Just to explain the wiring - BMW Laser headlights are active. That means, it does all sorts of stuff like adaptive high beam where it forms light tunnels for cars in front of you and cars coming against you so that you can have high beam on all the time and still don't blind people. They also do stuff like highlight signboards. So the lens assemblies swivel and individual LEDs are controlled based on inputs from a camera mounted mounted behind the IRVM.
They also react on the weather conditions. Heavy rain will give you another light beam then dry weather. Also the speed will change the beam from wide on slow speeds to an beam with long range at high speeds
This was a real treat to see. I've been wondering how these things were built. Very much seems built to a spec, not a price. Thanks Mike, your content is always something to look forward to.
That certainly explains a lot of questions. When I first heard about laser headlights, I assumed it was some marketing BS, since lasers are a) focused very tight, and b) not white. Using a laser to get a phosphor pad to glow never even crossed my mind.
@@MVVblog well yeah, lasers make everything cooler. Just waiting until they release RGB headlights that set the color temperature depending on the weather or user settable and do rainbow puke at a stoplight until you drive again...
The idea is quote new as blue LEDs and lasers are only like 10yr old technology. The laser phosphor was first used in projectors and in them it is very long-lifed amd stable. So no need to doubt that they wouldn't work well on this application.
I just took a quick look at my own car headlight setup... It's got a SLIGHTLY less complicated wiring loom. Pin 1: Ground Pin 2: +12V for the low beam filament Pin 3: +12V for the high beam filament As STRANGE as this might seem, this 'oversimplification' of my headlights hasn't (yet) caused me to drive into any trees / buildings / parked cars etc while driving at night.
Exactly!!! And while I am certain that my 'dinosaur-technology' headlights effectively WASTE some quantity of fuel over their life (due to the larger current they consume), I strongly suspect the following: 1: The money I'd save buying less fuel would be HUGELY outweighed by the sheer cost of a set of these 'lights'. (Note that I use the term 'lights' rather loosely here) 2: The amount of pollution generated by that extra fuel over the entire life of the vehicle is, most likely, significantly LESS than the amount of additional pollution simply manufacturing those behemoths! And in conclusion, I would like to pose the following question... Q: How many highly skilled (and overpaid?) 'mechanics / engineers' does it take to change a light bulb?
That BMW headlight is from an adaptive system. A computer alters the beam shape using a forward facing camera to see oncoming traffic etc. So light is always in high beam. That's why the loom was so complex! Crazy stuff for just a headlight!!
@@mikeselectricstuff proper smart car at that point. What's next, full Nvidia Turing card with an artificial intellect? I think I'm seeing the left headlight wink at me?
It may well work well for the driver, but it's dreadful coming the other way and meeting a modern BMW at night, I have no idea how they ever got approved.
Fascinating video. I learned a lot. I thought the laser lights were just a marketing ploy and they didn't really use lasers, but apparently they do. Really appreciate the teardown.
10:30 That side firing LED is for the driver to have better lighting through the corner. It illuminates the street on the side of the car for when you're turning in that direction. More expensive systems have turning headlights and cheaper systems use the mist lights (often seen on VW's).
Well, it is only used in applications sub 50km/h, as "turning light". Those headlamps are also fitted with the adaptive lowbeams, which enable the headlamp to have "city mode, country road mode and also highway mode", each does change the lighting pattern. With non adaptive LED (which includes the typical Matrix LED from Audi), you doesn't get adaptive Lowbeams that rotates the projector into the curve. There the "turning light" might as well fire up for better illumination and to mimic the adaptive low beams.
Also VWs have a second bulb for cornering in the fog lightsm which is shining far more to the side. These are only activated on slower speeds, when signaling into that direction or turning the steering wheel very far. Using the actual fog lights was just an intermediate solution or is just programmed in by the owner afterwards. (Which is made possible by the manufacturer in the first place) It however ist not a steering light. It may be used in addition to that, like in the BMW.
The led on the inside wall that looks like a fog light is actually the light that turns on to illuminate your turn. So if you come up to a stop sign and have your turn signal on, that led will light up the direction you’re turning to help you see that way at 90°
@@zuestoots5176 didn’t say it was original, bmw is like apple. They like to make something that’s been around for a while flashy, then claim they made it.
One reason for the motors in the light assembly is that legislation in Europe (I'm guessing elsewhere too) requires these new high output lights (1st gen was the ones with xeon bulbs) to be self levelling. Basically regardless how heavy the load in the car is the low beams will not blind oncoming traffic. The second reason is the BMW auto panning feature for the high beams, that create a dark hole in the beam and keeps the cars in front in that dark spot as to not blind them and yet keep the high beams on. As for the over engineered comments I will say try and drive those lights on the autobahn or on a nice country road. The illumination is mind blowing. So definitely engineered but not really over.
@@hausaffe100 no, the point of these lights is that they don't shine light in the direction of oncoming traffic. Works surprisingly well with the BMW lights, not so well other brands yet though.
@@sheldonholy5047 my experience on my daily comute proofs otherwise, bmw audi benz all of these luxury cars are more blinding than any of the halogen cars
Nice to see the difference between "it sort of works" Chinesium and an actual, safe, compliant product. Its always quite hard to explain people, especially higher-ups and "makers" why work takes so long after a proof-of-concept prototype has been demonstrated. Sure, the chinesium thing produces light in some way. Just its not where it should be, it is where it shouldnt be, and it has exactly zero safety functions. Also, it looks like the misused LED has some burn mark already from the laser beam? Looks like great reliability then. Even better, the failure mode is spectacular: Phosphor burns and darkens, burns off, chip now is reflective, laser beam goes out front.
Great video Mike, thanks for taking the time to produce it. Goodness knows how complicated the rest of the car is if they put this much effort into the headlights.
Now I understand why I think the cops are behind me every time someone with those things goes over a bump in the road behind me. It's the chromatic aberration of the lens pulling the blue to the edge so as the edge of the beam hits my mirror I see flashes of blue and white
or just the super sharp edge of the beam flicking back and forth making it look like they're flashing their lights at you, even without the blue haze too
Hi Mike, thanks for the really interesting video. It's a very small world, that BMW headlight came from my neighbours' car! Very expensive bit of kit but works very well and has lots of tech in it. Regards Dave
All of the BMW LED and laser headlights are beam forming. For the EU market they are lit as high beams and only shut off specific sections that are pointed towards cars in the oncoming traffic and prevents blinding their drivers. Due to the regulations In the US, this system is disabled by software and you have separate low beams and high beams. Years ago, when Audi came out with the first Matrix headlights, I also bought one with broken lens to take it apart and see what inside. I was amazed by the amount of custom lenses, light pipes, LEDs on flex PCBs, custom heatsinks, control modules, wire looms and stepper motors I found in it. I also recovered over 60 T20 self tappers. And I was looking at the laser headlights for a year now, but thanks God Mike did it before I find one.
The US has relented and allowed the matrix system now. But the vendors don’t use it. In the EU they got permission to make matrix headlights twice as bright under the theory that the lamps will turn off the areas which are aimed at other people and cars. So no one is (temporarily) blinded by the now twice as bright lights. They did not get permission for the extra brightness in the US. Headlights that are twice as bright are a sellable feature. But since they cannot offer that they turn it all off. I guess the matrix dimming just isn’t as sellable on its own?
Thats what insurance is for. If you have a good driving record, your insurance policy would even have a very low deductible. Me personally, I have just a $400 deductible for my policy, so if somehow I get into a little bump that destroys only my headlight on my 2020 X3M Competition - the lights are similar to this design and are also adaptive - while BMW charges about $1800 per side, I'm only ever going to pay $400 and my insurance takes care of the remaining $1400 plus the labor cost for the dealer to install it. If you're going to argue about rising insurance premium when making a claim.... Most insurance companies that are worth your business don't raise premiums just because of a claim. Otherwise you can simply switch companies to one that is better to deal with. Also these adapative headlights are both an option for lower spec trim level, and are included as a package for the higher spec trims. If you can afford a car on a higher trim level, you should be able to afford the cost of repairs. If you're worried about even the cost of replace an adaptive headlight on a higher trim spec car - you REALLY can't afford the car. Here's some simple financial advice when buying a car: Never buy brand new unless you're expecting to keep the car for more than 7 years Never finance a car (new or used) if the monthly payments are more than 25% of your monthly income Never lease a car unless you like throwing money down the toilet - the lease payments are calculated based on how much the depreciation the car is expected to lose during the term, you're literally only paying for the depreciation. Or unless you want to drive an expensive luxury or exotic supercar for a short time because thats about all they're good for. And simply put... never buy a car, if you complain about the cost of repair and maintenance. Cars are depreciating assets. People need to stop thinking they hold their value.
My guess about the translucent blue bricks on top of the light sensors is that they're detecting the laser light itself, rather than the bright light coming off the phosphor. I'd imagine the system would want to shut itself off quickly if, as you mentioned, the phosphor fails and the laser comes through.
When you showed the low beams on the wall, I noticed a "bump" in the top line that I have noticed every time I get into a BMW at night, and now I know *why* it's there. It's a shadow from imperfect alignment of (what I would call) the shutter. Thank you.
If your referencing the "slop" in the cut off then your incorrect. It is intentionally there to light up your side of the road but is sloped to not blind on coming drivers. Sadley we dont see it too often with all the idiots slapping leds into reflectors.
I believe the unidentified light fixtures are not fog lights but cornering lights. The reason why different groups of LEDs are switched is to change the beam depending on the traffic and environmental situation, it's like a low cost matrix implementation, but together with the curve lighting it should be quite effective (judging from how incredibly well BMWs curve lighting works with HID lamps). It's quite an impressive design, but I'd be very interested in an unbiased comparison between regular LED and LED + Laser since I'm not convinced that the potentially much longer range of the laser is actually that useful.
