Laser Vehicle Lighting, COOL!

[jzchen]

Saw this a little while back now. Finally remembered to hop in and ask/discuss on thoughts. Can this be safely used when nobody is around, or like high beams?

Laser Edition LED Lights | RIGID Industries

Push the boundaries of distance. RIGID Laser Edition lights use cutting-edge laser tech to project light farther than ever thought possible. Never out run your light.

www.rigidindustries.com

 

[LEDphile]

Looks like it's probably LEP, which means it's essentially high beams

 

[John_Galt]

1 million candela claimed. Sorry about your fried retinas when you catch a refletive highway sign.

Not the first. Baja Designs still offers their own laser boosted spots.

BD XL racer lamp

And a single emitter lamp using the same setup, the S1.

There's been an aftermarket LED headlight projector available for years on alibaba that has a low beam, high beam, and laser based spot boost. The intensity is so high and the beam width so narrow I don't see any argument for a use case unless you're regularly driving through maybe the australian outback (on a road-going vehicle).

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't pass on a free set, but these are so intense as to be practically unuseable.

 

[John_Galt]

I hate to link to crsppy products, but this is an example of the laser boosted projector "headlamp" I posted about previously.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803447498018.html?spm=a2g0n.productlist.0.0.7e9a21c24iZYLa&browser_id=71242b4c50e14ceb81b985ecac88b3d8&aff_platform=msite&m_page_id=bcecebbecacbd191f3c9f9eb1b092e607c4de27071&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21USD%21205.00%21136.50%21%21%21205.00%21136.50%21%402103011717263719858823318e23f7%2112000029865700563%21sea%21US%210%21ABX&algo_pvid=40049ec2-f033-4c27-9bca-4ad30a4c773e

There are a bunch of these, all with various wattage and "% hihher output" claims. This is the first example that actually appears to have an actual laser diode in use.

I remember a thread discussing a system using a laser boost setup for a headlamp, I can't remember if it was being introduced by BMW or mercedes, but their discussion about it implied it was using a laser diode to energize a phosphor layer on a servo mounted plate inside the headlamp, which could create a very high intensity area resulting in a more complete section of the highbeam projecting further, rather than a central spot of high intensity. I'll search through this subforum a bit and see if I can find the thread.

 

[jaycee88]

I hate to link to crsppy products, but this is an example of the laser boosted projector "headlamp" I posted about previously.

There are a bunch of these, all with various wattage and "% hihher output" claims. This is the first example that actually appears to have an actual laser diode in use.

At first when I saw that Aliexpress product listing, I was skeptical that it used lasers at all, but then I saw this Youtube video where one of these cheap laser headlights (and an OEM BMW laser headlight) was taken apart:



Starting at about the 4:00 mark, you can see why this laser headlight is so cheap - all they've done is taken a laser diode and aimed it at the existing LED emitters which causes a small area on the emitter to generate extra light. This is basically the cheapest way to technically have a working laser headlight. He didn't do any light measurements though, so it's tough to say how much the laser portion actually contributes to the light output.

Then compare the Aliexpress special to the OEM BMW laser headlight and......of course they're not even in the same ballpark in terms of engineering (and resulting cost).

 

[LEDphile]

I remember a thread discussing a system using a laser boost setup for a headlamp, I can't remember if it was being introduced by BMW or mercedes

BMW, although other manufacturers have since adopted the technology in the last decade - https://spectrum.ieee.org/bmw-laser-headlights-slice-through-the-dark

 

[John_Galt]

Interesting vid. Around the 4:55 mark you can see that the lsser diode is apparently slightly misaimed. The high/main beam 3 emitter chip seems to be illuminated by the laser diode slightly off to the left of center, likely reducing its performance. Perhaps that just due to his disassembling the lamp for inspection and reassembling it for testing, but that would both reduce the potential for performance and shift the beam pattern as a result.

 

[John_Galt]

I'd say the kyocera laser smd chip is what both baja designs and rigid are using. They appear to be available for purchase from mouser electronics, but very expensive. This does not appear to be the module used in the BMW headlamp, the vid author speculwtes its an osram unit.

Very neat. These were not on my radar.

https://www.mouser.com/new/kyocera-avx/kyocera-sld-laserlight-smds/

What bugs me about baja designs is they will give a beam description, but not an intensity rating. Makes it more difficult to compare lamps between brands, models etc.

 

[jaycee88]

Interesting vid. Around the 4:55 mark you can see that the lsser diode is apparently slightly misaimed. The high/main beam 3 emitter chip seems to be illuminated by the laser diode slightly off to the left of center, likely reducing its performance. Perhaps that just due to his disassembling the lamp for inspection and reassembling it for testing, but that would both reduce the potential for performance and shift the beam pattern as a result.

