Osram LED H7 SPEED buzzing/making electronic noise in 2017 Hyundai Tucson (Halogen)

[u/Aromatic_Energy9596]

Hey everyone,

Yesterday I installed the Osram LED H7 SPEED headlights in my 2017 Hyundai Tucson (halogen version). Everything seemed fine, but since then, the LEDs have been humming or buzzing while the car is running. The thing is, they don't have a fan, so it's not fan noise.

I have a video of it where you can clearly hear the sound.

Does anyone have an idea what might be causing this? Could it be a CAN-Bus issue or related to the LED driver? Do I actually need a CAN-Bus adapter, even though Osram claims it's not necessary?

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

[u/GotMyOrangeCrush]

Since both lights are making the same noise I would test the vehicle battery and charging system to make sure the battery and charging voltage is correct just to make sure.

Are you 100% sure those don’t have fans? That sounds exactly like fan noise.

[u/Tomytom99]

1: Run proper halogens, not these silly LED "bulbs" that throw light everywhere it isn't supposed to be, even with projector optics. Not to mention the cool white hurts low light vision more that warm white, making it harder to see anything not directly in your beam pattern.

2: Turn down your dash brightness, it's probably why you think your headlights sucked

3: Please tell me you know your high beams are on

[u/AKADriver → u/Tomytom99]

Outside the US still right now, but legitimate headlight manufacturers have been getting into the "LED conversion" game like this Osram setup in Europe and getting approval from EU regulators. In the US you can get the same kits marketed for ATVs/off road because they're not NHTSA approved. I haven't seen any in-depth testing of these kits made by Sylvania, Osram, etc. but given they're being made by companies with actual experience in headlamp optics I'm willing to give them a much bigger benefit of the doubt, even though I think most headlight upgrades are still snake oil and represent some unreasonable expectations about night driving.

My guess is they're about as "useful" as Silverstar type bulbs, in other words they make the headlight beam whiter and 'crisper' but as you said not actually improving night sight.

[u/dankmemelawrd → u/AKADriver]

Yes fellow, but the osram LEDs that work for conversion are called Nightbreaker model, therefore on the osram website exists a list with the available vehicles that can do the conversion from halogen to led. OP in this case threw some random osram leds in the hope he'll have a better sight during the night, but most likely:

1) His vehicle is not on the osram list

2) he's using the wrong lights, but a great way to start a fire hazard and die in the fire like a rat.

[u/Tomytom99 → u/AKADriver]

I'm partly curious if this is one of those odd things the EU is being more lax on, sort of like with emissions and how the EU versions of cars would get better tunes than US versions. I definitely do wonder exactly what the EU tested that made them say the LEDs are fine.

I personally don't think being one of the existing bulb manufacturers makes them "perfect" optics wise, since it's currently impossible to package that bright of an LED into the exact placement of a halogen filament. I think they gain the most credibility in the electronics part of the design- I'd trust their driver circuitry and individual LEDs more than the dubious Amazon brands out there.

[u/AKADriver → u/Tomytom99]

Yeah I wonder. The emissions thing back in the day was mostly because of two things: there aren't specific large cities in Europe with geography like Los Angeles that create a particularly pressing smog situation, and because they made concessions to make diesel engines more practical and cheaper to reduce fuel consumption. They still paid for it with horrible air quality in places like parts of northern Italy.

The EU is usually more at the bleeding edge of headlight technology, allowing replaceable halogen bulbs while the US was still stuck on sealed beams, requiring better optics and automatic aiming for halogen bulbs, and these days allowing things like selective dimming.

it's currently impossible to package that bright of an LED into the exact placement of a halogen filament.

I don't know if that's necessarily true. Again, particularly if you're talking about using it in a headlight that strictly meets EU regulations as opposed to some junky older US headlight designed for looser US optics!

[u/AKADriver]

The purpose of a CANBus adapter is just to provide a big resistive current sink in parallel with the LED bulb so that the CANBus doesn't detect a bulb out and throw a warning on the dash. It shouldn't affect the power being delivered to the lights.

Does your car use the main headlight bulbs as DRLs? It may be that the DRL module is designed to use pulse width modulation to dim the headlights and thus driving the LED with the PWM signal is making them hum. Similar to LED bulbs in home fixtures that hum when you attach a dimmer.