Has anyone tried the 6 volt LED headlight bulbs to replace a 1000 32/32 or 32/50 bulb?

Steve,
who lists those ?? I have been trying to find a "prefocous" replacement to try in my '37.

My experience with LED headlight globes is dont waste your money if you want to drive at night, they work reasonable in daylight but more like a match at night but then I like to count the pebbles at least 600 yards in front of me.
Tony

Some model "A" vendors sell them and I spoke with one who says that he has had no complaints from buyers. The candle power is still the same but it's a different color light and is supposed to be brighter. Give me a call when you get a minute as I Emailed you but not sure you received it.

I have had my reflectors aluminum sealed but still not a lot of light output but they do look better.

I have the Bill Hirsch 6 volt headlight bulbs in my 38 and I have excellent headlights. They are a bright white color too.

I would guess they are halogen as I don't see any LED on their site.

They are halogen and I believe they are rated at 35 watts each.

I have not been able to find 6 volt LED bulbs for the reflector beam headlights.

You need to be cautious with Halogen bulbs due to the extra load they draw and heat they generate.

Check out www.ledlight.com #78989. I just installed a couple and have yet to test them out. The pricing is really good compared to the model "A" dealers who wanted $28.95 per bulb. I got two for less than $20.00 including freight.

The key to bright lights is not only the candle power of the bulb but more important that the center of the light source be at the optimum position away from the reflector. That factor is often not well understood by folks.

talking LED headlamps, been looking at the ones that Restoration Supply Company, they have a good selection of 6v & 12v LED bulbs for older cars. I have attached Page 09 Bulbs & Page 10 LED Bulbs from the catalog i have from them, and blown up section for LED

they have the 6v neg ground that are supposed to replace the 1000 bulbs, Part Number: ELE452 at $36 ea currently

they also sell LED to replace most other common bulbs in the car as well.

hope this helps some... i get general bulb info for wattage, candle power, base, etc from Bulbtown

Their online site says they are out of stock until December . Could not find the specs on your page shown other than it replaces the 1000 bulb. If the specs are the same as the ones I paid $6.95 each for I see no reason to give RS $36.00.

agreed, if same bulb and spec why pay 6x as much !!

i was going to call and talk to them so maybe i can get some numbers and specs

Making a good LED replacement for an incandescant headlight bulb is almost impossible. Chipper stated the reason, but to expand a little, the optics of a headlight are designed around spots of light in a particular, exact location.

In an Incandescent or halogen bulb that is a tiny cylindrical hot spot right-to-left (on sealed beams and many American designs). The cylindrical spot could be oriented front-to-back (often in European designs), or a V as seen on many old prewar lights. The V approximates a spherical spot.

LEDs require a heatsink behind, so you cant easily have light in all directions, so you would have to use multiple LEDs, and the thickness of the heatsink is going to push the LEDs out into the wrong place (your "spot" of multiple LEDs is going to be bigger because of the heatsink in the middle, and therefore less focused, even if the location is correct).

I read a review of LED vs Halogen prefocus replacements a few years ago and the Halogens were a clear winner. The halogens had a bit more light output than equivalent incandescent, and did not screw up the beam pattern. The LEDs were about what you would expect, bright but out of focus, kind of a "soft" light. They looked bright, but much less useful as actual headlight than the halogen. They do draw less current, and that is a plus.

Note: the halogens mentioned above were APF (American Prefocus) bulbs with the filaments in the right place, NOT the conversion reflectors that use H4 bulbs. The H4 conversions would have the wrong orientation and positioning of the light spots for old American lenses (and sometimes the reflectors too) that were made for APF or 1000 type bulbs.

I read another review of some LED replacement APF bulbs a couple of years later and they were MUCH better, but still not as good as a filament (when used in a headlight designed for a filament).

The point of this rather long winded post is that you should not assume any 2 vendors are selling the same bulbs. LED technology is progressing at an astounding rate, and bulbs constantly improve. There is probably a bunch of unsold stock of older, lousier LED bulbs out there. The price is constantly dropping too, so you cannot assume a more expensive bulb is better. Be careful.

yeah totally understand the focus and focal point of lighting. makes sense. many people just look at lumens or brightness, not focal points.

agreed NOT all LEDs are created equal, so many Chinese suppliers making them by the millions, many do NOT last long at all or all of them work.

also understand that it may not be wise to put halogens in some older cars due to heat they produce ?? is this factual or not ?? i currently have a set of 1000 bulbs Incandescent i got from TFS, but looking to maybe get something a little brighter. do NOT ever plan on driving at night, but never know when you may get stuck in the dark

The two things that make a huge difference are the condition of the lens and reflector, and the voltage at the bulb. Those 2 things matter a lot, and the other things people do (bright bulbs etc) really don't matter much at all. Bright bulbs can even make things dimmer if the wiring isn't up to snuff.

I haven't done halogens yet (but probably will unless they come up with some miracle on the LEDs). What follows is all theoretical.

Heat is directly related to watts. If the halogens are higher wattage than the original bulbs, there is going to be more heat released into the headlight housing, otherwise not.

The temperature on the surface of the bulb is going to be a lot higher, because the glass bulb is smaller and closer to the heat.

A friend of mine who nerds out over light bulbs told me that halogen really can make more light per watt than plain incandescent, probably 30 percent more, and maybe even 50 percent more in some cases. Depending on the wattage of the bulbs in question, vs the stock ones, there might even be a little advantage here.

