Evitek LED Lightbulbs

[Daboo]

I am a self-confessed forum junkie. There, I said it. My secret is out. I belong to more than just BMW forums. You can get some great info on other forums on things that aren't model specific. One of those is lighting.

When my Cyclops H7 LED bulb went out, I went searching for alternatives. One of the places I found a good discussion was in the ST-Owners forum. https://www.st-owners.com/forums/thr...ces-g6.162067/ If you have some time, just follow the discussion. Keep in mind that they have a different headlight system than we do on the F800, and they use a H4 bulb instead of an H7.

What I found is the Evitek F2 might be my next replacement bulb.

Chris

[Daboo]

That was the "short" answer. Here's the background.

The problem with any other kind of bulb in a halogen headlight reflector was that the light output was not in the right place to work effectively. Things have changed recently though. When I put in my first Cyclops H7 LED bulb a couple years ago, I noticed they included a spacer that adjusted the location of the LED light output to mimic the halogen bulb...and it worked. The light cutoff was about the same and the beam pattern very close. The only thing necessary was to adjust the height down a bit.

The link above will give a lot of details on the Evitek F2 and previous models, as well as some other brands or distributors that are selling the same bulb under a different name. And I think you'll also find some feedback on vendors to stay away from. The person most knowledgeable is spiderman302. You'll find him also on ADVRider in the Vendor area for Electronics. His background seems to be that he's an electrical engineer who spent a lot of money looking for better lighting and made some modifications to what was on the market. Evitek paid attention to his recommendations and have made a better product. (I think he's also being paid, so he may not be totally objective.)

Pictures of the front of the bike with the new headlights are worthless to me. What you're telling me is the light looks pretty...not how well it works. Also pictures that aren't direct comparisons don't mean much. But here are some pictures from ADVRider and ST-Owners that are worthwhile to me, and hopefully you.

https://advrider.com/f/threads/led-h...#post-36642894

Keep in mind the next couple pictures are taken by Cyclops and the comments on those pictures are from them. They obviously want to sell their LED bulbs. I don't blame them.














Here's spiderman's rebuttal. Keep in mind that on some basis, he represents Evitek. I do agree with some of his comments though.

So there is a report that tries to show that Cyclops 10.0 bulb is better than the F2 bulb.

Unfortunately they made a big mistake in making the LUX measurements. It is nice that they showed what they did.


First they were sloppy in not adjusting the F2 bulb pattern and both the halogen and the F2 cutoff lines were slightly higher than the cyclops patterns.


Next look closely at the beam pattern of the halogen low beam on page 4. You can see that the hot spot is about a half inch below the cutoff line and slightly right of the vertical line.
This should be where the measurements are made. Since this is the brightest part of the beam.


Now in the FMVSS 108 low beam tables you will find a horizontal test point at 0.86 degrees down from Horizontal line.
If you look at their test chart 50 and 50R is just above the -1 degree line on the -0.86 test point line.
Zone IV is where the hot spot is suppose to be so point 50 is on the top edge not in the middle of the pattern.


So the real measurement point is 0.86 - 0.4(see note ** below) or at 0.46 degrees below cutoff.
They did not give the distance that they made the measurements. So based on the size of the engineer in the photo and the actual measured values, I estimate that the wall maybe approximately 8 feet from the light. So the measurement point should be 0.77 inches below cutoff. (which is where the halogen hot spot is... )


However the photo shows the Engineer measuring about 3 inches below that on the cyclops pattern and 4 inches below cutoff on the F2 pattern.
With the tightness of these beam patterns, making a close in measurement (8 feet) you have to be very careful, two to three inches lower will give a very different reading and would correlate to the incorrect values that they reported.


What is good about their report is the bean patterns on page 4, it clearly show the differences between the three bulbs light patterns.
The great videos that were added also shows how the 10.0 bulb works.


I will say this over and over, that one is not better than the other rather they are different. It is like saying a spot is better than a flood light. No they are different and have different applications. The great thing for us riders is that it gives us more choices.....
We need these choices. different riders different terrain.
--------------------------
** (a side note which gets missed by many in FMVSS 108 is a requirement stating:


"a cutoff headlamp must have the location of the cutoff maximum gradient, as determined by the method of this standard, positioned at 0.4° down from the H-H line." This adds a small shift in the measurements.) but their error is so far off, that this would not make any improvement...


================================================== ===============================


The cyclops 10.0 bulb is missing a feature of the H4 and some of you may have noticed it and others not.


