paran

I'm looking to update my interior / exterior lighting on my 2005 545i.

I know that BMW uses Osram for their interior bulbs so I used this Osram link to check for LED retrofit options: http://am_application.osram.info/publish/index_en.html.

License Plate Light example:

OEM Osram bulb (6418): 45 lumens (5 watts)

Osram LED bulb (6498CW) retrofit: 30 lumens (1 watt)

So LED isn't always brighter.

Nor does the number of LED-SMD bulbs reflect light output accurately as your super-bright CREE flashlights have only ONE LED-SMD but are many times brighter than your Home Depot version with 10+ LED bulbs.

In addition, is the IC circuits, and IC board, the components are mounted too. Have you noticed all of the splotchy looking LED Stop lights on your drive? Those are burned out LED bulbs most likely related to poor quality IC chips/boards.

BMW has recently come out with a LED retrofit kit (63122212788) that contains 10 LED bulbs and cost around $110 - $130 discounted.

Since most of the LCD retrofit vendors provide no information on the lumen output, country of manufacture, component manufacture, I will probably hedge my bets and go BMW. I hope the presence of BMW places added pressure on the vendors to provide much greater detail about the products they are offering. Most are very small companies, so I place little emphasis on "lifetime warranty" claims

For a reference, the Top 4 LED-SMD manufacturers are:

1. Nichia
2. Samsung
3. Osram
4. LG

Also look for lumen output from the finished item and not the bulb exclusive of the IC mount. In general, IC boards/chips from Japan are superior to those from China.

A company called Putco, makes their IC boards in the USA: http://www.putco.com/products.cfm?action=ProductView&Id=9ac2d6b7-08ff-e25f-2db7-46b0cfa0a689

They might be a worthy substitute to the BMW product.

paran

I ordered the OEM BMW 10 bulb LED kit from Tomkinson BMW for:

Order Total: $105.70 delivered to Atlanta, GA.

(About $10.50 per bulb)

Here's a photo of the two bulb types included:





BMW is not offering a Festoon type bulbs at this time to replace the license plate and footwell bulbs on my 2005 545i.

So, I went to www.carid.com to purchase the Putco bulbs from them. Here's a couple of photos of the Putco product:





Nice stuff, although I'd stay with BMW all day long if offered

But here's the rub with Carid.com. They wanted this for 5 bulbs:



Check out the shipping charge for 5 bulbs! $40.75 dollars.

That's just an insult in my opinion.

That's why I hope that BMW becomes more involved in the LED retrofit market.

Too many games being played in my opinion.

I look forward to the BMW product arriving from Tomkinson BMW and will keep looking for comparable products to the BMW line at around $10.50 per bulb.

It's strange that BMW is that much cheaper than the nearest competitor.

By that I mean, not a marketer who chooses premade Chinese product without any information on lumen count, country of mfg., and LED-SMD component supplier. Those marketers that simply go to Alibaba.com and pick some product from the hunderds of Chinese vendors offering LED autotmotive bulbs.

So far, only Putco seems to be in a similar league with BMW, but not nearly as specific in their specifications.

To order Putco bulbs, you MUST physically measure each of your OEM bulbs because Putco does not have a cross reference with BMW nor Osram part numbers.

For exaample: I have a trunk light with a 41mm OEM festoon bulb, but Carid.com/Putco recommends a 1.5" bulb for my car. That won't work!

vkhong

You should consider the Crazy LED kit offered by member John@Motorcepts. I was in Atlanta recently and member khooger was able to see the kit in my E60 at night. This kit provides complete light housings (not just festoons) for trunk, dome, foot well and under door. The only festoons are for the visor and glovebox. They are "crazy" bright.

These pictures were taken with a camera held by hand, not a tripod.

paran

I beleive there are a lot of bright LED kits but I'm trying to stay with OEM lens housings and only replace the bulbs. The closer to OEM, the better, in my opinion.

But I'm leery of all of these LED marketers selling kits for the BMW and providing very limited information on the product other than it's brighter than OEM.

Here's what I'm talking about:



So when I'm sitting at a stop light, and that overhead, LED display of "red" has 1/4 to 1/3 of its bulbs burned out after a few years, I wonder if this won't be the case with these aftermarket kits.

That's why I'm going with BMW and Putco in an effort to prevent a "burn-out".

paran

"Eating some humble pie." "Having to eat my words." etc.,

I received the BMW light kit I ordered from Tomkinson BMW (received in 2 days via Fedex but it didn't cost extra).

So I put my trusty 10x loupe to the stick type led bulb and guess what I found:

The PCB board is made by these guys: MetInfo enterprise content manager system | MetInfo CMS-

Yep! After all of that blather by me about BMW; they also out-source their LED kits to a Chinese/Estonian company.

The box says: Made in Estonia but the PCB board is from China.

There is no mention nor stampings on the LED SMD bulb, so who knows who makes that component.

Knowing this, I would go with Made in the USA, Putco LED, product over BMW because they state their LED-SMD bulbs are made by Nichia and their PCB boards in the USA.

Use etrailer.com Putco Lights | etrailer.com for Putco bulbs as their prices after S&H added in, is so much cheaper than Carid.com.

OR

Look for a USA based marketer of LED kits to see if any of them also use FastPCB, as I am once again, going to assume, that BMW chose a good, reliable, Chinese supplier for this item.

paran

I think this forum/post response by the LED marketer called Umnitza illustrates how the consumer is often the guinea pig in trying out new led offerings from China. Not to mention trying to find which of the 230+ Chinese companies actually makes a product that will last over a year or two.

paran

How to choose Angel Eyes for your BMW:

1. Heat kills LED's faster than any other factor. I see 10w and 12w bulbs being placed in Angel Eyes products because its "brighter". But that requires a very efficiently designed heatsink to eliminate the heat. Remember, that on a LED, only 40% of the electrical current is converted to light with the remaining 60% becoming heat.