These BMW lights are controlled via a K-line (slow single wire serial connection) but are also connected to the CAN-bus to be able to diagnose and update the module.
Good info! Somehow the concept of "update the software on my headlights" sounds vaguely like "change your blinker fluid", but I guess that's the way of the future!
I remember acquiring a car headlight as a child and connecting it to my model train set transformer back in the 80s. How things have changed, alien technology compared to a Cortina headlamp :)
i remember buying starters, alternators and headlight without even checking the make and model and using them on my tractors and various equipment. now you need a 30pin connector just to drive a single headlight.
Agree. Already now, swapping a single LED headlight can cost you EUR 600 or more (and that's with a cheap brand). What people forget is that phosphors in LEDs are under a lot of thermal stress, meaning they break down over time. This a) affects the light color (it gets dimmer and more blu-ish, decreasing visiblity in fog/haze by A LOT, b) increases short-wave light output, thus increasing the risk of retina damage in the eye. ... this means that during the lifetime of your car you WILL have to swap both headlights at least once!
It doesn’t take too much longer to heat them and separate than cutting. I start out at 250*F for 5 min and check the adhesive. Once I get it soft enough to begin, I use my heat gun to keep the adhesive pliable. If the headlights are going to be put back together, while I am taking the lens off, I use the heat gun to keep the adhesive hot so once the lens is off, I start removing whatever adhesive is left over in the housing. Great video!
the lensed lamps are all main beams and the reflectors are all high beams. the small lamp in the corner is a steering lamp that comes on when making low speed turns or have a turn signal on, lights up the road on the side of the vehicle.
My wife has an Audi. Tried to replace a light at a regular mechanic shop. Had to go to the dealership because the car's computer needed to be "introduced" to the light assy. Until the dealership did that, the light refused to power up
Lightbulb DRM? I'm done with this shit gimme my tungsten lamp back But seriously though I'm with Dan, push for right to repair! If we don't take this shit back soon, it's just going to get harder and harder
Ask a farmer about right to repair. We all need to pressure our politicians. In Dubai they have better led household bulbs because the ruler asked philips to make bulbs with longer life.
I hear you, this is when heavy legislation and sales meets engineering. And i clearly see how legislation and standards are built to keep new players out and to artificially blow pricing up
Driving at night has become increasingly infuriating, I drive both a small car and a van, in the van everything is fine but the small car, literally every new car has it's headlights shining right in my eyes from the side mirrors.
Yeah I hate driving at night now. I often can see the shadow of my own car in my headlights becuase the new car behind is so bright lol. You cant even get away from them in the daytime now with the stupid EU daytime running lights law.
It's a real problem, I've yet to confirm it but my working theory is they're all aimed as high as legally possible to wow the buyer ignorant of how headlights are supposed to work (low beam is only supposed to light the road ahead and signs, not shit a hundred plus yards directly forward of the driver's eyes). At this point I've learned to spot them and look away before the oncoming car comes out of the pothole it just hit and flash blinds me. And that's not even getting into the blatantly illegal led light bar shit all the asshole 4x4 trucks around here have decided is the hot new thing to have.
When he mentioned the 700-800gbp used ones on ebay I went like "cool so that headlight costs as much as my entire Citroen C1* did" *= Toyota Aygo with a bodykit
Haven't gotten more than a minute into the video, but I'm so excited because I've wanted these for my car ever since I saw a commercial for them! At the time they came out, they were not US DOT (Department of Transportation) approved because it was new technology. Crossing my fingers that I can 1) afford them, 2) fool the computer into being happy with the drain, and 3) make them fit - without looking like I made them fit!
I can remember when car headlights had 2 incandescent bulbs, 1 for highbeam, another for lowbeam, clipped into a reflector mounted on 3 screws with springs to align them. It was simple, it worked and it was cheap to fix.
Nice. And you had light for exactly 2 and a half Meters. Some time ago you had to turn a lever in front of your car to turn it on. Worked too. You ether want technical evolution or u don't. So many always cry for old tech but want maximum comfort.
@@Nef4riousify I'm not saying I miss the old days, (you could'nt see a thing with em, esp in the rain.), I just think there is far too much engineering in the new ones. You could still have the nice bright lights, but easier and cheaper design.
@@frankowalker4662 well to be fair this headlight shown in the video is one of the most advanced that there is at the time. It is a adaptive headlight meaning it automatically controlled to always have high beam on and still not blind oncoming traffic. It has curve light which moves and titlts the light according to the curves on the street. It has 90 degree turning light if you take turn or tight corner. It has automatic self leveling for when your car is loaded different than usual. All this is for comfort. So that the driver doesn't have to worry about anything. But of course all these things have to be mechanically and electronically controlled and moved. Wich then again takes a lot of engineering to get all this in a relatively small enclosure. But surely not overengineering. It looks so complicated becouse it is and needs to be to fulfill all these wishes and needs. Ofc this leads to insane repair bills if something is broken. Mostly becouse industry needs to make complicated systems like modern headlights as 1 part items. But that's again so no casual would open it up and try to fix it themselves. Wich leads to more dmg or danger in such systems. And then again if anybody doesn't want to pay for the repair of such a headlight than just take the basic version. Wich is at best a led light with little to none mechanical movement or electronical control. Easy and cheap.
Seeing how these new clunkers eviscerate my eyes at night, they'll soon use artificial stars powered by actual nuclear fusion. Why doesn't anyone do anything? Some of these cars are so bad that when they come from the other side, all I can see is a blinding blue-fog, until they pass me. If there's a pedestrian or anything in front of me at that exact time, I have no chance of seeing it. Where I live, this is an increasing problem, driving at night has become an ordeal due to these crap headlights.
Yes I dont get how they archive certification. Even modern bicycle lights have this problem. I think the luminous flux density is just way to high. A bigger aperture or lower brightness would help
@@Galeere2 I agree, too much lux. Even the taillights keep getting smaller and harder to look at. On the headlights a softer cutoff would help a bit too, and/or regulating them to be aimed lower. I think all the regs, especially in the USA, haven't been updated to really account for what can be done with LEDs, so the manufacturers ignore the spirit of the law (functional lighting that doesn't blind people) and do whatever looks nice and sells.
This is why a light front end bump writes off your low mileage 3 year old car. Think bumper(painted) parking sensors,radar distace control sensor, front fog lights, head lights,grille,aircon condenser. If your airbag(s) deploy its all over, ignoring all other damage the cost of replacement bags and trim is prohibitive.
Good. Means I get a new a car without having to worry about fixing it and not worrying that I own a car that has been previously damaged, thus significantly reducing its resale value, and the potential that the car wasn't repaired properly in the first place which will cause other issues in the long term.
@@rotor13 Do you even realize the amount of energy it takes to produce a whole new car compared to producing replacement parts? It seems like you're really only thinking about yourself when you say these things. Congratulations, you don't have to feel the effects of your waste because you can afford good insurance, that doesn't mean that there are no effects worth considering. Maybe you don't care about environmental issues. There's another major reason you might want to cut back your consumerism. China controls the largest deposits of 20/24 of the natural resources that we use the most of when producing things like cars and consumer electronics. Every new device you buy, whether that's a car, or a TV, or even a toaster oven, directly contributes to growing China's soft power, and thereby shrinking the power of your own nation.
These BMW headlight assemblies are absolutely ridiculous. My neighbor bought a 2021 BMW for their teenage daughter and (surprise surprise) the headlight got a massive hole in it from a rock chip on the highway. Funnily enough the hole is almost exactly the same location and size as the one in the video. They said the dealer wants 3 grand to replace the headlight. 3 THOUSAND DOLLARS. FOR A HEADLIGHT. I get that it's all fancy and modern with movable lenses and such, but it's like they intentionally make it as complex as possible to jack up the price, knowing that the sorts of people that buy these cars won't mind spending a ludicrous amount of money on maintenance.
There are replacement lenses available from third-parties - check TH-cam for videos on replacing. Failing that look for ones from a breaker - typically about £800-1K on ebay
@@mikeselectricstuff People that buy newest BMWs for their teenage daughters/sons are not really interested in DIY stuff. They would rather pay someone to deal with the problem than do it themselves for 5 times less $.
The typical way of removing the front clear lens from the BMW (and other brands) is to heat the whole assembly in an oven heated to around 230-250 degrees F for around 10-20 minutes to soften the glue enough to pull it off of the main housing. Best example of how complicated modern lighting systems are getting on cars today. I think it's really cool, but soon it seems the head lights may not work without being plugged into the car and be super expensive to replace.
I think we're going to see LED matrix headlights spreading downwards instead of lasers. For the same end goal but the matrix approach offers more control to prevent the problems you have with the laser source ones blinding oncoming traffic. A number of the LED matrix system use the forward looking ADAS cameras to detect on coming vehicles and dim a region of the matrix to produce a dark spot over the oncoming vehicle. The requirement to up the output during the headlight wars caused lasers to come on stream before the supporting technology for the matrix approach. From memory Ti has a couple of parts and part collections aimed at helping OEMs implement matrix systems now.
Interesting stuff - thanks. That BMW lighting assembly perfectly illustrates why I'm keeping my 1995 Lexus until the wheels fall off. The added usefulness of the fancy lighting is in NO way sufficient to justify the added cost and ridiculous complexity compared to plain ol' halogen. IMHO.