Look closely at the 10.0 bulb and look at the location of the high beam led relative to the low beam emitter. They are on the same axis or they mounted in line.
Look a the halogen bulb and the high beam filament is offset slightly lower than the low beam filament.


Since the high beam filament is lower it will project higher than the low beam pattern! This is what makes the high beam high.


In the design of the 10.0 the high beam is just a more focused low beam, but since there is no shield it does spill over the low beam cutoff and you will get maybe 20% of the high beam over the cutoff line. Look at the videos and the main part of the hi beam is mostly on the pavement. Cyclops needs to up date their design to put the high beam where it should be. With a thick heat spreader they will need more offset than these examples with thin heat spreaders.


These are some examples of LEDs that have the offset that will project the hi beam above the low beam along with the halogen bulb for reference. You can see the offset in the F2. Now you know. Got to pay attention to the details. When they get it right, we all benefit. This needs to be taken as constructive criticism....

And from https://www.st-owners.com/forums/thr...162067/page-16

There are still a lot of junk bulbs that are out there. --[ 2019 ]--

Here is what to look for in a H4 led.

It needs to have a full shield under the low beam emitter. (look inside of your H4 for a clue)

The low beam emitter and high beam emitter need to be mounted offset. (if they are inline you will get a weak high beam)



A heat spreader between two circuit boards will create a wider taller beam. (flood)

A circuit board between two heat spreaders will create a thinner more focused beam. (spot)



A large COB led ( wide flood)

A square led ( in between )

A inline row of small leds (spot)



20 watts min, 30 watts max. (this will get exaggerated by the vendor)

Lumen values are not to be trusted (yet)



Let me give you three options to look at spot, medium, wide.



The F2 and its clones.

It fits my riding needs, it has an awesome high beam on the ST1300. The low beam lights curb to curb and then some.

It is most like the halogen H4 in beam pattern. Low foreground lighting which is better to see far but....



The XHP50 led, this one has a taller beam pattern and really does a better job of lighting up the foreground.

It is better suited for your city driving or slow off road or winding roads. But you will have to be the judge of that.

It does not have the long distance that the F2 will do, too much foreground light reduces your ability to see way far down the road.



The big COB led. This one is more flood and has a smooth wide beam but no distance. It maybe better for city driving. (not for me, but here for completeness)



The F2 is still the best at the moment.

I can see two more steps to improve the F2 model....

One is 3D fabrication which requires re-programming the process,

The other is tubular fabrication which requires new tools not yet built....

[both with very small gains that will only be measured (but not noticed) in full round headlights.



These are what to look for in the different types.

Notice high beam is shifted (left or right) in the pictures. NO offset then no high beam.

Here's one of the bulbs from an Amazon distributor. I am making no endorsement of these. Your purchase will be at your own risk. That said, the cost of the first one is $35 for two bulbs and the second is $38 for two bulbs. Both with free shipping. When I need a replacement bulb, I think I'll check to see what the latest technology is and probably get one of these. If I made a mistake, the investment is minimal.

H7 LED Headlight Bulbs, 7200LM H7 Head Lamps, Car Replacement Lights of Halogen and Xenon Kit, 6500K White 8V-36V, 2 Lamps

https://www.amazon.com/Headlight-ALT-LIGHTING-Waterproof-Customized/dp/B07FXVGTHB/ref=sr_ph_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1532498658&sr=sr-1&keywords=ALT%2BLIGHTING&th=1

And another:
TECHMAX Mini H7 LED Headlight Bulbs,60W 10000Lm 4700Lux 6500K Cool White Extremely Bright 30mm Heatsink Base CREE Chips Conversion Kit(of 2)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CBRXTT6/ref=sspa_dk_detail_12?pd_rd_i=B07CBQTFDM&th=1

Good luck.

Chris

[morfic]

The 60W scared me, turns out it's 60W/pair, ha!
I'll have to try those. While I still have a good Cyclops as backup.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[notacop]

Zow, that's an in depth report. I got some funky LED headlight replacements for $25 and they seem bright and make the road signs really reflect.
i guess i'm not too worried about the occasional passing car and try to dip to low beam in the mountains when I see oncoming traffic.
Funny, 40 years ago H4's were still illegal and i put some in my CJ6 Jeep. I would get flashed by oncoming traffic on the desert freeways.
my how times have changed.

[Daboo]

I'm going back through looking at the pictures, and the Evitek doesn't appear that much brighter than the halogen. It's "whiter", but is there more light there?