The trouble is, in headlights, doubling the wattage would only give you about a 10% increase in distance. It does put more light on the road though.

I will post my opinion after doing some night driving on my street which has no side or center line markings.

been doing some reading and found an article and this graphic discussing how reflectors work with lights and that brighter does not mean focused

If you're looking for prefocus bulbs search ebay for 2530 bulbs. They're 50cp high and 32cp low beam. I bought a lifetime supply a couple of years ago. They used to turn up fairly regularly on ebay.
Here's one.

I believe that the Filling Station also has them. No mention of "prefocus " in the description but they are 50/32 candle power.

Prefocus is the one with the collar around the socket (it is a slightly newer setup).

They don't interchange. Everything else is the same except the bulb numbers, and the fact that you have to move the socket around to focus the bulb on the older setup.

The catch is your generator has to have enough oomph to keep up with higher candlepower bulbs, or they will probably be dimmer.

Talked with Restoration Supply Comp this morning about a few items, and inquired about the LED's they sale. they have them in stock, priced per catalog pages i posted, but they can not provide any other detail then what is on the page. I was inquiring about Candle Power or Lumens, Power Rating, and LED Style/type.

Steve D if it is ok, when i get my LED Bulbs in and run Tests, i will gladly post here for comparison vs creating a whole new topic just for the bulbs i test. i bought 2 different styles to test, but silly me ordered one with the BA15S base vs the BA15D base, so only truly have 1 to test :(

The more feedback we get the better. As I mentioned in a PM my friend has a light meter and we will check both the LED and standard.

ok, so did some bench testing on the 1929 headlamps...

built one complete (bucket, reflector, gasket, lens, retaining ring, trim ring, etc...) and then tested with my optima 6v and jumper wires. put the bucket on the bench and faced towards the garage door. from bench to back wall is about 25 foot. yes that is my 1929 to the left in the pictures :)

i did a few tests.. will group them accordingly below:

Here are the Parking lights:

0-Dark NO Lights on, other than my flashlight for finding pins in the connector and not shorting out the bulbs and battery
1-Standard #63 bulb...single filament Incan, 38 lumen, 3 Candle Power
2-LED #798 6k White....6 fwd SMD LED, 7 side LED, 90 lumen, 6 Candle Power
3-LED #845 6k White....9 PIN LED, 7 side LED, 360 lumen, 23 Candle Power

the standard bulb lights up nicely, then the #798 does about the same lighting, but in a whiter light, then the 845 really lights up the room

now the headlights:

0-Dark NO Lights on, other than my flashlight for finding pins in the connector and not shorting out the bulbs and battery
1b low/c high-Standard #1188 bulb...dual filament Incan, 402 low/628 high lumen, 24 low/34 high Candle Power
2b low/c high-LED #475 6k White....8 low/16 high6 side SMD LED, 1200 low/ 1800 high lumen, 94 low/141 high Candle Power

pretty much same situation, the incan does a good job lighting up, but the LED is whiter and brighter.

It seems the LEDs do have trouble focusing a beam, but are much better than I expected. Thank you for posting the pictures. Please post some on a dark road after you get the car together!

Installed double dipper British pre focus bulb from British supplier Classic Dynamo on my british bike with good results. Pricey (our 3rd world currency is horrible) but gives good light with a nice cutoff on Dip.This is a LED 6/12V bulb they call BPF meaning british pre focus. Their american pre focus APF is still under a redesign so will wait and see.

still need to actually test mine, i have 3 different bulbs to test, but no time...
we have our local AACA meet here in a week, and i am in charge of registration, so been crazy busy, processing payments, and classing cars, calling people, etc. this weekend will be printing out paperwork and packing envelopes for registrants. oh yeah, work told me yesterday that i have to fly to Tulsa for a few days, so have to get all the registrations done BEFORE i go, as i will be back just in time for the show !! then next weekend maybe, just maybe relax a tad, for a minute or two.

I have used my halogen headlight bulbs for several years and they deliver excellent lighting. They are also focused properly. They are rated at 35 watts which is nominally 6 amps per bulb. I have not experienced any heat problems.

Going to put my updated info in this post, as this post is about LED headlamps

Back in May I did some more testing of Some LED Bulbs I recently purchased

Here is the order of testing:
00 No Light
01 #1188 Incandescent Bulb
02 #68645 LED
03 #78989 LED
04 #74474 LED

They were all tested in my garage, same car, same battery, etc... only about 10-15 minutes between bulbs swaps. ( yeah I got pretty good at swapping out bulbs ) also no bulbs were harmed or touched in this process

Note the tape on the garage door (Not perfect but)
the top most tape is centerline of my 1929
then there is a lower tape on the left and one on the right they mark the center point of the light buckets

took several pictures of each bulb
1 from windshield forward
2 from radiator cap forward
3 standing at door looking at headlamps (looking down)
4 at door looking head on into headlamps
5 standing on passenger side at garage door looking at radiator
6 standing on drivers side at garage door looking at radiator

all specs, pictures of bulbs are in the attached image (spreadsheet)

All bulbs tested were purchased from : LEDLight.com
...great service, great prices, quick delivery. have bought from them several times, no issues

Test 00 No Light

Test 01 #1188 Incandescent Bulb

Test 02 #68645 LED

Test 03 #78989 LED

Test 04 #74474 LED

After all this, i decided to stick with the LED #74475

been very happy with them, though i do NOT drive around at night. i did post a short video of me turning the car around.

1929 Chevrolet International AC - LED #74475 Headlamp Test