I agree. Although, if you ever drove one of these cars, you could not deny the impressive performance of modern LED/Laser headlights. A few years ago I had the chance to drive a BMW 7 series with (at that time) prototype headlights. It had DLP-based adaptive Low/Highbeam and a Laser Highbeam that reaches as far as 600m. I think it's safe to say that with these headlights, you carry your own artificial sunlight.
@@sigmaxi7822 Unfortunately they also suffer from being misaligned, or from the loose nut behind the wheel turning the levelling control up to max, so all you get as oncoming vehicle is a blinding light from the vehicle. In the vehicle and correctly aligned they are great, but unlike a cheap $5 Osram halogen bulb, which probably will last the life of the vehicle, these very likely will fail shortly after the vehicle is out of warranty, like the HID units are very prone to doing. Only reason the manufacturers love them is because the entire optical unit is very small, and thus there is a massive reduction in the space needed to fit them in the vehicle, plus they also can be made very flat, reducing frontal area. That they are also a good source of upgrade option money, plus guaranteed spares sales as the vehicles age, or accident damage, is just classed as a bonus. The BMW ones with the 2 stepper motors is so the lights can self level from the 3 axis gyro unit in the vehicle, plus also the adaptive cornering turns the lights into the corners to both reduce glare to oncoming vehicles, and to illuminate the inside of the corner as well.
Yeah. That car is disposable. The unit can’t even be opened let alone repaired. Once the car reaches 10 years old then it is just one rock impact from being totaled due to repair costs. After 15 you probably won’t even be able to get the parts. What a waste.
The reason the loom is so complicated, is it connects to the camera system in the car, so as well as the basic functions of constant height adjustment to keep the beam straight on bumpy roads and tilt for cornering illumination, they have beam shaping (so that you dont dazzle oncoming traffic) and a spotlighting function, so if a pedestrian/animal is picked up ahead by the camera, it will focus the beam onto this upcoming hazzard
The yellow phosphor has a much wider beam angle than the laser, so the metal bar in front of the BMW laser will be to also block the blue laser beam while allowing most of the yellow phosphor light to pass.
In easy way of removing the headlight front glass is to put the light in an oven at around 125 degrees for 5 minutes, this softens the glue and the lenses can then usually by gently levered off
I think your 'fog' light on the side actually lights up the area to the side so you can see where you are turning when you put your turn signal on. I have a 2015 435, (F36). and yes, it also auto levels, and also steers the normal low and high beams proportional to the steering position. Also, I believe the projector lens is a Fresnel lens or Fresnel hybrid or something.
When I hear "laser headlights" I thinking a freaking awesome RGB laser configuration with some fiendishly complicated optics, heatsinks and power supplies to provide an utterly clean fan of pure white laser light that's perfectly mapped and flexible when it's projected onto the road.
Yes, exactly what we needed! Some chinese car lights that laser focus potentially on the other drivers. And burn themselves out if a tiny dust particle gets onto the phosphor. I am exaggerating of course.
The headlight you have are what is called Adaptive Headlight System or smth like that differing manufacturers have different system, this system rotates the whole fixture that you removed when the car is turning, they do this to keep the road lit precisely where youre going and also they make the light seem to go dimmer when a car is detected first using the fixtures to make a spot for the car when its farther away, then when it gets within dip-beam reach it turns it off, theres a video on @BMW Toronto
Well half of the effort went into useless "design" stuff, the other half was actually needed to put something rather dangerous like a multi-watt collimated laser into a car that is used by non-laser safety-competent persons. The chinese thing is "simple", but it is one component failure apart from permanently blinding oncoming traffic. And i dont exactly like being on either end of that kind of event.
A laser malfunction or accident would unlikely be harmful. I know he said "collimated" but it's focused on one target, if any escaped it would most certainly spread out and be an annoying glare, weak enough that looking away would be enough to avoid issues.
to be fair I think it would be cheaper to equip every car with night vision. Then headlights can be made obsolete 😆😆 lowering light pollution. lowering glare related accidents. I think I've said too much 🤐
Presumably it's a blue/ultraviolet laser with phosphor coating to generate the white light beam? I wonder what the long term luminous degradation characteristics are? Using R/G/B lasers to form the white beam would be more reliable although a lot more expensive I suppose.
mercedes same story I went from 1987 E class to 2006 E class: NIGHT AND DAY except the older one was SOO MUCH MORE PRACTICAL AND RUGGED..And I am watching here also how ridiculously over sophisticated Tesla is. I mean the EV should be much simpler but instead they mainstream this technological arrogance (I am talking here about the touchscreen taking the place of a physical switch ..headlight etc..)
@@konasteph Believe it or not, Tesla touchscreen is actually cheaping out vs having physical controls and display. At the factory the LCD is probably a little more expensive as a part than the tachometer, gas indicator, warning lights, air condition controls, music and so on etc. But they are reducing a lot of parts that need to be sourced , tracked, stored, installed and QA. And the number of man hours or machines needed.
I'm guessing that the light at 10:43 offers side illumination. For example, when you turn on your left turn signal that light in the left headlight will turn on and illuminate the ground in front of the left side of the car, to increase visibility when turning left.
Yep, thats what i thought instantly. Most cars use the foglights for this but that doesn't shine pretty high. The higher the lights source pointing downwards the farer it shines without blinding ppl.
@Eddie Hitler Sure, instead you get to pay $2000 to have a team of certified BMW technicians replace the whole headlight assembly because the bearing in the little fan failed and everything overheated resulting in catastrophic failure.
A lot of these newer headlight assemblies and even some older ones, don't actually require a whole new assembly if you crack the lens. A new lens is quite cheap, and you really just have to "bake" them open. It takes a bit longer, but it's a difference of hundreds, even thousands of dollars.
Amazing video 💪👍 the BMW assembly was really interesting to see inside! I hope they do make their way to torches, even better throwers and floody lights, more uniform beam and no evil tint shift!
wow thank you! it would make complete sense that you have redundancy in the laser system. 2 laser sensor that shut off laser if they are not equal like you mentioned. If those fail, the metal beam is the last mechanical safe net. or that metal beam is there so you can not look directly into the laser but the reflection alone is as bad. You said that it could also be design to laser splitter to have equal light on the sensor. Once assembled it would run a calibration routine. if it is calibrated I guest you don't need to be split into equal light. Thanks again!
Be careful burning stuff in front of LEDs. I've had the phosphor layer catch fire from the heat absorbed by deposited soot from the fire, which pretty much ruins the LED. The charred phosphor also lights on fire again when turning the LED back on if its not cleaned of very well. Then again that LED had 500W in 32mm emitting area so the optical power density was insanely high :D
@@mikeselectricstuff interesting, the LEDs I had were quite resilient to that. I went at it with some ipa and a paper tissue because the burnt stuff just wouldn't come off otherwise. I used CXM32 series COBs from luminus.
@@TMaxElectronics COB leds just like many other LED diodes do not have directly exposed phosphor layer. Usually there is a protective layer on top of the phosphor. Search more "led dedoming".
One thing I find annoying with a lot of modern car headlights is how high the intensity is. The amount of stray light they produce isn't "huge" but still leaves clear dots in my vision when I pass them on the road.... (this isn't true for all cars. Some vendors are a lot worse than others though.) A more spread out array of lights would have less intensity at the source, and therefor have a lower risk of dazzling any oncoming traffic. Even if the amount of stray light is technically the same if we don't care about what direction said light is coming from. But the eye do care about direction.
I agree. Have the same problem when Honda, Acura or Cadillac is in the oncoming traffic. Their so-called Jewel led headlights are a nightmare for me. Unlike Audi and BMW LED and laser headlights, which rarely blind me and It's because they react very fast on the road and lower the beams to prevent it. Honda and Cadillac shouldn't be allowed on the roads if you ask me.
@@111chicane I am though just talking about the stray light, not the main beam. That someone doesn't turn off their high beam is also problematic, but besides my point. Or even xenon lights not shaping their beam correctly is also problematic. My point where more the light just shining out the sides being a bit on the bright side during night. Some car models I find particularly annoying since they are on par with someone shining a flashlight/torch into one's eyes when one is next to them. It isn't actually all that many candela worth of stray light, but since the light source is tiny, the intensity of the light gets fairly silly. Would be nice if there were some regulation for max light intensity at a set distance from from the light source when outside of the main beam, to ensure that the light can't be dazzling to any traffic in the opposing lane. For an example, if we measure two sources. Both measure to have the same amount of light. But one is 1 m^2 and the other is 1 mm^2, then the second source will be 1 million times more intense to look at despite both providing the same amount of energy if we don't account for the area of the source. (though, to the eye, it is only a few hundred times more intense since the eye has a non linear response.)
The blue attenuators are probably also to filter the color and only let blue light from the laser pass, presumably to detect an excess of blue light coming from the laser indicating damage to the phosphor.
they all come with blinkers, but they use a very expensive, difficult to source, synthetic blinker fluid, which typically only lasts the first 5-10km. Almost no BMW owners bother having it refilled at the service appointments, and usually the dealers are out of it, even if they wanted to.
@@TotesCray Even worse is the fact that when attempting to use the blinkers when they are low on blinker fluid, it can cause the wiring loom smoke to escape. Thankfully, I still have a truly vintage can of Lucas wiring-loom-smoke ready for use
Who needs all that? There are already cheap headlight LEDs available from China claiming to deliver 20.000 Lumen. 😋 You can buy them at the same stores that sell 10.000mAh 18650 cells. 👍
When mike mentioned the 700-800gbp used ones on ebay I went like "cool so that headlight costs as much as my entire Citroen C1* is worth" *= Toyota Aygo with a bodykit
Yikes, certainly interesting from an engineering perspective, but I think I'll try to hang on to my mechanical relay controlled halogen headlights as long as I can
And people wonder why car insurance is so high. Imagine when the car is a few years old and you damage a headlight in a slight bump in the car park, "Sorry Sir, we deem your vehicle to be beyond economic repair".
