I've eyeballed a few new(ish)-on-the-market LED 7" headlamps, and one out of three of them gets a thumbs-up. That's the Philips H6024LED. It's made in Taiwan, rather nicely per my inspection, and it appears they picked one of the better beam specifications in the regulation to engineer/build to (which is what all the "Integral Beam" verbiage is about—there's like nineteen of us in the world who know what that phrase means; nobody else knows or cares, but I guess it sounded flashy to the marketers), rather than the lax old sealed beam standard. It produces a very wide, well-formed and -focused beam, and can readily be aimed visually, optically, or with the old-fashioned Hoppy-type sealed beam aimer that interfaces with the three lens pips. I might not go so far as to call it my favourite, but I don't think I'd find much to gripe about driving with these at night.

Next was the Peak 6024LED, which is marketed by the people behind Peak antifreeze (who have recently decided themselves into lighting people, too, in the manner of MBAs who consider it beneath them to know or care anything about what they're selling; to them it's all just "product"). I had no real hopes for this—and even so, it wound up disappointing me—because even just in the pics it was screaming to me that it's a pathetic joke. I wanted to scrutinise it anyhow, because it does look more like an olde-tyme sealed beam than any of the others. Uhhh…yeah, that's because clueless dillweeds in a trinket factory in China didn't bother with any decadent western running-pigdog capitalist ideas like involving an optical engineer or two; they just pasted the lens from a (cruddy Peak) halogen sealed beam onto a rinky-dink housing containing a thrown-together LED plate. That's not how any of this works; it's like I grabbed some rando's eyeglasses, which he got out of a Cracker Jacks box, and expected I'd be able to see with them. I'd describe it as "Mickey Mouse", but that would be a serious insult to Mr. Mouse and all he stands for. This lamp almost certainly does not merit its "DOT" marking, it is not aimable by any method, and its performance is terrible: a narrow, unfocused blob/cloud of light. Too much glare and backscatter, not enough seeing light…yuck. This dreck is worse than the equally-Chinese-and-shoddily-engineered Holley Retrobright. I sure as hell would not want to have to drive with these at night, and if it were a choice between these and a carefully-chosen set of regular sealed beams or good H4s, I'd pick the regular sealed beams or the good H4s, sure.

Then came Truck-Lite's newest, their 37270C "projector" unit. Made in America, with Truck-Lite's usual high build/materials quality, but poorly conceived and engineered. It produces a good, strong hot spot for distance light, but overall it puts out a thin stripe of light with no depth to it. The road surface will be poorly lit, making you feel like you're always driving into a black hole. I sure as all hell would not want to drive behind these in a big commercial vehicle (truck/bus) which is Truck-Lite's main market. They'd be somewhat less unpleasant to drive behind with a low mount height—think Porsche 911, Mazda Miata, that kind of thing—but not a whole lot less unpleasant, judging by the reaction of the guy at the link who reviewed them after trying them on a Miata (online "reviews" are usually crapola at best, but that particular guy apparently isn't an idiot or a bot). This lamp is a great illustration of the big gap between light drivers need for safety (which it provides plenty of) and the light drivers want for comfort (which this lamp is seriously deficient in). So thumbs-down on this one, but the previous Truck-Lite design, the 27270C mentioned below, is still a fine choice; it strikes a better balance between need-light and want-light (though I might very well pick the Philips item instead).

To make this post a one-stop resource, here's previously-posted, still valid advice on the subject:

If you want LEDs, be careful; there's a mountain of fraudulent/unsafe junk on the market, including all "LED bulbs" that fit in halogen headlamps (see here ) and a whole lot of toys shaped like whole sealed beam headlamps. But there are some good-to-excellent ones on the market, too. the Peterson 701C is pretty good, and so is the Truck-Lite 27270C. Probably the king daddy of them all is the JW Speaker 8700, which comes in black or chrome (and can be had with a heated lens to cope with winter slush/snow). All three of these are well made in America. There's a lot of lookalike copycat junk "recommended" when you look at these; ignore them. Super-poopy junk from NAPA, too; avoid it.

