LED Headlights

[Fifty150]

Just installed LED H11 that came from Amazon.com.  Easy plug-n-play installation.  Because of extra wiring and LED driver, keeping the dust caps was not an option.  Not a big deal, since LED lights run hot and have a fan built in for cooling; you will want to have airflow as opposed to trapping the heat with the dust caps.  Initial impression is that road seems brighter, and LED reflects better on signage.  It could just be my mind playing tricks on me.  With OEM halogen hitting the pavement, already illuminated by yellowish sodium vapor street lights, you can't really tell what your headlights are doing.  With LED lighting on the pavement, you can obviously see the white light.  

 

[Fifty150]

[G B L]

With out driving into a pole get a real picture of the road from the driver's seat some night. thanks 
.

[Fifty150]

I will do that once I get into a good area for that.  It's hard to do in front of my house, because the overhead sodium vapor street light makes everything yellow.

[zalienz]

Ok, I'll bite. Looks interesting. I'm up for a headlight upgrade, still on the fence, upgraded PIAA halogens, HID, LED, etc... so do you like the LED's?

Edited November 20, 2016 by zalienz

[Fifty150]

So far, so good.  Bear in mind that I'm doing city driving.  Every street I go to, there are street lights.  So with sodium vapor lights painting everything yellow, it's hard to tell how much good it's doing or not doing.  Some streets now have LED street lights, which means nothing, since the LED lights sort of blend together.  On my pickup truck, the LED lights really made a difference in off road and country roads where there are no street lights.  For the time being, since I have a truck for going to The Lake, the only time I'll see a difference is if I'm driving through a parking that has no lighting.

[Beta Don]

How hard was this to do?  Does the one bulb do both high and low beams?  Do you have to remove the headlight assemblies to install these, or is there room to do this in only ten minutes as they claim?  I see on Amazon similar lights with 4800 lumens and Philips branded LED chips vs only 4000 for the ones you bought and they are only a few dollars more.  Reading the reviews on these, a few buyers seemed not too happy with the amount of light they got from installing this particular bulb vs the halogens they had before  -  Is the main benefit the whiter light, or were you going for *more* light?  Why did you choose this particular bulb over some of the others?  What's the benefit of the external power supply??  Most of the others have the cooling fans but none of them that I saw have the external power supply

You've got these on more than one vehicle  -  Thanks for sharing your experiences!!

Don 

[Fifty150]

9 hours ago, Beta Don said:

How hard was this to do?  Does the one bulb do both high and low beams?  Do you have to remove the headlight assemblies to install these, or is there room to do this in only ten minutes as they claim?  I see on Amazon similar lights with 4800 lumens and Philips branded LED chips vs only 4000 for the ones you bought and they are only a few dollars more.  Reading the reviews on these, a few buyers seemed not too happy with the amount of light they got from installing this particular bulb vs the halogens they had before  -  Is the main benefit the whiter light, or were you going for *more* light?  Why did you choose this particular bulb over some of the others?  What's the benefit of the external power supply??  Most of the others have the cooling fans but none of them that I saw have the external power supply

You've got these on more than one vehicle  -  Thanks for sharing your experiences!!

Don 

 

Don,

 

Great questions.

It was not hard.  Remove OEM lamp, connect LED lamp, insert LED lamp.  Just like changing any other light bulb.

On my van, and yours also, the low beam and high beam are 2 separate lamps.  This is only a low beam replacement.

You do not have to remove the headlamp.  You do have to remove the dust cover.  10 minutes is actually very generous.  I think both lamps took less than 5 minutes.  

 

On my van, the noticeable difference was that there seemed to be more light, and brighter light, in the immediate area in front of the van.  The obvious comparison is the brightness.  Everything which used to be bathed in a dull yellow, is now brightly lit.  The drawback is that your OEM headlamp housing is designed to reflect a halogen lamp.  Depending on the vehicle, and it's headlamp design, results will vary.  A halogen lamp will always throw a farther beam, since that is what the headlamp was designed to do.  

 

So if you're in a wide open, unlit football field or parking lot, you will see everything in front of you with clarity, but your beam is not going 100 yards down field.  Your halogen won't go 100 yards either, but will go down farther than LED.  But what good is a dull light which goes downfield, if that dull yellow light doesn't allow for me to actually see?  For me, being able to see what was in front of me was a higher priority.  Most of my driving is in The City, where there are street lights on every block.  On long stretches of unlit open road, the LED is sufficient.  Driving with halogen, I found myself using the high beams on cross country road trips.  With LED, I haven't had to turn on the high beams.  When I'm out in the woods, or up at The Lake, with LED low beam & high beam, I no longer need offroad lights.  And the fact that I'm offroad, in uneven terrain, means that I'm not going 75 MPH, and I never drive faster than I can see.

