- Joined
- Sep 4, 2014
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- St. Louis, MO
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- www.diodedynamics.com
- Vehicle(s)
- 2015 Mustang EcoBoost
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- #16
Ah... sorry, but here comes a bit of a rant:How does the XP80 compare to this one?
http://www.latemodelrestoration.com/item/LRS-3157LEDC/2015-Mustang-LED-Reverse-Light-Bulb
I asked LMR via email and they said it was 850 lumens.
It's not 850 lumens. Probably not even close, based on that design. I test dozens of random bulbs every day, and that bulb is maybe going to be around 300 lumens after it warms up. I don't blame them though, as they are not a lighting company. They just reading the spec sheet from the manufacturer, which is 100% marketing, not true measurements of output.
The problem is, most sellers just provide these inflated lumen numbers, based on the maximum potential brightness of the LED chips on the bulb. For example, if a bulb has five 100-lumen chips, they will rate it at 500 lumens. However, this is not accurate, as the design of an LED bulb does not get rid of heat fast enough to run the LEDs at maximum. You would need the heatsink the size of a toaster to run an LED at 100% power.
These "calculated" lumen ratings are much, much higher than the true, measured light output, so it will look like competitors' bulbs are brighter than ours. This is because we do not provide inflated numbers; we believe it is misleading. We test the actual brightness of the bulbs in our lab, to provide real lumen output measurements. Our measurements are accurate, but they are usually much lower than the misleading "calculated" figures.
Home lighting, in the hardware store, is regulated by law to state the exact true lumen output. However, in the automotive world, there's tons of misleading information, because companies know that most individuals have no way to verify, so they just inflate their numbers. It's just marketing. We test our bulbs with scientific equipment, and we do not inflate our numbers.
I can 100% guarantee you that our XP80 is the brightest plug-and-play bulb on the market for this application, with a true output of 510 lumens after reaching peak operating temperature. We spent a lot of time and money to be able to run our bulb at higher current.
There is a lot that goes into bulb design, especially when you are trying to reach peak performance. Anyone can throw together LEDs, but you need to know what you are doing to really get a quality design. Here's a video showing a very common issue with generic bulbs- they will drop in current and actual brightness after only a few seconds of illumination, because they are getting way too hot.
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Here is how we actually measure our bulbs. It's a little dry, so hang in there- but you will learn how lighting is supposed to be measured. Anyone can throw a random lumen figure out there, we do the measurement. The only other aftermarket company in the US that actually does measurements is Superbrightleds.
Sorry for making this such a big rant, but I spend all day, every day, developing quality lighting products. Other companies simply buy and resell random, cheap bulbs, and throw misleading marketing terms on it, and consumers are the ones paying for it in the end, because it's very difficult to tell what is good and what is bad until the bulb fails at some point. I wish there were as many integrating spheres as dynos, can you imagine a performance company inflating their numbers? Unfortunately, it's just how things work right now. Thanks for reading.
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