Even worse, at around the 2:55-3:00 mark, the LED looks like it has scorch marks on it.
I wonder what the odds are of the LED not getting smoked after a few hours of sustained laser use.

Some dude in China was probably thinking 'How do we make a laser headlight as cheaply as possible? Oh let's take this existing LED headlight we already have and just shoot a laser onto one of the LED's. Laser headlight!'

 

[John_Galt]

Yes, absolutely not the best method.

I'm very curious how those kyocera laser modules woould work in TIR optics. I'll have to poke through the laser subforum to see if anyone has any projects with those. I'd need to pick up a tabletop powersupply, but I'd be Very curious to see how they work through some of the TIRs for driving lights that are available.

The rigid lamp that was linked in the original post seem to have a diffuser over the diode, but the baja designs seem to simply have a bare emitter visible in a reflector. It's more diffuse than a laser diode, but I can't imagine catching sight of one even at a distance would be easy on the eye.

 

[jzchen]

We have a BMW ex service Manager who eventually opened his own shop that lives around the corner. I believe it is the i8 model that has the laser headlamps. I do believe that they ONLY turn on after around 4x MPH, as he explained to me, 45 or 47 if my memory serves me, this was years ago that we last chatted. Not long enough exposure to eyes at that speed to do harm, which made perfect sense. (It has more traditional lamps for slower speeds).

 

[Deleted member 784191]

Saw this a little while back now. Finally remembered to hop in and ask/discuss on thoughts. Can this be safely used when nobody is around, or like high beams?

Laser Edition LED Lights | RIGID Industries

Push the boundaries of distance. RIGID Laser Edition lights use cutting-edge laser tech to project light farther than ever thought possible. Never out run your light.

www.rigidindustries.com

As a vehicle lighting engineer, I look first for the small print - it seems these are so narrowly focused as to be virtually useless, AND THEY ARE ILLEGAL for on-road driving... still, very interesting!

 

[John_Galt]

The lamps discussed so far are definitely not suitable for on road use, but the technology behind them has potential for road compliant lights. Especially in small formfactor applications, e.g. driving lights for motorcycles (although that's an exceedingly small market). The surface intensity means you could use significantly smaller optics and housing size to reach similar levels of performance as other auxiliary driving lamps on the market.

It's really a shame that selective yellow is not a federally legal droving light color, pairing these emitters with a color filter outer lens would be one way for a manufacturer to reduce projected intensity.

Edit- I wonder how complex it would be to add a circuit to the control board that uses an accelerometer to keep the lep side of the board turned off below a given speed, as the I8's lamps apparently do. Rigid/bd/DD could them offer a road legal driving lamp that offered an automatic intensity increase above a given speed. Would also mean anyone who installs them and has a set of these lamps slaved to their highbeams wpuldn't be blasting oncoming traffic with hundreds of thousands of extra cd intensity when flashing their highbeams momentarily in traffic.

I'll use the Diode dynamics SS3 Pro as an example. With their driving light optic, it produces ~70kcd intensity. Replace one of the xpl-hi emitters with a kyocera diode, below "x" mph, it now produces only ~53kcd. Given the surface intensity difference, whenever the accelerometer trips the lep circuit, it's now punching out with an additional 70kcd (using the Max, which exceeds the SAE driving light standard, but the osram hx boost chip has ~1/4 the max surface intensity of the kyocera chip).

It offers a legal punch of extra light at normal speeds, and offers an additional punch at typical highway travel speeds, all in one unity.

Diode dynamics showcased an SS5 model at SEMA i believe two years ago, with the center row of three emitters using a distinct optic. They may already be experimenting with LEP boosted lamps. I'll see if I can dig up the video showcasing it.

 

[XeRay]

I wonder how complex it would be to add a circuit to the control board that uses an accelerometer to keep the lep side of the board turned off below a given speed, as the I8's lamps apparently do.

Accelerometers only sense rate changes in speed + / - not actual speed. That's what acceleration is and typically measured in + or - G's. You would need to know the actual speed to integrate your intended control.

 

[Deleted member 784191]

What he said ; but there are sensors that measure speed on the vehicle, so an existing sensor could feed the lights to do this.

 

[John_Galt]

Another interesting find, an LEP unit with its own housing and reflector unit. Claims to be capable of 300kcd in a "3*×8*" beam pattern at 3A drive current.

Pattern appears to be an almost inverted diamond shape, much sharper than I would have expected from such a small reflector. The unit requires attachment to an external heatsink/cooling array at its "rated" power input levels, but is very compact and inexpensive.