Transit Connect low beams are  H11 (55 W @ 12.0 V, 1350 lm ±10% @ 13.2 V) .  Transit Connect high beams are  H9 (65 W @ 12.0 V, 2100 lm ±10% @ 13.2 V).  So while a LED replacement may not reflect as well, you are getting about 3X the lumen.  

Why did I buy this off-brand, generic?  It was on sale.  An Amazon.com lightning deal.  I figured that I could always return it if I didn't like it.

Back in the dinosaur days, when lighting upgrade was HID kits, they all came with an external power supply because that was the only way to do it.  Just like lighting fixtures that had to have a ballast.  You simply couldn't wire your fluorescent T8 tubes right into the building without a ballast.  The actual LED and the cooling fan had different power demands, and the driver made it possible to power both via the OEM harness plug.   My pickup's LED system was designed so that the OEM plug connected to the driver, which had two separate lines going out to feed the LED and cooling fan.  And the advantage was that since the LED itself rarely had a failure, you could always replace just the driver/ballast.  Today's technology allows for all the necessary electronics to fit neatly into the lamp unit.  There is a driver, but it's small enough to fit between the LED and fan.....so no visible external driver.

So I've got 2 cars with LED lights.  I'm happy with both, because I accept the plus & minus of running LED in a halogen housing.  The aftermarket has begun manufacturing units which replace the entire headlamp housing with an LED unit.  These are by far superior.  They're usually round, and a sealed beam, with all the drivers and cooling demands built into the same unit.  I see them sold for round lights.  Jeeps and Harley Davidsons are the target market.  If you have an old Harley, check out the Harley Davidson Day Maker.  Old VW with a round light bucket could probably use them also.  And it looks like they are now in the small round fog light size, so cars like Transit Connect with round fog lights can use them.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Fifty150]

What initially caught my attention to LED upgrades was Terralux offering upgrade kits for flashlights.  I thought I had the best flashlight possible with my collection of Streamlight, Surefire, and MagLite in various models and sizes.  The LED upgrades were so good that I was willing to spend $XX to upgrade a little MiniMAGLITE that was only worth $X.  Suddenly, I found that it was worth the money to put another hundred into a flashlight that cost well over $100.  When LED lighting hit the automotive market, I knew that even though it was not perfect, LED lighting would help me do away with running all of those 100 watt spotlights bolted all along the roofline and sucking up my battery.

[BSUPC]

Trying to figure out how to post a video on here. Might have to go through youtube and just post the link. But I will get a video posted from my dash cam driving at night. I started out by running HID's for a year and a half. These things were great as long as you leave them in either low or high beam. When you start switching between the two for cars on the road, one or both will get stuck. By stuck I mean if you are in high beam and switch to low beam one light will go to low and the other will get stuck in high. Or this could be both stuck in high. Also with the HID's you have the warm up period when you turn them on. The warm up is only 20-60 seconds long and was not to much of a problem for me but could be for some. Switched over to LED's a few months ago and love them. They are instant on, do not get stuck when switching from low to high, and are just as bright as the HID's were. Also the LED's are a lot easier to install over the HID's. 

[BSUPC]

The camera does not do these lights justice. Have yet to see a camera that shows the true awesomeness of headlights period. But here is a short video from my dash cam with the LED's. 

 

https://youtu.be/nsfaDjwIxEk

[Fifty150]

Which brand of LED did you buy?

 

Did you change out any other lamps to LED?

 

I changed my rear tail lamp (not brake light), reverse lamp, and front parking lamp (next to headlight).  

[Fifty150]

Has anyone here tried to install a modified H9 high beam into their H11 low beam housing?

[Fifty150]

On 11/20/2016 at 8:01 AM, Beta Don said:

 

On 11/20/2016 at 8:01 AM, Beta Don said:

 I see on Amazon similar lights with 4800 lumens and Philips branded LED chips vs only 4000 for the ones you bought and they are only a few dollars more. 

Don 

 

 

 

I see that this manufacturer also has a 4800 lumen version.

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LXO0W17/ref=s9_acsd_hps_bw_c_x_1_w?th=1

 

H11 LED Headlight Bulbs , Conversion Kit (Upgraded version) Philips LED Beads 96W 9600LM 6000K Low Beam/ High Beam/ Fog Light Bulbs with 3 Yr Warranty (by Street Cat)

by Street Cat

5.0 out of 5 stars    3 customer reviews

 

| 19 answered questions

 

 

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[BSUPC]

I went with the Auxbeam F-16 Series off of Amazon. SO far I love them. As far as the rest of the lights go, I have changed all of them to LED's except the two map lights, the side turn signals, and the rear turn signals. All others have been swapped out. I have also swapped out all of the bulbs in my house and new workshop for LED's. I also have a original Streamlight Stinger converted over to LED via the terralux conversion kit, and a Streamlight Stinger DS HP LED. Fell in love with the Streamlight name brand during my time in the Fire Dept. and it just carried over to my time as a Correctional Officer for the State. 