This happened with mk4 Golf*lol even though they were old they were good old school thick glass and very solid but stupid expensive I think about 1k Australian dollars for oem per headlight or something, the repair shop was quick to tell me no dice whole car was only insured for 5 grand Australian dollars and with other body damage it was really inviable, although you see it for much less on more modern vehicles. At least these glass headlights were tough and actually wouldn't break unless it was a serious front end collision, very unlikely a stone would have broken these and no sun damage with age either. Infact the whole little car was very solidly built. I hit a kangeroo here once and it did nothing to the car at all, hit one in my Honda civic and the car was as dead as the poor animal.
A very interesting video. I was unfamiliar with laser headlights. The lasers seem more than powerful enough to cause permanent eye damage. I hope you have safety glasses.
I can see how the experience of using these headlights would be enjoyable, but the video makes a very strong point about being able to very comfortably afford unexpected maintenance on those types of cars. Another interesting point is that ultra complex consumer engineering like this has practical limits. A mil-spec version of this design would be far more expensive, but there would be a lot of added durability to justify such a complex design. Otherwise, you run into this issue of complex consumer designs failing from trivial causes.. rock chip, connector corrosion, level motor failures, optical misalignments/damage from hitting potholes etc. The overall engineering is still very impressive to see.
It's not unusual to buy new cars with up to 10 year warranties these days, so if the headlight fails it's under warranty as it isn't a consumable part. They are probably still more reliable than HID lamps though but you wouldn't want to be responsible for footing the bill for crash damage.
@@tmmtmm Yes BMW will replace it for 10 years if it fails in regular use, but the actual unit is expensive enough that a crash might make the vehicle a write off, if you need to replace the 2 headlights and the control units. That 1500 pound extra cost for them is just the difference in price for the regular headlamp unit and the LED, so the cost is probably close to 2500 pound for the 2 units and drivers. $3500 extra to the repair bill, and if the damage was just the common basket of lights, radiator, AC radiator, transmission oil cooler, cooling fan, front cross members, bonnet and 2 fenders plus replacing transmission fluid and filters, with alignment of the chassis, plus new interior airbag parts and controller. That probably has the bill at around 80% of the value of a 5 year old vehicle, and thus a write off.
These compared to a halogen, i like night and day. Some of these even detect on coming traffic, and creates a corridor in the "high beams" for the on coming car. It allows you to keep your highbeams on without blinding other drivers.
Yeah... no... so many times these things are misaligned/improperly aimed and blind the crap out of oncoming drivers. Of course the owners of these cars don't know it. My car has super bright LEDs, compared to other cars on the road. And, of course, I get blinded by similar lights in oncoming cars.
If you put the headlight unit in the oven for 10 minutes you can get the front lense off. There are companies that do this and retrofit modern lights or projectors in reflector headlights
TNo surprise there are only 3-4 companies that design those, all of them quite big. Bosch, Valeo, AL. And they supply pretty much all car manufacturers with headlights. It's quite a process to design, test and get those approved to be on the road.
@11:12 Ok. That's awesome. That HAS to be in a movie somewhere. There is no way a prop designer would pass that up. It's both cute and evil at the same time - what ever you use it for. Edit: You know, I bet "cute and evil" was EXACTLY what they were going for. It's a BMW. Though, I suppose they try to imply "fierce" rather than "evil" in the ads.
This month's Car Mechanics magazine has an article on car lighting, worth having a look if you see one in the newsagent's. It has an exploded diagram of an Audi headlamp cluster, very similar to this. Hopefully you will be able to get hold of one of the new Audi units that use TI's automotive DLPs to project fancy images. They should prove interesting.
And yes.. permaseal type of seal on the bmw headlight and many other is nuisance... But older gen bmw used to have clip on front lens for easy lens removal and replacement
Some big global car makers were staffing lighting teams in San Fransisco a decade ago. There were people from Audi and (maybe) a Japanese maker. Maybe this was one of their projects. . .
I have a bmw. A 2013 328i sport and I used to have a 2010 528i. I miss the dynamic Xeon headlights my 528i had they were gorgeous pieces of engineering. I don’t drive a bmw for showing off. I drive a bmw because I find myself just looking at and diving into all the beautifully engineered parts in the car. And I love diving into the code in the cars computers, the engineers leave so many things not coded just sitting dormant for you to find and figure out what it does and it makes you smile when you find something no one else has on a forum
Agree! I have a 2006 M3 with xenon and a 2010 550i with the "intelligent Xenon" lights, and I just adore how the 550 projectors move left and right as you turn the wheels and also adjust up and down as you climb and descend hills. Making a turn and having the whole corner lit up for you is a godsend when driving down dark country roads. And for the antiBimmer folks out there, if you follow the maintenance recommendations, you will very rarely need to go to the shop. My 550 has 86,000 miles and has never been in the shop for anything except brakes, fluid maintenance, and tires (all of which I do myself). The M3? Yeah, that's a different story...
@@pattonpending7390 You say you don't need to put your bmw in, then go on to say with your bmw, it's a different story. So you have to put it in. I'm neutral on bmw's, but you have to make up your mind about wwhether they need to be out in for work or not
Also I seem to remember that the laser headlights had adaptive capability to alter output around oncoming vehicles? My only explanation of the excessive circuitry on the laser assemblies
It's actually much safer than using standard LEDs. Its much easier to control (with systems like BMWs adaptive high beam) so that it can block out parts of the beam so that other drivers aren't blinded. If you see these systems in action, it's really cool and it shows how much better they light the road without blinding other drivers.
Just to explain the wiring - BMW Laser headlights are active. That means, it does all sorts of stuff like adaptive high beam where it forms light tunnels for cars in front of you and cars coming against you so that you can have high beam on all the time and still don't blind people. They also do stuff like highlight signboards. So the lens assemblies swivel and individual LEDs are controlled based on inputs from a camera mounted mounted behind the IRVM.
LEDs are working the same , it's a matrix + motorized lenses doing that
dont foget every headlight has its own serial number and you need to code it in to the car, otherwise, they won't work.
They also react on the weather conditions. Heavy rain will give you another light beam then dry weather. Also the speed will change the beam from wide on slow speeds to an beam with long range at high speeds
Now *this* is innovation
'I've never seen that top section lit up'
*turn signal*
'oh, right, that would explain it: *generic BMW joke*'
Also, maybe because it ran out of fluid and they do not know how to fill it.
@@ikocheratcr I wonder if more people would use their blinkers if the fluid was easier to find.
Toyota are probably the worst for not signalling for me at the moment.
@@allothernamesbutthis In our family, we have two Priuses and both drivers NEVER signal!
Over here it's mostly Audi and BMW that are having faulty indicators.
This was a real treat to see. I've been wondering how these things were built. Very much seems built to a spec, not a price. Thanks Mike, your content is always something to look forward to.
Styropyro needs to get his hands on a few of these!
Nah they don't look powerful enough for him to care
Styropro needs to be arrested for encouraging lasers shined at aircraft
Lol yeah hes the best, that kid is smarter than most I'll say that
He’s got tons of this crap.
That certainly explains a lot of questions. When I first heard about laser headlights, I assumed it was some marketing BS, since lasers are a) focused very tight, and b) not white.
Using a laser to get a phosphor pad to glow never even crossed my mind.
Because is totally useless and not durable. This kind of technology is just a publicity stunt
@@MVVblog well yeah, lasers make everything cooler. Just waiting until they release RGB headlights that set the color temperature depending on the weather or user settable and do rainbow puke at a stoplight until you drive again...
@@momue100 tunable color temperature ones already exist, you can set them to deep yellow in fog and snow, and 5,000K for normal use.
The idea is quote new as blue LEDs and lasers are only like 10yr old technology. The laser phosphor was first used in projectors and in them it is very long-lifed amd stable. So no need to doubt that they wouldn't work well on this application.
I just took a quick look at my own car headlight setup...
It's got a SLIGHTLY less complicated wiring loom.
Pin 1: Ground
Pin 2: +12V for the low beam filament
Pin 3: +12V for the high beam filament
As STRANGE as this might seem, this 'oversimplification' of my headlights hasn't (yet) caused me to drive into any trees / buildings / parked cars etc while driving at night.
Let me guess, if one of your lamps fails, you can replace the individual build for about £5, now that would be a crazy idea
Exactly!!!
And while I am certain that my 'dinosaur-technology' headlights effectively WASTE some quantity of fuel over their life (due to the larger current they consume), I strongly suspect the following:
1: The money I'd save buying less fuel would be HUGELY outweighed by the sheer cost of a set of these 'lights'. (Note that I use the term 'lights' rather loosely here)
2: The amount of pollution generated by that extra fuel over the entire life of the vehicle is, most likely, significantly LESS than the amount of additional pollution simply manufacturing those behemoths!
And in conclusion, I would like to pose the following question...
Q: How many highly skilled (and overpaid?) 'mechanics / engineers' does it take to change a light bulb?
That BMW headlight is from an adaptive system. A computer alters the beam shape using a forward facing camera to see oncoming traffic etc. So light is always in high beam. That's why the loom was so complex! Crazy stuff for just a headlight!!
I read somewhere it also used the GPS Satnav data for beam steering to follow the road ahead
@@mikeselectricstuff proper smart car at that point. What's next, full Nvidia Turing card with an artificial intellect? I think I'm seeing the left headlight wink at me?