I'm happy with the Cyclops bulb they put in under warranty. But the cost of $65 does make me kind of choke a little if the bulb lasts only about 18 months on a 12 month warranty period. Especially, when I see the Eviteck bulbs being sold for almost half the cost...and I get two bulbs instead of one.

One concern I have is the brightness of the light. There are some pretty bright stock LED headlights on cars now. When we're both on level ground, no problem. The lights are aimed down enough, there's no glare. But let the road angle change, and it is like I'm looking into the sun. These Cyclops H7 bulbs started out I think at something like 3700 lumens. Now they are up to 4800 lumens. Will there be a limit?

Chris

[Thumpin]

Chris:

I agree with your "Too Bright" observations. I have a small Pontiac Vibe as my daily driver, and the plethora of new SUV's with extremely bright LED's are a bit problem for me - their lights are right at my eye level and amazingly bright (it is not uncommon for me to have blue spots in my eyes after an oncoming SUV goes past me). The owners of older Ford trucks in this area like to install HID lights in both their headlights and bumper mounted driving lights........you can tell when they are coming as the light as a blue/fuzzy tint to them, and it you flash your brights at them they won't respond....as the HID doesn't have a high/low beam and no vertical cut off and it is just "too bright" all the time.

I have not put any LED's in my BMW yet - I have tried several different H4 bulbs in my other bikes. The Cyclops is good - however the LED's that come from Superbright LED are far cheaper, appear to be very good quality, and they are not noticeably dimmer than the more expensive Cyclops.

I have been running LED H4 bulbs in my car for several years and the early ones had horrible beam patterns and the current generation are much better, and I have burned out a few in the car. I believe the problem is that the 20,000 hour life that everyone quotes is from the company that builds the LED emitters - that is how long they last when tested in the labs. The life of the emitters can actually be significantly less when they are installed in a headlight and exposed to elevated operating temperatures. The underhood temperatures in a car......or the temperatures inside a sealed motorcycle headlight enclosure can greatly reduce the life of an LED headlight. Luckily they seem to fail in the same way filament headlight does - and if the low beam emitter fails you will still have the high beam emitter to get you home.

[Daboo]

A little bit of light follow-up...

I got tired of not being able to see the road at night in my Subaru Outback. What I've noticed is that the gray roads turn black at night when it rains, and the black pavement soaks up every bit of light that lands on it. So I ended up buying the Aukee H7 LED Headlight Bulbs, 50W 6000K 10000 Lumens Extremely Bright CSP Chips Conversion Kit https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 They cost $29 for two bulbs. That's about the cost of a halogen bulb.

I opened the package up and looked through it a couple times. Something was missing. On my Cyclops LED bulbs that I have in my GT, there is this big ballast or whatever that I had to find a place for. It was not insignificant in size; about like a half inch thick stack of business cards. It wasn't there on these Aukee bulbs. Just a thin thing about like a small breakfast sausage. Wow! Impressive!

The bulbs went in fine. The lights didn't need any adjustment at all. The light cutoff seems identical.


Before the install with the halogen bulbs.




One side changed.




Finished. The bulb can be rotated once installed to place the LED chips in the 3 and 9 o'clock position, which is why the light pattern looks different in the lower picture than in the picture above.



BTW, the dark triangle in the middle of the left light's bright spot is an imperfection in the concrete wall I was pointing them to.


In comparison to the Cyclops bulbs,

• The cost is dramatically less at $15 each vs $65 each.
• The ballast is far smaller, so there's less to tuck away in tight places. This ballast would easily fit inside the light housing on my GT.
• The cooling fan is half the size.

So my wife's 2016 Toyota Prius has LED headlights. They are fantastic. They don't quite turn the night into day, but they seemed to in comparison to my Subaru's lights. So I got the idea to do some comparison shots where I could keep the camera settings identical and thereby make a valid apples to apples comparison.

Here's the two sets of lights side by side against my garage door.



There's a definite brighter hot spot in the Prius' lights that isn't there on the Aukee lights.


Outback with Aukee bulbs



Toyota Prius with factory LED lights



I'd say the Toyota's are brighter, but I like what I'm seeing with the Aukee lights. And while the lights were not installed in a Concours, I think the general idea transfers to our application here.

If these last, I'll be one happy camper. Again, thank you.


Chris​​​​​​​​

[Runmyownlife]

Nice work with the comparison. The pictures tell the story.

Interesting how the power supply is so much smaller. Maybe the technology has improved over time. Certainly makes installation in tight places more practical.

Thanks for the review.