The CX-5 LED Lighting Thread

Guys just looking for a quick update on what bulbs are needed.

Looks like VLED's are the way to go, granted kinda expensive, but there is a sale coming up for New Years.

Looking to (we have a 2015 GT with Tech) replace the front DRL's, the rear license plate bulbs, and possibly the interior ones also.
 
Guys just looking for a quick update on what bulbs are needed.

Looks like VLED's are the way to go, granted kinda expensive, but there is a sale coming up for New Years.

Looking to (we have a 2015 GT with Tech) replace the front DRL's, the rear license plate bulbs, and possibly the interior ones also.

DRL (pair) = P13W
License (pair) = T10 (194, 168)
Interior (x5) = 29mm to 31mm
 
What is the point, to replace the license plate lights? I would rather darken them (wink)
 
And here is a sneak peek at what I got in the mail today ;)



(Looks like the same bulbs that VLEDS will be selling next month. Look at the size difference in the LED emitters! (eek2))

Some of you may have seen my earlier posts and are somewhat familiar with my (semi) obsession with LED headlights. Since my last update, I have also picked up this style of LED:

$_12.JPG


Alas, those didn't make the cut so I switched back to best of the pack so far. After about 6 months of running the 2nd style from the left, I wanted to see how much of a difference if I went back to halogens. Not wanting to settle with H11's, I picked up a pair of H9's and modded the socket (on the bulb). You can definitely tell that the H9 (like the H11) was designed for the enclosure. Beam pattern is identical to H11 with more intensity, excellent visibility overall... really no complaints... And then just when I thought I was done with my headlight search, I came up on a pair of LED's here:

https://www.ebay.com (commissions earned)

$_57.JPG


At first I was hesitant to invest as I couldn't find any information (even the seller couldn't tell me what CREE emitters were used; and of course lumen specs on Ebay will be taken with a grain of salt) on the bulbs. I couldn't locate them on Alibaba or anywhere on the web. But the lure of 360 degree lighting had me intrigued... up until now, most (if not all) LED headlight/fog bulbs on the market do not provide a true 360 degree of light (there usually is a small gap between the emitters where they are mounted on the surface - as illustrated above). This separation is enough to create an incomplete beam pattern (that I have noted in post #402 in this thread). This isn't an issue for halogen bulbs like the H11/H9 and the H11 HID kits (I ran the TRS Morimoto XB35 4300K setup for about 6 months before experimenting with LEDs) as they are transparent and will provide that 360 degree of light.

So what's the verdict on the latest pair LEDs? As far as I can tell, they are now on par with HID in terms of output and beam pattern. The difference between this current pair of LED and the previous style (2nd from the left) is that there is now a proper cutoff (looks like the square root sign for each beam) and proper amount of light spill through the squirrel finders). However, the achilles heel (as with HID in the halogen enclosure) of this setup is that there is a tremendous amount of foreground light to a point of almost overexposing the ground between 5-10 feet in front of the car. As this is the first night I have had them installed (literally a few hours ago), I don't have any good pictures to post yet. I will provide more observations (if requested) as I get more seat time with them (indoor parking garage, side-by-side with vehicles that come with LED headlights in stock form, etc.).

Now for those Crystal Eye tail lights.... ;)
 
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I don't like any of those type LEDs with built in fans to cool.Just another thing to go wrong and burn out the bulb.
 
That is still my preference to use something that does not require a fan (that's why I stuck with style 2 from the left for so long). Verdict is still out on these...
 
D_Frost,

While researching HIDs vs LEDs a while ago on the Net, I found the the quality of the beam pattern (cutoff, intensity and light distribution) was very subjective. A post talking about "a good beam pattern" was not very useful without anything to back it up. This is why I produced this review, so that people could juge on their own. Something similar comparing H11 to LED would be very useful I think. If you decide to do it and have the proper equipement, make sure the car is left in the same position relative to a white wall, and that you use the same camera settings in both cases (ISO, shutter speed, color balance, f-number).

In any case, thanks for your ongoing reviews of LED lighting!
 
One thing I would be concern about with LED in the headlight is that the output would most likely decrease if the light is used in the long run as most LEDs, if it gets too hot, the output will decrease to cool down from what I've read on hidplanet. Most of the LED cutoff/beam pattern isn't quite good either at this moment for plug and play.
 