It may well work well for the driver, but it's dreadful coming the other way and meeting a modern BMW at night, I have no idea how they ever got approved.
Mercedes digital light (available on 2021 S class) is using a DLP chip. I can't imagine what one of those housings cost.
@@WitoldWitkowski What the heck are they using a DLP for? Is it some type of adaptive reflector?
Fabulous video, great narrator, no fluff, straight-forward information, no self-agrandizing, perfectly done - thank you!
Fascinating video. I learned a lot. I thought the laser lights were just a marketing ploy and they didn't really use lasers, but apparently they do. Really appreciate the teardown.
10:30 That side firing LED is for the driver to have better lighting through the corner. It illuminates the street on the side of the car for when you're turning in that direction. More expensive systems have turning headlights and cheaper systems use the mist lights (often seen on VW's).
Well, it is only used in applications sub 50km/h, as "turning light". Those headlamps are also fitted with the adaptive lowbeams, which enable the headlamp to have "city mode, country road mode and also highway mode", each does change the lighting pattern. With non adaptive LED (which includes the typical Matrix LED from Audi), you doesn't get adaptive Lowbeams that rotates the projector into the curve. There the "turning light" might as well fire up for better illumination and to mimic the adaptive low beams.
Also VWs have a second bulb for cornering in the fog lightsm which is shining far more to the side. These are only activated on slower speeds, when signaling into that direction or turning the steering wheel very far. Using the actual fog lights was just an intermediate solution or is just programmed in by the owner afterwards. (Which is made possible by the manufacturer in the first place) It however ist not a steering light. It may be used in addition to that, like in the BMW.
The led on the inside wall that looks like a fog light is actually the light that turns on to illuminate your turn. So if you come up to a stop sign and have your turn signal on, that led will light up the direction you’re turning to help you see that way at 90°
Old idea
Ford did it as far back as 79
@@zuestoots5176 didn’t say it was original, bmw is like apple. They like to make something that’s been around for a while flashy, then claim they made it.
@@zuestoots5176 Even older than that. 1973 Cadillac Sedan de Ville had that feature - they were called "cornering lights".
One reason for the motors in the light assembly is that legislation in Europe (I'm guessing elsewhere too) requires these new high output lights (1st gen was the ones with xeon bulbs) to be self levelling. Basically regardless how heavy the load in the car is the low beams will not blind oncoming traffic. The second reason is the BMW auto panning feature for the high beams, that create a dark hole in the beam and keeps the cars in front in that dark spot as to not blind them and yet keep the high beams on.
As for the over engineered comments I will say try and drive those lights on the autobahn or on a nice country road. The illumination is mind blowing. So definitely engineered but not really over.
Yep, the BMW adaptive headlights are incredible
@@sheldonholy5047 not if you are driving in front or oncoming traffic
@@hausaffe100 no, the point of these lights is that they don't shine light in the direction of oncoming traffic. Works surprisingly well with the BMW lights, not so well other brands yet though.
@@sheldonholy5047 my experience on my daily comute proofs otherwise, bmw audi benz all of these luxury cars are more blinding than any of the halogen cars
Wow! I always thought "Laser headlights" was just marketing blurb! Fascinating tech!
Fascinating ! there's some serious engineering in the moldings alone, looking forward to seeing what you do with the laser module...cheers.
Nice to see the difference between "it sort of works" Chinesium and an actual, safe, compliant product. Its always quite hard to explain people, especially higher-ups and "makers" why work takes so long after a proof-of-concept prototype has been demonstrated.
Sure, the chinesium thing produces light in some way. Just its not where it should be, it is where it shouldnt be, and it has exactly zero safety functions. Also, it looks like the misused LED has some burn mark already from the laser beam? Looks like great reliability then. Even better, the failure mode is spectacular: Phosphor burns and darkens, burns off, chip now is reflective, laser beam goes out front.
Great video Mike, thanks for taking the time to produce it. Goodness knows how complicated the rest of the car is if they put this much effort into the headlights.
Now I understand why I think the cops are behind me every time someone with those things goes over a bump in the road behind me. It's the chromatic aberration of the lens pulling the blue to the edge so as the edge of the beam hits my mirror I see flashes of blue and white
or just the super sharp edge of the beam flicking back and forth making it look like they're flashing their lights at you, even without the blue haze too
Hi Mike, thanks for the really interesting video.
It's a very small world, that BMW headlight came from my neighbours' car!
Very expensive bit of kit but works very well and has lots of tech in it.
Regards
Dave
How could you know that?
The guy checked it with his insurance pictures, it's the same one.
All of the BMW LED and laser headlights are beam forming. For the EU market they are lit as high beams and only shut off specific sections that are pointed towards cars in the oncoming traffic and prevents blinding their drivers. Due to the regulations In the US, this system is disabled by software and you have separate low beams and high beams.
Years ago, when Audi came out with the first Matrix headlights, I also bought one with broken lens to take it apart and see what inside. I was amazed by the amount of custom lenses, light pipes, LEDs on flex PCBs, custom heatsinks, control modules, wire looms and stepper motors I found in it. I also recovered over 60 T20 self tappers. And I was looking at the laser headlights for a year now, but thanks God Mike did it before I find one.
The US has relented and allowed the matrix system now. But the vendors don’t use it. In the EU they got permission to make matrix headlights twice as bright under the theory that the lamps will turn off the areas which are aimed at other people and cars. So no one is (temporarily) blinded by the now twice as bright lights. They did not get permission for the extra brightness in the US.
Headlights that are twice as bright are a sellable feature. But since they cannot offer that they turn it all off. I guess the matrix dimming just isn’t as sellable on its own?
Lessons I learned today: Don't crash a BMW, not even a little bit.
@@lll-Private-Info-III Literally just incorrect🥴
These only come on the top top spec models, if you can afford those, you can afford to fix them
Thats what insurance is for.
If you have a good driving record, your insurance policy would even have a very low deductible. Me personally, I have just a $400 deductible for my policy, so if somehow I get into a little bump that destroys only my headlight on my 2020 X3M Competition - the lights are similar to this design and are also adaptive - while BMW charges about $1800 per side, I'm only ever going to pay $400 and my insurance takes care of the remaining $1400 plus the labor cost for the dealer to install it.
If you're going to argue about rising insurance premium when making a claim.... Most insurance companies that are worth your business don't raise premiums just because of a claim. Otherwise you can simply switch companies to one that is better to deal with.
Also these adapative headlights are both an option for lower spec trim level, and are included as a package for the higher spec trims.
If you can afford a car on a higher trim level, you should be able to afford the cost of repairs. If you're worried about even the cost of replace an adaptive headlight on a higher trim spec car - you REALLY can't afford the car.
Here's some simple financial advice when buying a car:
Never buy brand new unless you're expecting to keep the car for more than 7 years
Never finance a car (new or used) if the monthly payments are more than 25% of your monthly income
Never lease a car unless you like throwing money down the toilet - the lease payments are calculated based on how much the depreciation the car is expected to lose during the term, you're literally only paying for the depreciation. Or unless you want to drive an expensive luxury or exotic supercar for a short time because thats about all they're good for.
And simply put... never buy a car, if you complain about the cost of repair and maintenance.
Cars are depreciating assets. People need to stop thinking they hold their value.
All those stepper motors, my Merc 190 was doing basically the same thing with vacuum actuators.
... so did my old Fiat (which, amazingly, shared other parts with Mercedes as well!)... I guess vacuum actuators are too slow nowadays.
My guess about the translucent blue bricks on top of the light sensors is that they're detecting the laser light itself, rather than the bright light coming off the phosphor. I'd imagine the system would want to shut itself off quickly if, as you mentioned, the phosphor fails and the laser comes through.
When you showed the low beams on the wall, I noticed a "bump" in the top line that I have noticed every time I get into a BMW at night, and now I know *why* it's there. It's a shadow from imperfect alignment of (what I would call) the shutter. Thank you.
If your referencing the "slop" in the cut off then your incorrect. It is intentionally there to light up your side of the road but is sloped to not blind on coming drivers. Sadley we dont see it too often with all the idiots slapping leds into reflectors.
@@unclejohn5012 the step is too small to be useful for that. Normally those cutouts are much larger, and much more circular.
Applied Violence - didn't see the grinder coming, despite the warning. But now I can't wait for Ben to start a second channel...
Hopefully starting with the bastards who robbed his workshop...
I believe the unidentified light fixtures are not fog lights but cornering lights. The reason why different groups of LEDs are switched is to change the beam depending on the traffic and environmental situation, it's like a low cost matrix implementation, but together with the curve lighting it should be quite effective (judging from how incredibly well BMWs curve lighting works with HID lamps). It's quite an impressive design, but I'd be very interested in an unbiased comparison between regular LED and LED + Laser since I'm not convinced that the potentially much longer range of the laser is actually that useful.
These BMW lights are controlled via a K-line (slow single wire serial connection) but are also connected to the CAN-bus to be able to diagnose and update the module.
Good info! Somehow the concept of "update the software on my headlights" sounds vaguely like "change your blinker fluid", but I guess that's the way of the future!
I remember acquiring a car headlight as a child and connecting it to my model train set transformer back in the 80s. How things have changed, alien technology compared to a Cortina headlamp :)
i remember buying starters, alternators and headlight without even checking the make and model and using them on my tractors and various equipment. now you need a 30pin connector just to drive a single headlight.
The future: When a busted headlight means your car is totaled. Nifty but overkill.
Agree. Already now, swapping a single LED headlight can cost you EUR 600 or more (and that's with a cheap brand). What people forget is that phosphors in LEDs are under a lot of thermal stress, meaning they break down over time. This a) affects the light color (it gets dimmer and more blu-ish, decreasing visiblity in fog/haze by A LOT, b) increases short-wave light output, thus increasing the risk of retina damage in the eye. ... this means that during the lifetime of your car you WILL have to swap both headlights at least once!
