dash illumination bulbs years back, but fighting with the angles of LED emitters on the products.
Some of my loose components in the box include the 168/194 and 37/74 bulbs, 3W red leds, 10-100W white LEDs of cool white, neutral, and warm white tints, 5mm and 3mm leds in a dozen different colors, and all variety of color-rendering-index values.
I'm not sure what type of affiliate program this forum has going on, but I will be linking to product details on Amazon when I can.
All photos were taken with a 32-stop wide exposure range. I purchased a couple used manual-exposure cameras to take these pictures with. I chose these exposure settings as they should be available on any digital camera with manual exposure control. Some cameras may only get down to f/3.5, so I used f/4.0 as my base test. Some cameras may also only go up to 1/2000 second shutter, so I limited these tests to 1/1000. ISO may also stop at 1600 or 3200 on some cameras, so I limited to ISO 1600.
When I post comparison pictures, the above exposure settings will be watermarked on the image to allow others to compare their own pictures.
For beam shot comparisons for dimensions, I placed the light 24 inches from the wall. The camera was placed on a tripod at 36 inches from the wall, and with its sensor placed 12-inches higher than the light source. Since our lights may not always sit flat (headlights), I've allowed a variable to be mixed into the pictures - tilting the camera to get any headlight cutoffs near the center of the frame.
All of my beam shot pictures were taken with a 28mm full-frame equivalent field-of-view. Many camera can't go wider, so I didn't use the 14-24mm range that I have available.
Fixed white balance settings in my cheaper cameras didn't get me realistic colors, and most cameras are limited in white balance settings, so my testing has auto-white-balance set. The colors in my own photos do closely resemble what I see with my own eyes, but this piece of data will need to be a known variable.
I stopped the idea of lux readings since others wouldn't be able to provide comparable data without everyone building a similar light tube to focus the light onto a measurement sensor.
All lights were tested with a 13.8V source Voltage. Incandescent bulbs can get a little brighter with upgraded electrical wiring to allow 14.2-14.5V from the alternator, but the gain is 10-15% at best and not a perceivable change to the human eye. We can start to discern a difference with twice the lumens. Being that our eyes and ears sense changes quite logarithmically, I believe testing at a more real-world 13.8V makes sense, whether your vehicle has additional power relays or not.
I have also decided NOT to test 12V (battery power) output. It would help with cargo light comparisons, but at this time, it isn't something I want to put in double the effort in testing. At 12V the LED products would perform the same while incandescent bulbs would fade in output, and become more yellow in color.
Lastly, everyone's computer monitors are setup differently. Unless using a calibrated screen, at a specific viewing distance and location, results cannot be directly comparable to another person's screen. I hope the comparisons, with identical camera settings, will be enough for everyone's liking.
My test cameras as a Panasonic GF3 and Panasonic ZS35. A separate camera I will be using later for synthetic road output shots is a Nikon D800 with Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. My pictures are in a black room with no other light sources, except a couple status LEDs from my computer and audio mixer. I use fill-flash for product pictures, but will not use anything except camera exposure settings for beam shots.
Power Draw: 1.4W Tested, Unknown rated
Dims Below: Full output until below 8.0V
Marker Comparison Photos:
Signal Comparison Photos:
This bulb isn't used for a signal so there are no photos.
Notes:
I haven't tried any other bulbs in the side marker, other than this LED product which claims to be the brightest. I'm sure there are equivalents out there, but this product should be fine. I'm keeping this LED bulb in my truck and would have no problem recommending it.
Next are the headlight amber marker + signal lamps. Stock is a 3157A amber bulb. These bulbs can be hard to find and the 4057NA (natural amber) is a direct swap replacement which is 1.5W hotter on the signal side.
Power Draw: 1.5W/6.1W Tested, Unknown rated
Dims Below: Full output until below 10.0V
Marker Comparison Photos:
Signal Comparison Photos:
Notes:
The difference between marker and signal illumination should be pronounced. The LED products tested here have a far smaller difference for signal flashes.
These lights flood the area with light. The stock incandescent bulb throws more light forward onto the road, appearing to illuminate directly in front of the vehicle and one lane over, tapering off to the side. The first LED product tested has more spill than the stock bulb, but doesn't throw the light as far. The second LED product has brighter all around.
The comparison photos show that while the stock bulb has the largest difference between marker and signal illumination, the more expensive LED product also has a wider Wattage range, showing a greater difference in the beam shot photos.
Incandescent wins for making the signal flash become more apparent against the running lamp. I would have to recommend the more expensive LED bulb solely on it having a bit more of a difference between its two brightness modes, not on light output. The cheaper LED product has very little difference between running lamp and signal. I will be keeping the $30 pair of bulbs.
Yes, when going through a color filter, the color will change. Incandescent gets much whiter the hotter it burns. You can also see slight tint changes when driving an LED hard, but it is far less pronounced than incandescent.
Next are the headlight amber marker + signal lamps. Stock is a 3157A amber bulb. These bulbs can be hard to find and the 4057NA (natural amber) is a direct swap replacement which is 1.5W hotter on the signal side.
The difference between marker and signal illumination should be pronounced. The LED products tested here have a far smaller difference for signal flashes.
These lights floor the area with light. The stock incandescent bulb throws more light forward onto the road, appearing to illuminate directly in front of the vehicle and one lane over, tapering off to the side. The first LED product tested has more spill than the stock bulb, but doesn't throw the light as far. The second LED product has brighter all around.
The comparison photos show that while the stock bulb has the largest difference between marker and signal illumination, the more expensive LED product also has a wider Wattage range, showing a greater difference in the beam shot photos.
Amber wins for making the signal flash become more apparent against the running lamp. I would have to recommend the more expensive LED bulb solely on it having a bit more of a difference between its two brightness modes, not on light output. The cheaper LED product has very little difference between running lamp and signal. I will be keeping the $30 pair of bulbs.
Will these hyper flash and require a special relay or are they simply plug & play?
Power Draw: 1.4W/5.5W Tested, Unknown rated
Dims Below: Full output until below 9.0V
Marker Comparison Photos:
Signal Comparison Photos:
Notes:
As mentioned in an earlier post, the difference between marker and signal illumination should be pronounced. The LED products tested here have a far smaller difference for signal flashes.
The stock incandescent bulb controls the tail lamp light, throwing it far and many road-lanes wide. The LED products spill more light onto the ground, sky, and extreme sides. Brake-signal illumination intensity directly to the rear is lower on the LED products than the stock incandescent bulb.
Our stock tail light housings do a good job turning the incandescent white bulb's light into a deeper red, and the color tint doesn't change much by going to LED.
The comparison photos show that while the stock bulb has the largest difference between marker and signal illumination, the more expensive LED product also has a wider Wattage range, showing a greater difference in the beam shot photos.
Stock incandescent wins for making the signal flash become more apparent against the running lamp. I would stick with stock incandescent bulbs for the tail lamps since they also throw light further than the LED offerings. Obviously the more expensive LED bulb. while not a big deal brighter, does have a bigger difference between marker and signal lamp brightness over the cheaper LED bulb - I would recommend it solely on that.
I will be keeping the stock incandescent bulbs. Long-term, I will be modifying some tail lights for my own LED project, but it won't be drop-in bulbs.
10-28-2015, 03:18 PM
