Upgrade SEL original halogens with better halogens?

It will be the 2020, did not get it yet, just preparing myself..

 

My Kona uses 5-8 Watts festoon or wedge type halogen bulbs mostly. Yes they can be quite easily and cheaply replaced with an equivalent LED bulb from ebay. While replacing them is relatively easy, trying to get a replacement LED bulb of a desired brightness or colour temperature can be a bit of trial and error sometimes.

 

I'm in the process of installing/testing a pair of the LASFIT low-beam LED units. There
are quite a few caveats on how to do this with minimal frustration, and I expect
there will eventually be a webpage on it.

An interim step was to swap in only one side, and find a wall to compare beam
patterns between LED and halogen. The stock bulbs have a lot more "hot spot"
in the middle of the throw, straight forward. Maybe the LEDs will have a wider
pattern, better on curves at night, or maybe they'll throw too much toward the
left and dazzle oncoming traffic despite the top cutoff. That cutoff only really
works on level roads; if my car's tilted up at all relative to the viewer they
basically get the full blast. That's a huge problem nowadays and I'm surprised
the NHTSA isn't all over it.

Old sealed-beams used to bias low-beam brightness toward the *right* as
well as down, and I guess that never actually made it into today's standard
requirements.

_H*

 

YouTube channel 'Headlight Revolution' does a good job breaking the choice down. In short the recommendation is that the best designs place the smallest possible LED segments either side of the thinnest possible heat sink to emulate as close as possible the halogen filament that the reflector / lens is optimised for. A wider and somewhat defocused beam is of course a result of the practical compromises required.
Certainly the Lasfit beams cast a much wider beam resulting in less than ideal center brightness but I find that the cutoff is still acceptable and am hoping that they pass my first inspection coming up in Oct 2021. As a retrofit they're not technically legal in NZ here but may pass with a nod and a wink.
The other recommendations are that you choose the fan type with remote driver electronics. Clearly the Lasfit miss on that last point but time will tell if they are reliable as a single unit.

 

Thanks for all the pioneers exploring the great unknowns for the rest of us newbies...

Looking at the LASFIT units on Amazon, the Amazon fit guide says they won't fit my wife's 2021 Kona EV (preferred)... in fact I'm finding no actual proof that something that will fit a 2019/2020 Kona EV will fit the 2021...I may wait a few more weeks to see if things get updated online.

Are folks still happy with their units?

One observation, the issue of heat build up and its effects over the long term, as per comment by KiwiME (I think).

Because of that, I'm looking at these:

https://absolutehid.ca/led-conversion-kit.html

 

Unfortunately I don't see anything better regarding that design plus it says not recommended for projector headlights, which is the lens type on my low beams and I can only assume your Kona EV as well.
The excellent YouTube channel I noted above recommends fan type cooling rather than a passive heat sink, the spacing between the LEDs looks even larger than the LasFit and the orientation of the elements looks 90° out. Even worse, the additional box of tricks is not going to fit inside the headlight housing and not being able to replace the weathertight cap is unacceptable. I have seen one or two posts where owners can't even pack in the LasFit connector but I think they haven't tried hard enough, as it's tight.
Stunningly both these and the LasFit have plastic adapters which fail to exploit the heatsink Hyundai have already provided inside the lamp housing for moderating the temp of the halogen lamps.
I don't have total confidence that the LasFit lamps would last many hours driving over years. If one failed at night it would be unfun to change it out at the side of the road. However with my typical usage it's unlikely I'll find out. When I do use them I find the cutoff excellent despite the excessive beam width. Vertical adjustment is important as it's way different from halogens, but my model has a dash thumbwheel to adjust height on the fly.
I'm going to leave them in because overall it's a thumbs up.

 

I asked for and received the installation instructions for the units I was investigating so I could understand why they looked so different from the LasFit setup.

When I got to the step telling me to drill a 1" hole into something, that immediately cancelled any interest I may have had in them.

Some time next week I'll do a visual inspection of the headlamp holder setup and if it looks like your photos, I'll assume they will fit my 2021 car.

 

KiwiME, the lamps you bought and installed, can you confirm this is what you got:



This is what I believe is the same unit, on the Canadian Amazon site:



...and you did not need to order the collar/adapter, confirm? Thanks.

 

Here's the page from my purchase. It says above this that it doesn't fit my 2019 Hyundai Kona Electric but obviously it does.

 

Perfect, thanks.

I'll be hitting the buy button later today...

 

Looks good! From this picture is seems that there is more light aimed to the right, which is very useful.