H7 Projector unit

[Slam3d]

Hi,

Im going to be selling my H7 bosch al style projectors. I've had them for just over 1 year. Used a H7 halogen for 3 months, 55w HID for 4 months and H7 led for 5 months. Still in good condition. They have the bi xenon flap. As others have said on this forum, they are a great replacement for the volvo projectors and are a lot brighter and shine further. They are compatible with any H7 bulb. No modification will be needed to use the projector as they are the same bolt pattern as the oem projectors. However the buyer will need to use a wiretap or something to get the high beam flap to work.

These are RHD projectors (UK, JAP).

Selling due to deciding to change to a Bi led projector.

Currently they are not available, as im waiting for my bi led projectors to arrive in thr post. Hopping sometime at the end of this month. Will keep updated here.

Once taken out I will take some photos and post here.

I'm only looking for about £60+PnP, open to offers. I also have a set of metal based 6000k H7 HIDs and 55w Ballests. Happy to sell these too, looking for about £20, again open to offers.

Any questions drop me a dm or post in the thread and I'll try to answers them.

[Trellis]

I already have a pair of replacement projectors, but I'd be very interested to hear of your experiences with H7 leds.

I'd also like to know more about your bi led projector upgrade please - that sounds very tempting. May be worthy of separate thread in the 'General' area!

[Slam3d]

Originally Posted by Trellis

I already have a pair of replacement projectors, but I'd be very interested to hear of your experiences with H7 leds.

I used a set of 45w H7 LEDs, when against the wall, they were great. Nice and bright but in the real world it was a different story. The left to right performance was great. Cones and cat eyes would reflect really well and I was able to see them, maybe a bit too bright. But the actual useful light was very little. The road it was dim and hard to see at night. I attribute this to a combination of the projector design and the leds them self.

The projector bowl is shiny but I'm not sure why but for some reason Bosch/Al decided not the make the projector bowl a mirror like finish, instead opting for a dull shiny. This results in less brightness (I think). The other half of the the problem is due to leds being left and right. There is always going to be a dim or dark spot as leds cannot shine 360. So, the top of the projector is going to be dim at best or have no light at worst. Unfortunately, we need that top part of the projector to have light as that is what projects onto the road.

[Slam3d]

Originally Posted by Trellis

I'd also like to know more about your bi led projector upgrade please - that sounds very tempting. May be worthy of separate thread in the 'General' area!

Might do one but I forgot to take pictures of the before and didn't take pictures of the process. Depends on how I feel and if others might want it.

But from initial testing, driving round the city after is started to get dark, I can say they are 100% more enjoyable to drive with. My main issue with the Bosch/Al projectors was that hard dark light zone. Literally no light above the cut off. That made road signs at night almost impossible to see. But these projectors have some spill to light up the road signs.

[Trellis]

I know what you mean about the projectors and the lack of light above the cut-off, even with halogen H7s. In fact I'm just about to try fitting the OEM lenses to the Aharon projectors; someone on the forum has successfully done this and it disperses the beam to some extent.

So what & where are the LED projectors? Do you have a link?

Thanks

[Slam3d]

Originally Posted by Trellis

I know what you mean about the projectors and the lack of light above the cut-off, even with halogen H7s. In fact I'm just about to try fitting the OEM lenses to the Aharon projectors; someone on the forum has successfully done this and it disperses the beam to some extent.

So what & where are the LED projectors? Do you have a link?

Thanks

Sorry for the late reply (idk why but i dont get emails about this thread)


Anyway, I got them off aliexpress. I needed to use a hella 3r to bosch adapter too. I know someone on the c30 uk facebook group has done somthing similar using a different projector.

[Trellis]

Thanks for the update - much appreciated.

Your workmanship and the results all look very impressive. I'm seriously thinking about doing something similar as a winter project. One slight downside is that mine is a facelift car and there is quite a lot less elbow room in the headlamp unit.

I reckon loads of other people will be very interested in this thread, so it really deserves to be moved or copied into the 'general' forum area. Is there anyone reading this who can oblige?

[iainmd]

I have a facelift V50 and left the factory projectors in place. A post I put up in Sept 21 (original thread here) on the headlamp issue and how I went about solving it....

On my previous S40 I changed the projector units for new coupled with Osram Nightbreaker Plus. It made a difference for sure.

On the facelift V50 I tried to access the appropriate bolts to remove the projectors and found it way harder so I went down the LED route. Yes, I know it's not legal but here's my experience.

I replaced the H7 halogen bulbs with ones specifically designed for Projector H7 housings link here.

The bulbs must be installed with the LEDs pointing downwards looking like this from the front ^

The bulbs come with no instructions which doesn't help but to install the mounting ring pulls off the H7 bulb and you mount that first to the projector. The LED bulb then pushes into the mounting ring at the rotation angle you choose. As mentioned the LEDs should point downwards.

I have switched the beam flattening lever usually used for driving abroad on both sides as all LED and Xenon systems I've encountered have a flat beam
___ ___
rather than the usual Halogen beam
\___ \___

There is no dazzling other drivers and the car passed an MOT without issue. The LEDs I bought were the only ones I could find that were both designed for projector units and compact enough to fit into the V50 lamp unit. The heat created seems to be low enough not to cause me concern and the built-in CANBUS error cancelling works well. The error cancelling developed a fault after 9 months but ABD happily swapped them under warranty.

Ultimately the V50 headlamps are now usable, probably better than the S40 with replacement projectors and upgrade halogen bulbs. They aren't quite as good as the OEM LED units on my previous 3 series but the huge advantage over any halogen solution is that I'm not replacing a bulb every 3-6 months. That's about all I used to get out of halogen bulbs given they were on all the time.

I resisted the lure of LEDs for a long time due to the legality issues and the poor quality of many earlier units. At £70 I've no regrets for solving the problem.

Cabling wise, there was sufficient room in the units as there's very little bulky cabling with these LEDs. The CANBUS unit in the connector cable is accommodated easily in the housing.

I'm very happy with the lights in wet and rainy conditions. I've driven the length of the UK in all sorts of conditions and they are certainly an improvement over the original halogens or upgrade halogen bulbs.

[Lancee]

"The heat created seems to be low enough not to cause me concern".

This aspect is what (long term) does somewhat concern me though.

Replacement plastic lensed headlamp units that may cloud or crack due to excess heat are not cheap to replace.

I have a C70 Mk2 and used replacements are hard to source and still pricey if you do manage to do so, new are extortionate, Volvo OE circa £1,000 for a pair.

[Slam3d]

Originally Posted by Trellis

Thanks for the update - much appreciated.

Your workmanship and the results all look very impressive. I'm seriously thinking about doing something similar as a winter project. One slight downside is that mine is a facelift car and there is quite a lot less elbow room in the headlamp unit.

I reckon loads of other people will be very interested in this thread, so it really deserves to be moved or copied into the 'general' forum area. Is there anyone reading this who can oblige?

Thats not my work, its someone off the c30 crew uk facebook page.

If I remember sometime next week, i'll take some of my dashcam footage and get some screenshots from it and start a new thread in general.