D_Frost,

While researching HIDs vs LEDs a while ago on the Net, I found the the quality of the beam pattern (cutoff, intensity and light distribution) was very subjective. A post talking about "a good beam pattern" was not very useful without anything to back it up. This is why I produced this review, so that people could juge on their own. Something similar comparing H11 to LED would be very useful I think. If you decide to do it and have the proper equipement, make sure the car is left in the same position relative to a white wall, and that you use the same camera settings in both cases (ISO, shutter speed, color balance, f-number).

In any case, thanks for your ongoing reviews of LED lighting!

In my case, it's the lack of level grounds with a nice flat wall to take a picture of the beam pattern that is a challenge (garage isn't super deep and my driveway is a downward incline). If you read my thread (here: http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?123833765-New-Member-Introduction/page2), I do manually set all my photos to ISO 800, 1/5s, f/4.0, 5000K WB. I have since tried replicating the scene (from my earlier thread) with identical camera settings with the only change being the new headlight bulb. You can find the pictures in the aforementioned thread.

Thanks!
 
Thanks for sharing the pictures. I'm sad to hear about the quality but hopefully they function 100%. FWIW they look great in the pictures.

Okay thanks for the help! It's appreciated. I'm going to try again with the reverse lights this week, I really didn't have too much time other than quickly putting the lights on. Over quality is meh. Hyper flash on the left TL and not the right. Slightly bigger gap between tailgate light and main light on the right side and some moisture got into the very top part of the taillight (It was raining like crazy and it has dried up since). While I wasn't expecting perfection I figured $500 tails would be a little higher quality. I will post more pictures this weekend though. IMO they look pretty good

Some more Pics:

http://imgur.com/AZ0Ptvk

http://imgur.com/WFwlnwH
 
I have a pair on the way and hope to get them installed next weekend. :)
Have you seen or looked at (or has anyone) - a set of these new LED's in the projectors on the non-HID CX5's? I've had the car for a few days now, but I'm not overly impressed with the OEM Halogen H11's brightness or colour. I've read the whole bloody thread (all 514 posts) and saw your different reviews of several LED's. I'm really tempted by these:

http://www.vleds.com/shop-bulb-numbers/h-series/h11-ultra-lmz.html

These are listed as "4500 Lumen" and "good for projectors" - it's a little pricey but if they are on par with an HID kit I'm game... besides my other choice is just to go buy a pair of silverstar halogens (which in my neck of the woods will run almost $80 anyway). If they really are 4500LM and work ok in the projector they really should rival the OEM HID's that are 3100LM.
 
I would say, for best light quality (and quantity) without any concerns for light cutoff differences and glare, go with an H9 bulb (clear bulb). They are easily modded (on the bulb socket) to fit with the H11 halogen enclosures. The only concern will be bulb life but they will be less expensive compared to silverstars. I would pass on silverstars as I haven't had a set that has lasted (plenty of Google results for problems with silverstars).

As for LEDs, I did take some interest in the LMZ (essentially Philips Lumileds bulbs found on eBay - there are 2 variants, 2 emitter vs 4 emitters). While the concept is intriguing with the ability to rotate 360 degrees within the enclosure and up to 4mm of fore/aft adjustment, I'm not 100% convinced that it will be perfect. After playing with so many LED bulbs and looking at the variations in the beam pattern against a garage door (from a close distance) and lots of night driving (thanks to daylight savings time), the ideal concentration of light should be in the upper band (top 15-25% of the beam?) to provide light at a distance while the remainder of the beam (everything below that top band) should be progressively less and less light to provide an even light for medium to short distance. [I'm not discussing the light spill above the cutoff aka squirrel finders but that is important as well for lighting up signs as I'm still gathering data] With that in mind, when you observe the pictures of the LMZ/Philips in the Morimoto projectors, you will see a very intense but even light spread for much of the beam, which will likely equate to a large amount of foreground light (where the same amount of light is hitting something that is closer will appear much brighter than the same light hitting something further).