Look at these two images of a CREE LED:



The one above at about 186 degrees Fahrenheit and below is at 264 degrees.

The critical point of heat is called the junction of the LED module with the PCB board:



The reliability of any LED is a direct function of junction temperature . The higher the junction temperature, the shorter the life time of the LED

That's the difference in the thermal design of the system.

Let's look at MTEC who is considered one of the premium Angel Eyes manufacturer:

On a 3W unit that looks pretty good although there appears to be more "flash" than surface subtance I think it's one of the more massive heatsink designs at 3w.

But look at this picture comparing their 3w to 6w products:



They used an identical heatsink even though they doubled the current flow. Huh? That doesn't make sense relative to thermal effciency. Either their 3w unit ran very cool or they're willing to run a much hotter 6w product. Heat will shorten the life of that 6W over the 3W unit.

Here's a product that seems to be getting closer to proper thermal managment:





They both show a heatsink made of CNC aluminum that is mounted directly to the back of the aluminum bulb housing and can be mounted such that the long fins are pointed up for maximum air flow. This unit cost around $280 and is made by EAS and called angelibright.

I would not buy this product until I saw some real world data on heat dissipation effectiveness as $280 for it could still be a "heat trap" given that it's 10w bulbs.

Many of us have played around on PC's and noticed the massive heatsinks over the processors. The best heatsinks have many thin, solid copper, fins along with massive fans to cool them. Remember, heat rises, so always try to orient a heat sink’s fins such that the airflow is not impeded in the upward direction, opposite gravity.

They should be cast or forged, and possibly stamped in the case of copper. Look at this chart to see the heat dissipation capabilities of various materials:



You'll note that Copper, Silver and Diamonds are the best. In reality, only copper is viable given cost considerations.

That's how important the heatsink is to reliability as "heat kills".

What to look for: Large. solid copper, or cast/forged, anodized, aluminum heatsinks. Many thin fins that are orientated such that as hot air rises the fins allow the heat to pass through easily.

Once you find an Angel Eyes product that addresses heat dissipation OVER brightness, you're on the path to an LED product that will last more than just a year or two. If you can't find such a product, stay with low wattage units that will simply replace the yellow tint with "white" and are only visible at night.

Otherwise, you're going to spend a lot of cash, to generate a lot of heat, that will result in a short term life.

Here's some additional information taken from CREE:

Q:
Why does the identical LED chip package lumen depreciate at different rates from manufacturer to manufacturer?

A:
Unlike previous technologies, LED manufacturers have a much greater impact on the rate of lumen depreciation based on their luminaire designs. Thermal design plays a critical role in the rate of lumen depreciation. Therefore you should see variation in lumen depreciation from manufacturer to manufacturer, as well as within different product families offered by the same manufacturer.

Q:
Why is the life span of an LED measured as lumen depreciation?

A:
The life span of an LED is vastly longer than that of incandescent, fluorescent or HID lamp sources, generally lasting 50,000 hours or longer. Although the LED never really burns out, product life span is measured by lumen depreciation.
The Illuminating Engineering Society's (IES) current standard for calculating the life of an LED as the point at which the LED reaches 30 percent lumen depreciation.

Remember, a 100,000-hour rating is not equivalent to lamp life rating. LED life is rated where it has reached 30 percent lumen depreciation. At 100,000 hours an LED would still be operating, but at a decreased lumen output.

Reliability

The reliability of any LED is a direct function of junction temperature . The higher the junction temperature, the shorter the life time of the LED.

Heat generation

LEDs generate visible light when current passes across the junction of these miconductor chip. However, LEDs are not 100% efficient; much of the power running through an LED is output as heat, which thus needs to be dissipated.

Cree white XLamp LEDs are over 40% efficient. That is, under normal operating conditions, approximately 50% to 60% of the input power is output as heat, while the rest of the input power is converted to light.

Printed circuit board

Most Cree’s XLamp LEDs are required to be mounted on a PCB to provide electrical and mechanical connections to additional components such as the driver and heatsink.

The thermal effect of the PCB can be significant, so care must be used when choosing or designing a PCB
-------------

There is no one right answer to heatsink design and each application must be approached on a case-by-case basis, but the following general guidelines can help in the design process.

• Maximize the surface area of the heat sink to maximize its ability to convect heat away from the LED source.

• A rough estimateof approximately 5" - 10" in2 of heat sink surface area per watt of heat can be used for a first-order estimate of heat sink size.

• Do not restrict the air flow between the fins. Understand the orientation of the heat sink in the application in which it will be used and maximize the airflow through the heat sink and around as much surface area as possible.

• Choose a material that has good thermal conductivity to spread heat away from the LEDs.

• Use high surface emissivity heatsinks to maximize thermal radiation heat transfer. Anodizing dramatically increases the emissivity of an aluminum heatsink.

http://www.cree.com/~/media/Files/Cr...Management.pdf

paran

Here's how BMW adresses the LED heat issue on the E92N:





BMW Part Number: 63117263051

Massive heat sinks with large cooling pins on both sides.

Don't let anybody tell you that LED's run cool so a heatsink is not that important.

The BMW design is optimized for longevity as they have warranty issues to contend with and so massive heat sinks are required.

jmk

Great info, paran! I have given up on finding the "best" AE LEDs as many are falsely advertised.

A 10W, 3 LED assembly (BMS) isn't necessarily brighter than a 6W, 2 LED assembly (Weisslicht) since all of the LEDs are ~3W each. The BMS ones are not "directional" so the light is distributed randomly whereas the Weisslicht attempt to direct the light into the optics of the AEs.

I might end up giving HID AEs a try. Who knows.