Many vehicles today are coming with LED headlights right off the line but before this was a popular item to find direct from the manufacturer, people were already upgrading their lighting to high power LED or HID conversion kits. They do this because they want brighter lights than what was available through their old halogen headlight bulbs. Now that you’re seeing more cars and trucks come with LED or HID headlights I was curious to see how they compared to the aftermarket “conversion kit” type of option out there.
New Headlight Style for Ford
Today we got to test out the new style LED headlights on a Ford F-150 Raptor. You can get these headlights on a Non-Raptor F150, but that’s what happened to show up at our shop. The 2015 – 2017 Ford F-150 has the new “C” shaped headlight housing and comes with your choice of halogen headlights at a bargain, or an extra $3,000 for the LED option made by Ford. You can already purchase an LED Headlight Bulb kit for your F150 and so we tested the halogen headlights, versus the OEM Ford LED headlights versus the new S-V.3 LED headlights. Here are the results:
Lux and Beam Patterns:
Lux is not the same as Lumen. Lumen is the sheer amount of light produced, whereas Lux is a measurement of how intense the light is at a certain point in space, like at 50 feet down the road, right in the center, the Lux can be measured between different lights to see which one sends more light in front of you than another. So for this comparison, we used a digital light meter to see how much Lux was created by each headlight option in a controlled environment. We put each headlight at 30 feet away from the wall and found the brightest single point in the beam pattern for the testing:
The 2015+ Ford F150 halogen reflector headlight produced 608 Lux at 30 feet. This H11 halogen headlight bulb is rated at about 1,100 Lumen per bulb.
The 2016+ Ford F150 LED module headlight produced 590 Lux at 30 feet.
The 2015+ Ford F150 reflector headlight with the S-V.3 LED headlight bulbs produced 905 Lux at 30 feet. This H11 LED headlight bulb is rated at about 3,000 Lumen per bulb.
Lux and Lumen Ratings:
The old style halogen reflector headlights use a 55w halogen headlight bulb rated at about 1,100 Lumen per bulb. In this test, they produced 608 Lumen of light at 30 feet. The new style OEM LED Ford F150 headlights produced only 590 Lux at 30 feet… Yes, that’s right – the halogen reflector headlights were brighter!
Then we plugged in the S-V.3 LED headlight bulbs and the Ford F150 LED S-V.3 bulbs tested a whopping 905 Lux at 30 feet! That means the S-V.3 H11 LED headlight bulbs are 50% brighter than both Ford OEM headlights! This was a very surprising test indeed!
OEM Ford F150 Reflector Halogen: 608 Lux
OEM Ford LED F150 Headlight: 590 Lux
S-V.3 LED Headlight: 905 Lux
The 2016+ Ford F150 LED module headlight produced 590 Lux at 30 feet.
The 2015+ Ford F150 reflector headlight with the S-V.3 LED headlight bulbs produced 905 Lux at 30 feet. This H11 LED headlight bulb is rated at about 3,000 Lumen per bulb.
The 2015+ Ford F150 halogen reflector headlight produced 608 Lux at 30 feet. This H11 halogen headlight bulb is rated at about 1,100 Lumen per bulb.
Street legal in the USA for Fog Light use. Not compliant with DOT / FMVSS108 and not street legal in the USA for Headlights. Certain specialty vehicles strictly limited to off-street use and not having DOT registration or license plates may use these products exclusively off-streets. International street legality varies by country. This usage regulation is not unique to a specific bulb, ALL LED and HID bulbs from all other brands, regardless of marketing claims, are prohibited from street use in halogen headlights in the USA.
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