hi everyone and welcome back nowadays almost all cars come equipped with the latest technologies available if you can afford them of course some of these extra options include upgraded lighting systems like your headlights tail lights or ambient lights so today we'll talk about tail light led upgrades as some cars still use incandescent bulbs for the taillights it's no wonder that manufacturers will sell you led replacements for these cases but the question is should you do it do these products offer any advantages or are they just trash ready to set your car on fire well that's what we'll try to find out today i bought 10 different led bulbs to compare with the classic incandescent type among which we also have the philips extreme autumn on generation 2 and the osram led driving which will be given away more details about that later first we'll take a short overview of each product lined up after which will perform a light output test followed by a temperature check using the thermal vision camera and of course an endurance test let's get started so there are a lot of different types of bulbs and that's because the lights of the car are the main distinguishing factor between the brands and every car manufacturer is trying to come up with better and better designs moreover the bolt design must allow easy replacements and have protection features in place with the purpose of preventing users of installing incorrect bulbs although this doesn't seem to stop them that's why the main difference between them is the mounting system and the power taillights generally have four or five functions brake light position light or parking light turns into lights and reversing lights and in some countries they also have fog lights but today we'll only focus on brake lights and parking lights which must always have the color red i decided to go for the bay 15d mount which has the brake light and parking light in the same bulb the reason why i've chosen this type is because it's the most challenging design for which to manufacture led retrofits the classic incandescent bulb has two filaments one for the brake light which typically has 21 watts and one for the parking light which has around five watts and therefore the bulb can have four states off brake light on parking light on or both lights on in order to achieve this led manufacturers can use two different approaches one uses low power leds for the parking light and some other high power leds for the brake light although only one bulb from this comparison uses this method and two all leds light up at reduced power when the parking light is on and go full power when the brake light is on the biggest problem that leds have is of course thermal management as we could saw in my previous episode on headlight bulbs this can get pretty hot and can fail if not cooled properly so let's take a look at the products lined up because most of these are made in china they do not have a specific brand associated with them you may find them rebranded under a lot of other names but they're basically the same so in order to avoid confusion i'll associate a letter to each one for easier referencing and starting with the cheapest one pulp a which is just a pcb with 22 leds stuck to a mounting base no heatsink or ip rating bulb b is the second cheapest with 27 leds again no heatsink and protection bulb c which is similar to the previous but has a metal housing and a lens on top i'm not sure why though bulb d with 24 leds mounted on a metal housing with a fancier look bulb e with a strange conical design it has 10 leds and a metal housing this is probably the second most compact product in this comparison after bulb a bulb f another conical design in a metal housing this has 48 leds in total bulb g a two sided led bulb using two csp led chips now csp chips are very bright and we usually found this in headlight bulbs hopefully this is not that bright bulb h is the biggest one with 144 leds everywhere this also has a glass cover for protection but no heatsink now the osram bulb with a very interesting design and the only one using different leds for each light function four leds in total two of which are low power for the parking light and two are high power leds for the brake light these are mounted on a metal frame which is also the heatsink and finally the philips bulb it has a similar design to those ram with six leds facing backwards this is also the second biggest after bulb h because of that white heatsink okay now that we know the products we'll start with the light output test under united nation regulations brake lights must have a brightness ranging from 27 to 82 lux at 1.5 meters and a bit higher for north america so i'll first start with the classic incandescent bulb as a control after which we'll move on to the leds the taillight was positioned at 1.5 meters from the projection surface and i'll be using a lux meter to measure the output for the brake light the control has 70 lux and for the parking light it has two locks which is 35 times less than the braking light this difference is very important so that the driver behind you can spot immediately when you are braking also having such a low light output for the parking light you will not disturb anyone driving behind you now let's see how the leds do starting with bulb a and immediately we can spot the problem for both light settings the lux meter is unable to record the reading meaning that the light output is less than 1 lux at this distance this product is very dangerous and should not be used bulb b is next for the braking light it has a maximum output of 1 lux and for the parking light 0 lux again we have the same problem bulb c again has a maximum reading of 1 lux for the braking light and 0 lux for the parking light what the is there a pattern emerging here hopefully some of these leds will be better than this bulb d now and we can finally see some light again the braking light has 24 lux and nine lux for the parking light which is approximately two and a half times dimmer bulb e is a bit brighter with a maximum reading for the braking light of 30 lux and 8 lux for the parking light bulb f has a maximum reading of 30 lux and 6 lux bulk g has a very weird light projection because of the two-sided design it has 66 lux for the braking light and 24 lux for the parking light although the light is projected sideways bulb h has 68 lux and 17 lux i thought that this will melt your eyes but it still has lower light output than a classic incandescent bulb now let's see how osram performs the maximum light output is 67 lux for the brake light and four lights for the parking light and finally the phillips bulb this has 71 lux for the brake light and seven lugs for the parking light okay so as we could saw most of them are useless basically and should never be used the ones that come close to the incandescent bulb have a relatively small difference between the two light settings which can present a risk if someone behind doesn't notice that you're braking we still need to measure how hard these products get but before that let's make a side by side comparison