LED bulbs as a retrofit of the xenon burner
Does it make sense?
Developments in LED technology have led to new developments in vehicle lighting, including the emergence of LED bulbs as an alternative to xenon burners. Despite initial doubts, more and more drivers are choosing to replace their xenon lighting with LED retrofits due to the range of benefits they offer. LED bulbs have a longer lifespan, whiter and more uniform colour, greater resistance to shock and vibration, and higher light quality for comfort and safety.
Until recently, the market did not generate much demand, as LED bulbs dedicated to factory xenon installations had a bad reputation and were flawed for a long time. They were mainly based on a base identical to the xenon burner and similar geometry, but the electronics were lame. To this day, you can still find primitive replacements on sale that are not simply and safely fitted. They are characterised by the fact that you have to bypass the factory installation, including the inverter, and plug the power supply straight into 12V. This brings with it a number of system malfunctions and a host of errors in the vehicle's controllers which can affect the stability of operation. In more modern cars, the coding of the modules would have to be interfered with, and this already entails considerable costs for a specialist service.
Now, thanks to advances in technology and knowledge of the specifics of how xenon burners work, M-TECH is bringing an absolute novelty to the market in the form of an LED solution as M-TECH D-LED Plug&Play retrofits for factory xenon lighting. What's more, M-TECH retrofits are designed to work fully with the original installation and inverters, so no additional modifications or interventions are required - they simply plug straight into the inverter in place of the traditional burner. The retrofit variants dedicated to different car models, such as the D1S, D3S, D5S and D8S, are compact and identical in size, mounting and plugs to their originals. For the D2S and D4S retrofits, the design of the fan responsible for maintaining the correct operating temperature of the bulb has forced the electrical connector onto the wire. All retrofit models have been designed so that their operation with the inverter does not adversely affect the performance of the factory electronics. Most importantly, the electrical parameters of the retrofits match those of traditional burners, so that the installation does not detect abnormalities or communicate errors. This is great news for drivers who are considering changing their lighting to a more efficient LED light source. Thanks to the M-TECH D-LED Plug&Play retrofits, although they do not have road homologation, this is now possible in an easy and efficient way.
The performance of M-TECH D-LEDs is greater than that of conventional xenons. They emit up to 2,000 lumens more than traditional xenon burners. This is a huge difference especially when comparing the performance of the LED retrofits to traditional D5S and D8S burners, which, for homologation reasons, only emit up to 2000 lumens from the factory. In practice, you can see a significant difference in front of the car. The light is more evenly dispersed, has a uniform white colour and, unlike with xenons, this colour does not change with progressive wear. The same applies to the light intensity. The CSP-type LEDs used guarantee excellent light emission geometry, a clear chiaroscuro line in line with the factory, and stable brightness over the entire service life of the bulbs. An additional advantage of LEDs as opposed to a discharge lamp is the brightening time. The M-TECH D-LED, unlike a xenon burner, does not require several seconds to fully illuminate and achieve nominal brightness and colour. The LED does this in the blink of an eye! Responsible for cooling the retrofits is an active system based on a copper core together with a copper radiation tube, through which heat is transferred to a structurally advanced heat sink with a very large heat transfer surface area, additionally supported by a fan.
M-TECH's R&D department carried out several long-distance practical tests in modern cars, which confirmed the quality, performance and, most importantly, compatibility of the aforementioned LED bulbs. In addition, this product, already available from M-TECH, has received extremely positive feedback from distributors and users alike and its popularity continues to grow.
Dawid Bystroń
Product Manager