It doesn’t take too much longer to heat them and separate than cutting. I start out at 250*F for 5 min and check the adhesive. Once I get it soft enough to begin, I use my heat gun to keep the adhesive pliable. If the headlights are going to be put back together, while I am taking the lens off, I use the heat gun to keep the adhesive hot so once the lens is off, I start removing whatever adhesive is left over in the housing.
Great video!
i'll rub the numbers off the chips so no one can steal the design i stole
the lensed lamps are all main beams and the reflectors are all high beams. the small lamp in the corner is a steering lamp that comes on when making low speed turns or have a turn signal on, lights up the road on the side of the vehicle.
My wife has an Audi. Tried to replace a light at a regular mechanic shop. Had to go to the dealership because the car's computer needed to be "introduced" to the light assy. Until the dealership did that, the light refused to power up
same for many parts these days, same tactics companies like apple use. if you can push for the right to repair in your country
Lightbulb DRM? I'm done with this shit gimme my tungsten lamp back
But seriously though I'm with Dan, push for right to repair! If we don't take this shit back soon, it's just going to get harder and harder
Ask a farmer about right to repair. We all need to pressure our politicians. In Dubai they have better led household bulbs because the ruler asked philips to make bulbs with longer life.
I hear you, this is when heavy legislation and sales meets engineering. And i clearly see how legislation and standards are built to keep new players out and to artificially blow pricing up
Driving at night has become increasingly infuriating, I drive both a small car and a van, in the van everything is fine but the small car, literally every new car has it's headlights shining right in my eyes from the side mirrors.
Yeah I hate driving at night now. I often can see the shadow of my own car in my headlights becuase the new car behind is so bright lol. You cant even get away from them in the daytime now with the stupid EU daytime running lights law.
A Miata owner agrees
It's a real problem, I've yet to confirm it but my working theory is they're all aimed as high as legally possible to wow the buyer ignorant of how headlights are supposed to work (low beam is only supposed to light the road ahead and signs, not shit a hundred plus yards directly forward of the driver's eyes). At this point I've learned to spot them and look away before the oncoming car comes out of the pothole it just hit and flash blinds me.
And that's not even getting into the blatantly illegal led light bar shit all the asshole 4x4 trucks around here have decided is the hot new thing to have.
@@Broken_Yugo This type of cheap aftermarket LED lights are way beyond legality in most EU countries afaik.
there are too many SUVs everywhere these days...
There are more electronics in a BMW headlight than in my whole Toyota.
When he mentioned the 700-800gbp used ones on ebay I went like "cool so that headlight costs as much as my entire Citroen C1* did"
*= Toyota Aygo with a bodykit
fmcprogrmr, and toyota thoroughly test all their electronics before they are installed in a car.
@@Knaeckebrotsaege A new 5 series led matrix headlight will set you back €2,200. 😬
@@vsvnrg3263 apparently you have no idea about toyota's that are sold in China.😁
Haven't gotten more than a minute into the video, but I'm so excited because I've wanted these for my car ever since I saw a commercial for them! At the time they came out, they were not US DOT (Department of Transportation) approved because it was new technology.
Crossing my fingers that I can 1) afford them, 2) fool the computer into being happy with the drain, and 3) make them fit - without looking like I made them fit!
I can remember when car headlights had 2 incandescent bulbs, 1 for highbeam, another for lowbeam, clipped into a reflector mounted on 3 screws with springs to align them. It was simple, it worked and it was cheap to fix.
They also could be (had to be) aimed, but they weren’t as bright.
And it didn't blind everyone else on the road, those were crazy times.
Nice. And you had light for exactly 2 and a half Meters. Some time ago you had to turn a lever in front of your car to turn it on. Worked too. You ether want technical evolution or u don't. So many always cry for old tech but want maximum comfort.
@@Nef4riousify I'm not saying I miss the old days, (you could'nt see a thing with em, esp in the rain.), I just think there is far too much engineering in the new ones. You could still have the nice bright lights, but easier and cheaper design.
@@frankowalker4662 well to be fair this headlight shown in the video is one of the most advanced that there is at the time. It is a adaptive headlight meaning it automatically controlled to always have high beam on and still not blind oncoming traffic. It has curve light which moves and titlts the light according to the curves on the street. It has 90 degree turning light if you take turn or tight corner. It has automatic self leveling for when your car is loaded different than usual.
All this is for comfort. So that the driver doesn't have to worry about anything.
But of course all these things have to be mechanically and electronically controlled and moved. Wich then again takes a lot of engineering to get all this in a relatively small enclosure. But surely not overengineering. It looks so complicated becouse it is and needs to be to fulfill all these wishes and needs.
Ofc this leads to insane repair bills if something is broken. Mostly becouse industry needs to make complicated systems like modern headlights as 1 part items. But that's again so no casual would open it up and try to fix it themselves. Wich leads to more dmg or danger in such systems.
And then again if anybody doesn't want to pay for the repair of such a headlight than just take the basic version. Wich is at best a led light with little to none mechanical movement or electronical control. Easy and cheap.
Seeing how these new clunkers eviscerate my eyes at night, they'll soon use artificial stars powered by actual nuclear fusion. Why doesn't anyone do anything? Some of these cars are so bad that when they come from the other side, all I can see is a blinding blue-fog, until they pass me. If there's a pedestrian or anything in front of me at that exact time, I have no chance of seeing it. Where I live, this is an increasing problem, driving at night has become an ordeal due to these crap headlights.
Yes I dont get how they archive certification. Even modern bicycle lights have this problem. I think the luminous flux density is just way to high. A bigger aperture or lower brightness would help
@@Galeere2 I agree, too much lux. Even the taillights keep getting smaller and harder to look at. On the headlights a softer cutoff would help a bit too, and/or regulating them to be aimed lower. I think all the regs, especially in the USA, haven't been updated to really account for what can be done with LEDs, so the manufacturers ignore the spirit of the law (functional lighting that doesn't blind people) and do whatever looks nice and sells.
The light output is not the issue, but the morons who generally never have their beams aimed properly. Always sitting just high enough to blind you
This is why a light front end bump writes off your low mileage 3 year old car. Think bumper(painted) parking sensors,radar distace control sensor, front fog lights, head lights,grille,aircon condenser. If your airbag(s) deploy its all over, ignoring all other damage the cost of replacement bags and trim is prohibitive.
Good. Means I get a new a car without having to worry about fixing it and not worrying that I own a car that has been previously damaged, thus significantly reducing its resale value, and the potential that the car wasn't repaired properly in the first place which will cause other issues in the long term.
@@rotor13 Do you even realize the amount of energy it takes to produce a whole new car compared to producing replacement parts? It seems like you're really only thinking about yourself when you say these things. Congratulations, you don't have to feel the effects of your waste because you can afford good insurance, that doesn't mean that there are no effects worth considering.
Maybe you don't care about environmental issues. There's another major reason you might want to cut back your consumerism. China controls the largest deposits of 20/24 of the natural resources that we use the most of when producing things like cars and consumer electronics. Every new device you buy, whether that's a car, or a TV, or even a toaster oven, directly contributes to growing China's soft power, and thereby shrinking the power of your own nation.
These BMW headlight assemblies are absolutely ridiculous. My neighbor bought a 2021 BMW for their teenage daughter and (surprise surprise) the headlight got a massive hole in it from a rock chip on the highway. Funnily enough the hole is almost exactly the same location and size as the one in the video. They said the dealer wants 3 grand to replace the headlight. 3 THOUSAND DOLLARS. FOR A HEADLIGHT. I get that it's all fancy and modern with movable lenses and such, but it's like they intentionally make it as complex as possible to jack up the price, knowing that the sorts of people that buy these cars won't mind spending a ludicrous amount of money on maintenance.
They're nicknamed "Breaks My Wallet" for a good reason! :)
There are replacement lenses available from third-parties - check TH-cam for videos on replacing. Failing that look for ones from a breaker - typically about £800-1K on ebay
@@mikeselectricstuff People that buy newest BMWs for their teenage daughters/sons are not really interested in DIY stuff. They would rather pay someone to deal with the problem than do it themselves for 5 times less $.
The typical way of removing the front clear lens from the BMW (and other brands) is to heat the whole assembly in an oven heated to around 230-250 degrees F for around 10-20 minutes to soften the glue enough to pull it off of the main housing. Best example of how complicated modern lighting systems are getting on cars today. I think it's really cool, but soon it seems the head lights may not work without being plugged into the car and be super expensive to replace.
I think we're going to see LED matrix headlights spreading downwards instead of lasers. For the same end goal but the matrix approach offers more control to prevent the problems you have with the laser source ones blinding oncoming traffic. A number of the LED matrix system use the forward looking ADAS cameras to detect on coming vehicles and dim a region of the matrix to produce a dark spot over the oncoming vehicle.
The requirement to up the output during the headlight wars caused lasers to come on stream before the supporting technology for the matrix approach. From memory Ti has a couple of parts and part collections aimed at helping OEMs implement matrix systems now.
That would be nice improvement if it works though.. Decision by electronics makes me a little nervous..
Interesting stuff - thanks. That BMW lighting assembly perfectly illustrates why I'm keeping my 1995 Lexus until the wheels fall off. The added usefulness of the fancy lighting is in NO way sufficient to justify the added cost and ridiculous complexity compared to plain ol' halogen. IMHO.