with the classic bulb depending on your specific usage bulbs can be mounted straight as we could saw earlier and in some cases it can sit sideways for a classic bulb this doesn't affect the performance as it emits light in all directions but leds can have difficulties so you should consider this before choosing a product here we have two identical stop lights side by side on the left we have the incandescent bulb and on the right we have the leds let's see how they compare hmm so far in my opinion the osram is doing the best job at replicating the light intensity of the classic bulb the ones before either had very poor light output or had too much light output for the parking light setting and it looks like phillips also has a great result it's quite difficult to capture the color hue of these bulbs on camera but another advantage which these leds offer is the pure red color with very rich and saturated hues compared to the classic bulb which has an orangish hue as i mentioned earlier leds can get hot if not cooled properly so using a thermal vision camera let's measure their performance we'll start with the classic bulb to have a control the maximum temperature reach around 175 degrees celsius which is expected from an incandescent bulb with both filaments on running at 14 volts now it's time for the leds starting with a holy 211 degree celsius i don't even understand how the heck it's not melting on burning out not even headlight bulbs get that hot and this is tested in an open environment imagine having this bulb in your taillights on a very hot summer day let's see how the next one does 95 96 celsius still a lot for an led bulb bulb c now 94 95 celsius seems to be the highest next 180 181 maximum wow didn't imagine that next is bulb e 103 107 max still very hot the christmas tree is next bulb f wow a very manageable 70 73 degrees celsius the best yet if you can say that bulb g now yeah 140 143 i expected this one to get hot now bulb h the big one 115 116 degrees and this is the glass temperature on the outside i imagine that inside it's getting much much hotter next is dos ram 50 54 degrees max yeah well the difference is pretty obvious it has the best results so far and last is phillips 59 60 degrees celsius right on the leds again a very good result compared to the chinese bulbs imagine having this bulb in your taillights on a very hot summer day on a hot day i believe that it would get around 60 or 70 degrees celsius inside the taillight heck if you live in australia it would probably get even hotter so i'll set my oven to 70 degrees celsius and after the bulbs reach this temperature i'll turn them on toasty 250-220 in some spots well i imagined to go much higher so all bulbs got around 10 or 20 degrees hotter in the oven except one as far as i know leds and other components which get hot during operation must be manufactured from flame retardant materials these materials still melt if exposed to high temperatures but they won't catch fire in case of this led i presume that whoever made it used some inappropriate glue or something was left behind which ignited okay and the final part is the endurance test more exactly a vibration test as leds handle on off cycles very well i decided to perform just this experiment as is the toughest one to pass i didn't use my jig for this because i wanted to expose these products to a lot more vibrations therefore the leds were strapped to my multi-cutter tool which oscillates 12 000 times a minute and the time limit for this test is 15 minutes if the product survived this they can probably survive going to mars on the first run you can see the classic bulb on the left and of course this feld as the filament is very susceptible to vibrations other than this one no other led failed which shows that from an endurance point of view they are really good so now that we performed all the necessary tests let's break it all down starting with bulb a and honestly there's nothing good to say about this avoid it at all costs don't spend your money on this trash and don't set your car on fire with this junk i should give a rating for this but my rating doesn't go that low just forget about it bulb b c and d are exactly the same garbage very low light output and a fire hazard avoid them at all costs and just like before forget about it bulb e and f starts to have more light output but still very low compared with the classic bulb my rating for this is go home son you're drunk bulb g is pretty bright but the design can have a negative impact on the light projection and the parking light is much too bright my rating for this is you can do better bulb h finally has some good light output but still not better than the classic however it gets pretty hot and although it didn't fail in the oven i would not trust this bulb my rating for this is you can do better now the osram bulb at last one product that we can compare with the classic bulb in my opinion this is a very good choice even though it's far more expensive than the chinese products light output is excellent and thermal management is also excellent the plastic housing surrounding the metal frame is translucent and whenever the light is on this also spreads the light so that it appears to be smaller very nice product my rating for this is shut up and take my money and finally the philips bulb and just like the osram product this has excellent characteristics light output is even better than osram and is the only one higher than the classic bulb so if you're interested in such products don't expect it to be brighter than the incandescent type as we could saw none of them were only philips at just one lux and that difference you can barely notice it if you need these products buy them for the increased reliability or for the saturated color or for the fact that they can be instantly on or off my rating for philips is shut up and take my money now we know that if you need replacements philips and osram can provide but products from china should stay far away from your car but now that i have them i cannot just throw them away maybe there's something i can do with them wait a minute just a moment yeah yeah look at this oh my god yeah totally not a fire hazard where's the extinguisher okay so that's all i have for you today if you like this episode and found it useful hit that like button and consider subscribing if you have a friend using some of these chinese products do him a favor and send him this video before he goes out in a blaze of glory the osram and the phillips bulb will be sent to two of my patron members so if you would like to support me in making more episodes like this and at the same time have a chance to get some of the products that i'll test you can join at the link in the description you can also follow me on social media where i post updates for the projects that i'm working on and you can check my website for more details about the tests i do if you're watching this as it gets released i wish you happy holidays and a well a better new year thanks for watching and have a great day bye bye and a great year bye [Music] [Music] you