I am obsessed with LED's. I love anything that runs cooler, uses less power, and last way longer. 

Edited November 22, 2016 by BSUPC

[Fifty150]

Working on the street, the best thing that we could get our hands on "back in the day" was the StreamLight SL-20.  At the time, the mod was to put a SL-35 lamp into the SL-20.  Much brighter, but didn't last as long.  Department vehicles did not have charging sleeves installed since there wasn't any room left on the dash with all the dinosaur electronics all over the place.  Not a problem since most guys would install Streamlight chargers into their homes & personal cars, and carried extra batteries.  Some guys would spend the extra money, and have two lights.  Nothing like being able to light up a dark alley, be able to see into shrubbery, or shine a light 30' up into a tree & be able to see somebody hiding in it.  Absolute lifesaver if called upon to search miles of beach & sand dunes, or park land.  

 

Then Terralux came along.  And anyone who did not upgrade was a fool with a deathwish.  A StreamLight with a Terralux LED could outshine even the brightest headlights on a car.....or so it seemed with those anemic halogens on the front of the Crown Vics.  

 

I agree with you in regards to LED upgrades in your house.  I did the math.  LED replacements only use about 10% of the electricity that a halogen uses.  I also replaced my exterior lighting with solar powered LED units that have a photocell sensor and motion sensor.  These lights turn on dim when the sun goes down.  Simple markers for the property fence line and walkways.  Then when something moves, the lights turn on full power to flood the area.  I know they work great because when raccoons enter the property, the lights turn my yard into a prison yard.  Any burglar in the night will be bathed in LED lighting for my security cameras and night sights.  These are really cheap on Amazon.com, and the best part is that they are free to operate.  I liked these so much that I gave my cousin a set.  He installed them in his yard, and he likes it so much, that he bought a set for my brother in law.  My electric bill has gone down by 60% now that I'm using solar & LED.  

 

https://smile.amazon.com/VOLADOR-Outdoor-Driveway-2200mAh-Battery/dp/B01D42ECSG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1479859512&sr=8-2&keywords=volador+led

VOLADOR Solar Outdoor Garden Lights,4 Pack 20 LEDs Solar Motion Light for Outdoor Wall Garden Lamp Patio Deck Yard Home Driveway Stairs With 2200mAh Battery Auto On/Off (Black)

by VOLADOR

4.1 out of 5 stars    95 customer reviews

 

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[Fifty150]

On 11/19/2016 at 6:24 AM, G B L said:

With out driving into a pole get a real picture of the road from the driver's seat some night. thanks 
.

I tried.  Camera is junk on a cell phone.  My hands are shaky.  Ambient lighting from the street is obviously a factor.

[Fifty150]

[Fifty150]

For the moment, I am satisfied.  Next thing to do is add LED to the high beam lamp.

[Fifty150]

Okay.  The high beams have also been exchanged to LED.  At the moment, I hesitate to use the word "upgrade".  Time will tell how well it's working, and if it was truly an upgrade.

 

 

[Fifty150]

[zalienz]

So which bulbs did you use for the high beam? Looking at the Street Cat bulbs. the 4000 lumen bulbs say H11 (H8 / H9), and the 4800 lumen bulbs just say H11. I'm liking the LED idea, and would probably go with the 4800 lumen bulbs. I also need to decide about the fog lamps, if I should go with something traditional like yellow fogs or go with the H11 LEDS. Fog where I'm at is relatively rare, and might decide to use the white LEDs to get more light out front. Pretty cool ideas, though, thanks for sharing.

[Fifty150]

My high beams are the 4800 lumen Street Cat.  The H11 (H8/H9) size fits perfectly.  And you can see from photos that I posted, the LED driver fits snugly on the framework of the vehicle right where the lamp housing is.  Get your own zip tie  The zip tie in the box is not long enough.  But that is an insignificant detail.  These really work.  

 

I first bought the 4000 lumen units on Amazon.com, because it was a "Lightning Deal".  Really low price.  Then I saw the 4800 lumen.  Now, I wished I bought both sets in the 4800 lumen model.  It's newer technology.  And there is a 3 year warranty, which is far superior to the 1 year warranty offered with other brands.  When I bought my first set of LED lights for my pickup truck, back when dinosaurs were still roaming La Brea, those lamps only came with a 6 month warranty......no big deal, since I am still running them.  But the difference in technology is by leaps and bounds.  The current generation just seems to illuminate better.

 

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LXO0W17/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Fifty150]

[Fifty150]

5 hours ago, zalienz said:

I also need to decide about the fog lamps, if I should go with something traditional like yellow fogs or go with the H11 LEDS. 

Fog lights do not need to be yellow, in order to work.  The science is there.  Do a little research.  Or you can have yellow headlights too, just like in France.