M-TECH introduces Plug & Play LED bulbs for xenon lighting conversion
I can't hide the fact that this thought has been bugging me ever since I first encountered such a concept. I thought that, after all, xenon lamps are so efficient that they don't need to be upgraded. I stuck to this position for several years. Sometimes I even insisted on it. However, I believe I was quite right, because the LED bulbs dedicated to factory xenon installations were crippled for a long time. They were adapted by force. Even if the geometry was good, the electronics were lame. They were not mounted in a simple and safe way. You had to bypass the factory installation, bypass the inverter and plug the power supply straight into 12V. This brought with it a number of malfunctions and lots of errors. On more modern cars, the coding of the modules would have to be interfered with, and this already carries the cost of a specialist service. Therefore, in my opinion, it was not worth the effort.
But this has now changed!
Thanks to advances in technology, M-TECH is introducing a new addition to its range, Plug&Play D-LED retrofits! These are LED bulbs, designed to convert factory xenon lighting, which are designed to work with the original installation. Their installation requires no modifications or additional intervention. Dedicated variants for the D1S, D3S and D5S are a compact unit, which does not differ from its original in terms of external dimensions, mounting and connector. In the case of the D2S and D4S replacements, the design of the fan forced the electrical connector onto a cable. What all the above models have in common is that they have been designed in such a way that their operation with the inverter in no way adversely affects the performance of the factory electronics. The electrical parameters of the retrofits match those of traditional burners, so that the installation does not detect anomalies.
But is it worth it? Worth it.
On paper, the M-TECH D-LED bulbs emit only 2000 lumens more than traditional xenon bulbs. Percentage-wise, this is not such a spectacular difference as when comparing LED performance to halogen bulbs, but in practice, in front of the car, you can see a significant difference. The light is more evenly dispersed, has a uniform white colour and, unlike 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, factory-compliant light-shadow line and stable brightness over the entire service life of the bulbs. An additional advantage of LEDs as opposed to a discharge lamp is the illumination time. A xenon bulb requires several seconds to fully illuminate, achieving nominal brightness and colour, when an LED does it in the blink of an eye! The cooling of the retrofits is the responsibility of an active circuit based on a copper core together with a copper radiation tube, through which the heat is transferred to a structurally advanced heatsink with a very large heat dissipation area, additionally supported by a fan.
In the R&D department, we conducted several long-term tests to confirm the quality and performance of these LED bulbs. I then decided to try this product in my private car as a replacement under the D1S. From then on, when I think of LED bulbs as retrofits for xenon lighting I only have one thing in my mind... I only want to drive my car at night!
Dawid Bystroń
Product Manager