I agree. Although, if you ever drove one of these cars, you could not deny the impressive performance of modern LED/Laser headlights. A few years ago I had the chance to drive a BMW 7 series with (at that time) prototype headlights. It had DLP-based adaptive Low/Highbeam and a Laser Highbeam that reaches as far as 600m. I think it's safe to say that with these headlights, you carry your own artificial sunlight.
@@sigmaxi7822 Unfortunately they also suffer from being misaligned, or from the loose nut behind the wheel turning the levelling control up to max, so all you get as oncoming vehicle is a blinding light from the vehicle. In the vehicle and correctly aligned they are great, but unlike a cheap $5 Osram halogen bulb, which probably will last the life of the vehicle, these very likely will fail shortly after the vehicle is out of warranty, like the HID units are very prone to doing.
Only reason the manufacturers love them is because the entire optical unit is very small, and thus there is a massive reduction in the space needed to fit them in the vehicle, plus they also can be made very flat, reducing frontal area. That they are also a good source of upgrade option money, plus guaranteed spares sales as the vehicles age, or accident damage, is just classed as a bonus.
The BMW ones with the 2 stepper motors is so the lights can self level from the 3 axis gyro unit in the vehicle, plus also the adaptive cornering turns the lights into the corners to both reduce glare to oncoming vehicles, and to illuminate the inside of the corner as well.
Yeah. That car is disposable. The unit can’t even be opened let alone repaired. Once the car reaches 10 years old then it is just one rock impact from being totaled due to repair costs. After 15 you probably won’t even be able to get the parts. What a waste.
The reason the loom is so complicated, is it connects to the camera system in the car, so as well as the basic functions of constant height adjustment to keep the beam straight on bumpy roads and tilt for cornering illumination, they have beam shaping (so that you dont dazzle oncoming traffic) and a spotlighting function, so if a pedestrian/animal is picked up ahead by the camera, it will focus the beam onto this upcoming hazzard
I'm sure the pedestrian appreciates that.
Glad to see you alive and well sir.
Everything okay?
@@grrrams Better than being hit I guess.
The yellow phosphor has a much wider beam angle than the laser, so the metal bar in front of the BMW laser will be to also block the blue laser beam while allowing most of the yellow phosphor light to pass.
When I first saw laser headlights I was half expecting those headlights with DLPs in them
That was a super interesting teardown, thanks Mike.
In easy way of removing the headlight front glass is to put the light in an oven at around 125 degrees for 5 minutes, this softens the glue and the lenses can then usually by gently levered off
I think your 'fog' light on the side actually lights up the area to the side so you can see where you are turning when you put your turn signal on. I have a 2015 435, (F36). and yes, it also auto levels, and also steers the normal low and high beams proportional to the steering position. Also, I believe the projector lens is a Fresnel lens or Fresnel hybrid or something.
When I hear "laser headlights" I thinking a freaking awesome RGB laser configuration with some fiendishly complicated optics, heatsinks and power supplies to provide an utterly clean fan of pure white laser light that's perfectly mapped and flexible when it's projected onto the road.
Yes, exactly what we needed! Some chinese car lights that laser focus potentially on the other drivers.
And burn themselves out if a tiny dust particle gets onto the phosphor. I am exaggerating of course.
Did you say corrosion? No no no, the German's call that connector seasoning and isn't covered by warranty 🤷♂️
The headlight you have are what is called Adaptive Headlight System or smth like that
differing manufacturers have different system, this system rotates the whole fixture that you removed when the car is turning, they do this to keep the road lit precisely where youre going and also they make the light seem to go dimmer when a car is detected
first using the fixtures to make a spot for the car when its farther away, then when it gets within dip-beam reach it turns it off,
theres a video on @BMW Toronto
That's so over-engineered it's insane.
Have you looked inside a modern toaster recently ? 🙄😂
Well half of the effort went into useless "design" stuff, the other half was actually needed to put something rather dangerous like a multi-watt collimated laser into a car that is used by non-laser safety-competent persons. The chinese thing is "simple", but it is one component failure apart from permanently blinding oncoming traffic. And i dont exactly like being on either end of that kind of event.
A laser malfunction or accident would unlikely be harmful. I know he said "collimated" but it's focused on one target, if any escaped it would most certainly spread out and be an annoying glare, weak enough that looking away would be enough to avoid issues.
to be fair I think it would be cheaper to equip every car with night vision. Then headlights can be made obsolete 😆😆 lowering light pollution. lowering glare related accidents.
I think I've said too much 🤐
@@peterfitzpatrick7032 yeah they have an ecu, diagnostics port, toast smoke recirculation and a engine management light 🙄
Presumably it's a blue/ultraviolet laser with phosphor coating to generate the white light beam? I wonder what the long term luminous degradation characteristics are? Using R/G/B lasers to form the white beam would be more reliable although a lot more expensive I suppose.
The first version of the laser headlights used a combiner prism.
“Surprising amount of electronics” new to BMW are we? Mine is from 2006 and it’s INSANE. The newer ones.... exponentially more complex!
mercedes same story I went from 1987 E class to 2006 E class: NIGHT AND DAY except the older one was SOO MUCH MORE PRACTICAL AND RUGGED..And I am watching here also how ridiculously over sophisticated Tesla is. I mean the EV should be much simpler but instead they mainstream this technological arrogance (I am talking here about the touchscreen taking the place of a physical switch ..headlight etc..)
@@konasteph Believe it or not, Tesla touchscreen is actually cheaping out vs having physical controls and display. At the factory the LCD is probably a little more expensive as a part than the tachometer, gas indicator, warning lights, air condition controls, music and so on etc. But they are reducing a lot of parts that need to be sourced , tracked, stored, installed and QA. And the number of man hours or machines needed.
@@konasteph , touchscreen? "keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel". - the doors - late 60's
I expected to see the BMW carcass covered in "Danger, class 2 laser device" yellow stickers.
it probably should have. the warnings are on everything i have with a laser inside it.
Thank you for the video! I would love to see more like this total tear-downs. Regarding the lamp - two words: OVER ENGINEERING :)
I'm guessing that the light at 10:43 offers side illumination. For example, when you turn on your left turn signal that light in the left headlight will turn on and illuminate the ground in front of the left side of the car, to increase visibility when turning left.
Yep, thats what i thought instantly. Most cars use the foglights for this but that doesn't shine pretty high.
The higher the lights source pointing downwards the farer it shines without blinding ppl.
I had no idea that's how the Laser was utilised..!! Very interesting and well made vid.. Thanks Mike.. x
Very interesting, but this feels a bit too complicated and overengineered for a headlight, kind of miss the days of just replacing a bulb.
@Eddie Hitler Sure, instead you get to pay $2000 to have a team of certified BMW technicians replace the whole headlight assembly because the bearing in the little fan failed and everything overheated resulting in catastrophic failure.
Thank you for that!
I wasn't expecting a video so quickly after you and Clive commented about them.
A lot of these newer headlight assemblies and even some older ones, don't actually require a whole new assembly if you crack the lens. A new lens is quite cheap, and you really just have to "bake" them open. It takes a bit longer, but it's a difference of hundreds, even thousands of dollars.
I think some of them use an ultrasonic weld now...
Amazing video 💪👍 the BMW assembly was really interesting to see inside! I hope they do make their way to torches, even better throwers and floody lights, more uniform beam and no evil tint shift!
wow thank you! it would make complete sense that you have redundancy in the laser system. 2 laser sensor that shut off laser if they are not equal like you mentioned. If those fail, the metal beam is the last mechanical safe net. or that metal beam is there so you can not look directly into the laser but the reflection alone is as bad. You said that it could also be design to laser splitter to have equal light on the sensor. Once assembled it would run a calibration routine. if it is calibrated I guest you don't need to be split into equal light. Thanks again!
Be careful burning stuff in front of LEDs. I've had the phosphor layer catch fire from the heat absorbed by deposited soot from the fire, which pretty much ruins the LED. The charred phosphor also lights on fire again when turning the LED back on if its not cleaned of very well. Then again that LED had 500W in 32mm emitting area so the optical power density was insanely high :D
😑
Also, be careful cleaning burnt stuff off the LED as you can wipe the phosphor layer off. Guess how I know...
@@mikeselectricstuff interesting, the LEDs I had were quite resilient to that. I went at it with some ipa and a paper tissue because the burnt stuff just wouldn't come off otherwise. I used CXM32 series COBs from luminus.
@@TMaxElectronics COB leds just like many other LED diodes do not have directly exposed phosphor layer. Usually there is a protective layer on top of the phosphor. Search more "led dedoming".
One thing I find annoying with a lot of modern car headlights is how high the intensity is.
The amount of stray light they produce isn't "huge" but still leaves clear dots in my vision when I pass them on the road.... (this isn't true for all cars. Some vendors are a lot worse than others though.)
A more spread out array of lights would have less intensity at the source, and therefor have a lower risk of dazzling any oncoming traffic.
Even if the amount of stray light is technically the same if we don't care about what direction said light is coming from. But the eye do care about direction.
I agree. Have the same problem when Honda, Acura or Cadillac is in the oncoming traffic. Their so-called Jewel led headlights are a nightmare for me. Unlike Audi and BMW LED and laser headlights, which rarely blind me and It's because they react very fast on the road and lower the beams to prevent it. Honda and Cadillac shouldn't be allowed on the roads if you ask me.
@@111chicane I am though just talking about the stray light, not the main beam.
That someone doesn't turn off their high beam is also problematic, but besides my point. Or even xenon lights not shaping their beam correctly is also problematic.
My point where more the light just shining out the sides being a bit on the bright side during night.
