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
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.
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.
Some explenation of the BMW light/tech: The little light at 6:25 is the cornering light. The connector at 6:40 is the FLE ECU (Light ECU) on each car you have 2 ECU's FLER and FLEL (Right - LEFT) These FLE's are doing all the work controlling the lights and communication to the BDC ZGM (body domain controller and Central gateway module) it does this on the Canbus K-CAN6 line. The BDC is the main body module and is connection with every module through the ZGM. ZGM connects all the networks together : ( D-CAN - K-CAN - ETHERNET - FLEXRAY - PT CAN - OBD - LIN) The Lights are adaptive lights with adaptive beam control. They are semi- matrix lights and still use vertical aim servo's. With this they can use high beams without dazzling oncomming traffic. New versions with the KAFAS camera can even spot traffic signs and dim the light to stop reflections. The Blue accent lights are part of the welcome lights. The Laser module will only be active if the KAFAS camera does not see oncoming traffic and the speed is more than 80km/h. Also the light switch has to be on AUTO and the High beam assistant button should have been pressed. Safety was always a concern for these lights. in the US cars need to have a warning on the headlight for Emergency Personel. There is also an old youtube video with the prototype Laser lights featured in the BMW technology center. Also they do a demo of the much more spectacular and handy Dynamic spot assistant. (found it! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-h29SwJDXMBc.html) (demo of the Dynamic Light spot ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sQgO0bAm2Zw.html) It's amazing how they shrunk the design in 10 years. The BMW i8 was the first car with Laser lights 2014 and it used 3 lasers and a prism.
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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!
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?
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.
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.
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
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!
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 🤐
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.
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!
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 RU-vid 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 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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.)
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
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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!
@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.
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!
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.
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.
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
That BMW headlight reminds me of a quote: "There is no task simple enough you could not keep 50 engineers busy with it." In other words: FizzBuzz Enterprise Edition, the headlight.
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. 👍
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
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
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
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.
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. . .
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.
i hate this style of light, at least the cheap ones, the chromatic aberration on the edges of the beam makes for bright blue hotspots on top and makes them distracting as hell when someone is behind you with them.
@@kain0m definitely it's more of an issue with hid lights on cheap cars, hyundai are the worst offenders, i was more referring to the projector style of headlight with very defined beam edges using cheap optics.