If you do decide to take the leap (even if you go through eBay), I would suggest orienting the LEDs such that they emit light horizontally (where the circuit board is perpendicular to the ground) as I have found that with they make the best use of the internal reflector in order to give the maximum light through the projectors. This will likely give you plenty of light in the upper band as well as side-to-side illumination.

Be conscious that the 6000K color of most LEDs (or even aftermarket HIDs) may reduce the contrast of the objects being lit (at least from the eye's perspective)... while this isn't a safety concern per se, the human eye does have less blue receptors in the eyes, so visual acuity may be impacted. [I'm not an expert in this area, but definitely an observation while testing all the different styles of LED bulbs.]

Lastly, through all the testing, I do believe there may be something out there (eventually) that can utilize the H11 projector well enough to make it a viable headlight. Now only if I can talk to someone about prototyping a set that I have an idea for :) Good luck!



*I'm no expert in all this... but all of the above is derived from experimentation and personal experience.


*edit: all this talk of the Philips... I just might jump on a pair for curiosity-sake... decisions decisions... ;)
 
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Be conscious that the 6000K color of most LEDs (or even aftermarket HIDs) may reduce the contrast of the objects being lit (at least from the eye's perspective)... while this isn't a safety concern per se, the human eye does have less blue receptors in the eyes, so visual acuity may be impacted. [I'm not an expert in this area, but definitely an observation while testing all the different styles of LED bulbs.]

Lastly, through all the testing, I do believe there may be something out there (eventually) that can utilize the H11 projector well enough to make it a viable headlight. Now only if I can talk to someone about prototyping a set that I have an idea for :) Good luck!

I'd likely pick up the 5000K units to have a colour that's as close to stock HID bulbs as possible - that's sort of my goal - not "super bluish white light" (as testing from independent labs has shown that the bluer the light the more it scatters - creating more problems with glare for oncoming drivers, and a harder time for the rods in the eyes to process the data that's coming back to the driver resulting in a hard time focusing and eye strain). If they had 4300K in LMZ I'd likely even be interested in those. I'm about 35% interested in the "whiter" light look similar to HID, about 35% in having something that illuminates better than the stock H11 (up close light isn't a bad thing for me - I don't drive on lots of deserted dark highways - I do 99% of my night driving on busy freeway that doesn't have overhead lighting), and about 30% interested in what would hopefully be a very long bulb life with the LMZ's compared to halogen aftermarket bulbs (specifically Osrams or GE Night Hawk)... So given that, I'll probably drive another week with my OEM's, and then decide if I'll try the LMZ's. If I do I'll post pictures of pattern and throw and colour.
 
And it looks like I have a pair of the Philips/LMZ (the 2 emitter version, not the 4 emitter version) on the way as well... :) And thanks to cjas22 for posting the instructions, I now have fully functioning led tails. (rockon)
 
And it looks like I have a pair of the Philips/LMZ (the 2 emitter version, not the 4 emitter version) on the way as well... :) And thanks to cjas22 for posting the instructions, I now have fully functioning led tails. (rockon)
Please post photos of the light pattern and brightness once you get them installed - I'm waiting with baited breath (also detail what position you found works best). Also which colour temperature did you decide on? 5000K or 6000K?

Now that the 2016 CX-5 announcements are out I see they now have LED headlights as an option on Touring and GT - I wonder what projector housing they are using for those - if it's the same as they used for the HID's, the same as they used on the halogen H11's, or another "all new" projector/lamp housing... and what the chances would be of a retrofit of those new '16 MY LED lighting systems on the '15s (obviously without the adaptive leveling/aiming functions) - so many questions... I may have to go visit a local lot that has a '16 CX-5 with LED lighting in stock in the next few weeks and take some under the hood pictures to see what they've done to implement them and then compare them to the standard Halogen setups.

IF the LMZ's look good, I will likely start on step one with the 4 emitter 5000K 4500LM low beam H11's. If they pass the muster, then the 9005 5000K 4500LM high beam retrofit comes next, finally followed by the inexpensive 5000K 850LM XB's on the fog lights (which I almost never use, but if all my others are 5000K LED why not finish the package... Ok... so I'll be spending like $600 on retrofitted LED lighting - but what the heck - if they look good, last a long time, and are even a little brighter with a little better vision than stock halogens all around I'm happy.
 
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