Some car models I find particularly annoying since they are on par with someone shining a flashlight/torch into one's eyes when one is next to them. It isn't actually all that many candela worth of stray light, but since the light source is tiny, the intensity of the light gets fairly silly.
Would be nice if there were some regulation for max light intensity at a set distance from from the light source when outside of the main beam, to ensure that the light can't be dazzling to any traffic in the opposing lane.
For an example, if we measure two sources.
Both measure to have the same amount of light. But one is 1 m^2 and the other is 1 mm^2, then the second source will be 1 million times more intense to look at despite both providing the same amount of energy if we don't account for the area of the source. (though, to the eye, it is only a few hundred times more intense since the eye has a non linear response.)
I didn't know about this new technology in headlights.
Thanks for sharing. 😉👌🏼
Now I get it! I’ve never understood laser headlights as lasers aren’t white. But now I see the light. Makes so much sense now. Thankyou.
"applied violence" is my new favourite term.
It's 4am,I can barely keep my eyes open.. "ohh headlight laser beams"
The blue attenuators are probably also to filter the color and only let blue light from the laser pass, presumably to detect an excess of blue light coming from the laser indicating damage to the phosphor.
Alright, so can I use my BMW as a laser engraver?
6:30 excuse me a what? Since when do BMW's have blinkers?
they all come with blinkers, but they use a very expensive, difficult to source, synthetic blinker fluid, which typically only lasts the first 5-10km. Almost no BMW owners bother having it refilled at the service appointments, and usually the dealers are out of it, even if they wanted to.
@@TotesCray
Even worse is the fact that when attempting to use the blinkers when they are low on blinker fluid, it can cause the wiring loom smoke to escape.
Thankfully, I still have a truly vintage can of Lucas wiring-loom-smoke ready for use
There's some laser flashlights on the market already. But they're a bit expensive.
I think the cheapest I found was around $200 :(
Look on SkyLumen website, they just announced one for $150, with looks like $25 off discount
Who needs all that? There are already cheap headlight LEDs available from China claiming to deliver 20.000 Lumen. 😋 You can buy them at the same stores that sell 10.000mAh 18650 cells. 👍
@@Quick_Fix Go to reddit r/flashlight
@@LestaAZL r/sarcasm 💡
When mike mentioned the 700-800gbp used ones on ebay I went like "cool so that headlight costs as much as my entire Citroen C1* is worth"
*= Toyota Aygo with a bodykit
More shitty electronics in ONE LAMP than in my whole car ...lol
Yikes, certainly interesting from an engineering perspective, but I think I'll try to hang on to my mechanical relay controlled halogen headlights as long as I can
And people wonder why car insurance is so high. Imagine when the car is a few years old and you damage a headlight in a slight bump in the car park, "Sorry Sir, we deem your vehicle to be beyond economic repair".
This happened with mk4 Golf*lol even though they were old they were good old school thick glass and very solid but stupid expensive I think about 1k Australian dollars for oem per headlight or something, the repair shop was quick to tell me no dice whole car was only insured for 5 grand Australian dollars and with other body damage it was really inviable, although you see it for much less on more modern vehicles. At least these glass headlights were tough and actually wouldn't break unless it was a serious front end collision, very unlikely a stone would have broken these and no sun damage with age either. Infact the whole little car was very solidly built. I hit a kangeroo here once and it did nothing to the car at all, hit one in my Honda civic and the car was as dead as the poor animal.
A very interesting video. I was unfamiliar with laser headlights.
The lasers seem more than powerful enough to cause permanent eye damage. I hope you have safety glasses.
Give it a few years when the car reaches 3rd or 4th owner that skimps on repairs.
Those lights self adjust. You don’t manually do them. They follow the steering and the height of the car.
You do have to do manual base adjustment on them though, so the automatic adjuster works as it should.
I can see how the experience of using these headlights would be enjoyable, but the video makes a very strong point about being able to very comfortably afford unexpected maintenance on those types of cars. Another interesting point is that ultra complex consumer engineering like this has practical limits. A mil-spec version of this design would be far more expensive, but there would be a lot of added durability to justify such a complex design. Otherwise, you run into this issue of complex consumer designs failing from trivial causes.. rock chip, connector corrosion, level motor failures, optical misalignments/damage from hitting potholes etc. The overall engineering is still very impressive to see.
It's not unusual to buy new cars with up to 10 year warranties these days, so if the headlight fails it's under warranty as it isn't a consumable part. They are probably still more reliable than HID lamps though but you wouldn't want to be responsible for footing the bill for crash damage.
@@tmmtmm Yes BMW will replace it for 10 years if it fails in regular use, but the actual unit is expensive enough that a crash might make the vehicle a write off, if you need to replace the 2 headlights and the control units. That 1500 pound extra cost for them is just the difference in price for the regular headlamp unit and the LED, so the cost is probably close to 2500 pound for the 2 units and drivers. $3500 extra to the repair bill, and if the damage was just the common basket of lights, radiator, AC radiator, transmission oil cooler, cooling fan, front cross members, bonnet and 2 fenders plus replacing transmission fluid and filters, with alignment of the chassis, plus new interior airbag parts and controller. That probably has the bill at around 80% of the value of a 5 year old vehicle, and thus a write off.
"rubbing the numbers off the chips" is nothing but pure evil
It makes me wonder if they're trying to protect the chip identity or if they're hiding the use of counterfeit chips?
My niece was on the design team for these lights. The laser allows for a much more concentrated light than other tech.
The left-right motor will be for BMW's "Adaptive Headlights", there the beam is moved in the direction you're steering
So basically what Citroen did in the 50s with the DS
There was a time when all you had was a plastic assembly holding a couple of bulbs to deal with. Thank god for progress eh.
These compared to a halogen, i like night and day. Some of these even detect on coming traffic, and creates a corridor in the "high beams" for the on coming car. It allows you to keep your highbeams on without blinding other drivers.
Yeah... no... so many times these things are misaligned/improperly aimed and blind the crap out of oncoming drivers. Of course the owners of these cars don't know it. My car has super bright LEDs, compared to other cars on the road. And, of course, I get blinded by similar lights in oncoming cars.
If you put the headlight unit in the oven for 10 minutes you can get the front lense off. There are companies that do this and retrofit modern lights or projectors in reflector headlights
I can't help wondering how many man years of effort went into designing the headlamp unit.
TNo surprise there are only 3-4 companies that design those, all of them quite big. Bosch, Valeo, AL. And they supply pretty much all car manufacturers with headlights. It's quite a process to design, test and get those approved to be on the road.
They also won nobel prize 🏆
@11:12 Ok. That's awesome. That HAS to be in a movie somewhere. There is no way a prop designer would pass that up. It's both cute and evil at the same time - what ever you use it for.
Edit: You know, I bet "cute and evil" was EXACTLY what they were going for. It's a BMW. Though, I suppose they try to imply "fierce" rather than "evil" in the ads.
Such complexity to illuminate your path at night ! Them Germans ! Guess imma be just fine with a simple E46 one day ! Geez !
This month's Car Mechanics magazine has an article on car lighting, worth having a look if you see one in the newsagent's. It has an exploded diagram of an Audi headlamp cluster, very similar to this. Hopefully you will be able to get hold of one of the new Audi units that use TI's automotive DLPs to project fancy images. They should prove interesting.
And yes.. permaseal type of seal on the bmw headlight and many other is nuisance...
But older gen bmw used to have clip on front lens for easy lens removal and replacement
Some big global car makers were staffing lighting teams in San Fransisco a decade ago. There were people from Audi and (maybe) a Japanese maker. Maybe this was one of their projects. . .
Note to self: Don't buy a used car with laser lights!!!!!!!!
Those Beamer lights are ridiculous
I have a bmw. A 2013 328i sport and I used to have a 2010 528i. I miss the dynamic Xeon headlights my 528i had they were gorgeous pieces of engineering. I don’t drive a bmw for showing off. I drive a bmw because I find myself just looking at and diving into all the beautifully engineered parts in the car. And I love diving into the code in the cars computers, the engineers leave so many things not coded just sitting dormant for you to find and figure out what it does and it makes you smile when you find something no one else has on a forum
I drive a Dodge, and it is amazing what their engineers have left open. You just need the right program to turn on all kinds of things.
Agree! I have a 2006 M3 with xenon and a 2010 550i with the "intelligent Xenon" lights, and I just adore how the 550 projectors move left and right as you turn the wheels and also adjust up and down as you climb and descend hills. Making a turn and having the whole corner lit up for you is a godsend when driving down dark country roads. And for the antiBimmer folks out there, if you follow the maintenance recommendations, you will very rarely need to go to the shop. My 550 has 86,000 miles and has never been in the shop for anything except brakes, fluid maintenance, and tires (all of which I do myself). The M3? Yeah, that's a different story...
@@pattonpending7390 You say you don't need to put your bmw in, then go on to say with your bmw, it's a different story. So you have to put it in.
I'm neutral on bmw's, but you have to make up your mind about wwhether they need to be out in for work or not
Also I seem to remember that the laser headlights had adaptive capability to alter output around oncoming vehicles? My only explanation of the excessive circuitry on the laser assemblies
How many more sharks must die in the name of equipping our car headlights with lasers? :-D
Frickin laser beams come from Mutated Sea Bass since sharks are on the endangered list...
Haha brilliant
There are no words to sufficiently emphasize how much I wouldn't want one of these in my car! But great teardown.
Bright LEDs are one thing. Using lasers for a headlamp is insane
It's actually much safer than using standard LEDs. Its much easier to control (with systems like BMWs adaptive high beam) so that it can block out parts of the beam so that other drivers aren't blinded. If you see these systems in action, it's really cool and it shows how much better they light the road without blinding other drivers.