1200 Sport and an LED headlight "bulb"

[Bisbonian]

I've had this in there for a couple of months.

I had to take the headlight off today anyway and didn't really appreciate the quality of the light I got from the LED so was planning on swapping it back to the standard H7.

The housing of the LED is really quite a bit more melty than what this picture shows. I'm glad I took it out!

[redrider]

The fluorescent types that replace the 60-100 watt incandescent ones caution against full enclosures. Apparently the LED types have heat issues as well.

[rodekyll]

Is that a plastic back?

Who makes that one?

[Bisbonian]

Plastic back with a cooling fan. I thought about cutting a hole in the back of the headlight cover but didn't see them available separately in case I didn't like this.

The light was very white and noticeable in the day, did not provide a good pattern at night and did not light up any distance down the road.

This is a Cyclops from ADVRider.

[rodekyll]

Thanks for the review.

Yes, LED gets hot -- at the back.  Very hot in some cases.  The front remains relatively cool.

[Wayne Orwig]

I wonder if the fan is bad, or maybe pressing against something in the back so hard it was binding the fan?

[Triple Jim]

Thanks for the post, I need to take a look at mine sometime soon.  Which one is yours?  Their part designation of the one I have is CIL-LEDMD, and it's a 3600 Lumen H4.  It has a triangular stalk, and two sides of the triangle light up on low beam, all three on high beam, for 20 watts low, 30 high.  Yours looks different. 

[drums4money]

I've had this in there for a couple of months.

I had to take the headlight off today anyway and didn't really appreciate the quality of the light I got from the LED so was planning on swapping it back to the standard H7.

The housing of the LED is really quite a bit more melty than what this picture shows. I'm glad I took it out!

Good catch.  Downgrade in light quality- Hot enough that the housing requires forced-fan cooling in a confined space.  That could have ended up with hugely undesirable consequences when you need it most - at night!

If increased presence (daytime) and visibility (night-time) is the desire, then a pair of well designed & installed driving lights can do the job AND look the part.

[Bisbonian]

Thanks for the post, I need to take a look at mine sometime soon.  Which one is yours?  Their part designation of the one I have is CIL-LEDMD, and it's a 3600 Lumen H4.  It has a triangular stalk, and two sides of the triangle light up on low beam, all three on high beam, for 20 watts low, 30 high.  Yours looks different. 

This is an H7 replacement. High and low beams are separate bulbs. The high beam, H9, LED doesn't fit in the housing. This was the only LED I found that fit for the low beam.

No binding, plenty of space in the housing. Probably needs the rear headlight cover removed to stay cooler. Too much money to continue to experiment though.

[rodekyll]

For my HIDs I used a hole saw to cut a chunk out of the back of the headlight buckets.  HID also gets really hot.  I was going to put little fans in the holes if they seemed to need more cooling, but since I only use HID on the open road, the airflow + hole seem to do the job.

I'll do temp checks on my truck-lite LED retrofit and report.  It's got a huge aluminum heat sink in a 7" round footprint.