LED Lightbulbs

[charles]

'cos most cars, idiotically, only allow you to use the fog lights when the headlamps are switched on.

[charles]

and even they give out a lot more light than the tungsten as supplied with my Anglia.

[Andy Burns]

Test drive an R8 about 5pm in winter then!

Ditto.

I think by the time they've struck and been waggled to level them, they're at full rightness

I don't know if that applies or not, I think mine has some normal bulbs used for flashing and during the warm-up, you see the colour change when these switch off, not examined them in detail though.

Dunno if mine is mirrors or some sort of shade that is raised to unmask for high beam, again I've not looked.

[Andrew Gabriel]

HIDs are cheap to make and factory fit and increase the perceived value of the car, which makes for a good manufacturer profit margin. Also good profit on spare parts.

LEDs are still expensive to design and manufacture for the required performance, and don't add much (if any) perceived value over HID, so not yet so compelling for manufacturers. It will probably come in time though, particularly as efficiency isn't a significant factor in this application (high efficiency jacks up LED price).

LED would perhaps allow for some clever stuff with dynamic cut-off adjustments, such as automatic left/right side dipping based on GPS (country, and even road-specific, e.g. where there can't be any oncoming traffic). If the French still required yellow headlamps, I could imagine some adjustable colour versions too (again, derived from the GPS location).

[Mike Clarke]

Glad mine doesn't fall into the "most cars" category then. The scatter from the headlights would defeat the benefit of the sharp cut-off beam from the fog lights.

[dennis]

Let us know when you can get halogen lights that can do this

[dennis]

Do you mean the rear fogs, I know of none that have front fogs where you have to have the headlamps on as well.

[grimly4]

Oh, I do like that; especially the selective illumination in the face of oncoming traffic. Otoh, it's just another gadget/gizmo to go expensively wrong.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I realise you're not technical, Dennis, but multiple lamp halogens could do exactly the same thing. Although just why you'd want to escapes me.

But it's nice to see you're impressed by computer animation.

[<me9]

Can you quote evidence of that? I'm sure that was the case in the 60s and have trawled the net to find the rules for how high lights must be to be used in good visibility and failed miserably in finding any evidence of the illegality of the current spate of foglights in good visibility.

Exactly! It's fairly rare for any fog lights to be needed. Rear foglights should only be used when visbility is below 100 metres, so speed needs to be restricted too. Most peeps switch on rear fog lights as soon as there's a hint of mist, and don't slow down, being unaware that the fog lights mask their brake lights and signals, being much brighter.

The regulations state that only one rear fog light is allowed, and that must be on the offside, to reduce the likelyhood of them being mistaken for brake lights.

[dennis]

I realise you don't know as much as you think but the optics to do that with halogen lamps would be rather difficult. The filament would have to be too long to actually make the sharp cut off required. But I guess you don't know much about the differences between LED lamps and filament lamps.

Its not all animation, but I realise that you can't tell the difference. Even Mickey mouse cartoons are more impressive than you these days.

[PeterC]

Last had that coming home from walking on Kinder Scout. Brilliant day on the tops but cloud below 1500'. On the last roundabout on the southern edge of Derby I lost the kerb and had to go round again; I could just see the signs fron about 5 yards away.

A bit further on we turned L into a pub's car-park (we often used that pub) and were followed by another car. The other car realised that we'd parked and swung L. It got to an exit (visibility there was about 10 yards), turned L onto a minor road, reached the A-road from which it had come and turned R! It had Channel Island plates, so it might just have been a tad lost - only

180 deg. though.

[charles]

agreed

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You can't have tried very hard. It's in the highway code.

that seems to suggest they must be used with headlights. Which completely defeats the purpose of them.

They are normally the same brightness as stop lamps or indictors. They are also very useful in heavy rain in daylight. They allow you to see there is a car in front before you can actually see the car itself.

Both my cars have twin rear fog lights.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

A sharp cutoff is achieved with a french flag. Many many cars with halogen and HID units do this. LEDs will be no different. It's down to the optics, not light source.

Obviously a lot more than you.

If they have to resort to animation, it means real world conditions don't show the effects they're conning the likes of you into believing. Are you actually dribble? He's another who believes everything he sees in adverts.

[Huge]

My Disco 3 has a mechanical interlock in the switch which means you cannot switch the fogs on without having the headlamps on, and the front fogs come on before the rear ones. Both of which I find bizarre and irritating.

If I could be arsed, doubtless some judicious rewiring and attacking of the switch internals with a file could sort it out.

[ARWadsworth]

vbg

[Dave Liquorice]

Only stupid prats but there does seem to be a lot of them about. If it's having them on when visibilty is >100m it's leaving them on in traffic.

Rubbish many cars have two rear fog lights. It's only the smaller cheaper cars that have one and the coresponding place in the other light cluster has the reversing light.

True if there is only one.

[Dave Liquorice]

Also means that the rear fogs get turned off automatically when you turn off the main lights. Years ago I suspect the main reason for rear fogs being on when they shouldn't have been was due to lack of interlock/self cancelling and tiny tell tale out of the drivers normal view.

Surprised a DIII has a mechanical interlock, both DII's I've had they have been under control of the BCU. Are the front "fogs" real fogs or "auxillary driving lights"? A real fog has low wide beam with the cut off on the ground at around 30' or less from the front of the vehicle. No good for night driving on their own.

[ARWadsworth]

When I had a Berlingo (only one rear fog light on the OS) I got a MOT failure for a NS rear fog light not working and a £5 bill to fit a new bulb. Bet you can guess what I did with that bill:-)

The mutual agreement reached between myself and the owner of the garage after the argument was that it would be best if I did not use their garage again.