Whatever headlamps you wind up using, the most important thing about them is that they be correctly aimed.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Thanks, Dan!

I was moving toward ordering another pair of the excellent JW Speaker units for one of my other cars, but might try the Phillips ones instead this time. I was extremely impressed with the JW Speakers. After hitting an antelope at 50+ MPH in evening dim light (headlights on) and having my 64 Dart still in pieces and under reconstruction 5 yrs later, I am upgrading all of the lights on my cars as time/$$ allows.

If there are any updates on 5.5" upgrades (for my 62), I'm all ears if you get a chance. Was thinking the 5.5" JW Speakers for that too, although that will take some significant fab work. My 68 Dart with the higher wattage Cibies I got form you is excellent at night, and that's my go to oldie car for non-winter trips.

Best,
Lou

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Yup. There is one (and only one) legitimate set of LED 5-3/4" sealed beams that actually fits and works. Commercial-grade items beautifully made in Korea. Pics attached; as far as I know I'm the only one handling them—send me an email ( dastern@torque.net ) for details. The JW Speaker 5-3/4" items do not fit in place of sealed beams; they have a much bigger rear body that won't fit any sealed beam mount cup.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Thanks!
Lou

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Dan, what's Your opinion on running the new Truck-Lite model below-bumper on high only as a compliment to a set of JW's for high-speed driving?

Thank you for the report Dan.

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

Thank you for reviewing these! It's too bad there still doesn't seem to be a LED headlight retrofit out there which both has a good beam pattern and avoids looking like one the face of a wolf spider. Is there something about the LED light output that requires the LED lamps to have a lot of smaller lamps instead of one big one, or is it just that many of the designers want to make it obvious it's a new and high tech design?

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Matt Cramer
1966 Dodge Dart turbo / EFI project

Oof. This would not be a wise idea. What you're asking about is "driving lamps" (auxiliary high beams). Even good ones get their shoelaces tied together if you put them in a low mounting location, like below the bumper; they want to be up near headlamp height or higher to be able to do their job. And they need to be engineered and built for the task; wiring a lamp so it lights up with the high beam headlamps doesn't make the auxiliary lamp into a driving lamp.

There are good auxiliary high beam lamps, but they usually don't move to the top of the shopping list until your main headlamps work as well as reasonably possible. If you have good headlamps, the likelihood of your needing or wanting auxiliary lamps drops a lot.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

The over-and-under reflector types (the Philips item, the previous-design Truck-Lite, the Peterson 701C) don't have the spider-eyes look. They don't look like sealed beams, but they also don't look too much like they're off a space ship.

Well, LEDs are fundamentally different to previous kinds of light sources in ways that require different kinds of optics. If I had a magic wand to whip up cylindrical LEDs the size and shape of a filament and producing at least as much light with even more magical heat management, then we could have new-tech headlamps with old-fashioned looks (and suddenly it would be possible to have 1:1 LED bulbs for headlamps and brake lights and such that would actually work safely and effectively). Also I'd quickly become a billionaire. Then I'd have to money my way in as CEO of an electric-car company, take it over as dictator-for-life and immediately start claiming I'd started the company from the very beginning, and make extremely dangerous, shoddily-built, spyware-on-wheels cars while claiming they're the safest and bestest ever in the whole wide world. I'd have to spend 44 billion dollars on a social media platform and corrode it to worthlessness using only my mouth. I'd have to have a kid and give it a name like X-Æ-2QP3m5X. I'd have to pretend inheriting wealth from my Apartheid-South-Africa emerald mine owner father was a skill set.

And I don't want to do any of those things, so it's probably for the best that the filament LEDs I describe are not possible and magic wands don't exist.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Now THAT'S entertainment!

Lou

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I think he's trying to tell us something, without actually saying it.

Roger

Somehow Dan's last response seems Elongated,.....

OK, the way You described the 3727OC, narrow focus & lower preferred mounting it sounded like it could actually serve more like a driving lamp with more reach. Thx.

…and now I've got the results back from more formal beam evaluation, this lamp does move into first place on my list of LED 7" round headlamps.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Cool! So the beam power/pattern is comparable to the JW Speaker?

Thanks again,
Lou

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