LED Lighting Conversion

Thanks for the reply, you seem to be one of the more knowledgeable people on this site. I get into my wife's Rav4 with stock led headlights, then I drive my truck and I can barely tell if my headlights are on. I'm just looking to get at least the same output of the stock halogen's in a simple bulb swap if that's possible. What I've noticed in her car, street signs light up from a crazy far distance. I assume part of that is due to the color, but maybe it's more to it than that?

 

So my Fiance also has a Toyota Rav4 2015 and the lights are a bit different design than our trucks. I had to do some minor adjustment to my headlights, by pointing them up just slightly to achieve a farther throw with my LED's. The cut off is still below other drivers side mirrors and oncoming traffic isn't blinded by any means. Occasionally I get a flash from another driver, but usually, its when they are right on top of me and they are lower cars.

Your HID Kit, considering you get a good set, will throw pretty far. Also the XenonDepot LED kit is quite impressive if you can afford the $180-$200 price tag.

Here are so pics from @RobP62 with the Xenon Depots.



This photo is before he did the adjustment as I did. This is the LowBeams and FogLights on


Same spot after the Headlight adjustment.

 

LED light has lots of short wave light in the spectrum, halogen light has very little. Short wave light scatters very easily, which is why it is very poor in rain/snow/fog/dust and why long wavelength light does better in those conditions as it does not scatter nearly to the same extent. Street signs are highly reflective and promote bouncing the light back at the driver to illuminate the sign. Since LED light scatters far more, it causes street signs to light up much more intensely than halogen lights.

Human eyes are also not good at viewing short wavelength light sources, as it scatters within your eye, making your eyes very sensitive to looking at a light source of this kind of light. Even (hypothetically) if two signs were illuminated to the same intensity by reflecting light back from an halogen vs and automotive LED, your eyes are going to tell you the LED is far brighter because your eyes are far more sensitive to the light source. Not saying that is your case, but just an FYI into the science of light and our perception of it.

Even OEM lights can have varying amounts of glare, which is why the the NHTSA has started testing for satisfactory headlight performance and level of glare to oncoming drivers to issue a headlight safety rating on new vehicles. It could be the Rav4 produces more glare which lights up the signs, or it could be the new OEM lights are just that much better, it is somewhat difficult to say without additional information and testing.

For your truck, if you have the stock bulbs in, that is not helping you. OEMs usually put in 'long life' bulbs, as generally new car buyers don't want to be inconvenienced with a headlight bulb change when one burns out. However, long life bulbs achieve long life through lower output. You can get a noticeable bump in performance by simply swapping to a higher performing bulb.

You might checkout GEs Megalight +130:
https://www.powerbulbs.com/us/product/ge-megalight-ultra-h11-twin

Or Osram night breaker +150.
https://www.powerbulbs.com/us/product/osram-night-breaker-laser-next-generation-h11-twin

The higher + rating you go, the shorter the bulb life though.

Another option to boost output from ~1250 lumens to 2100 lumens is to swap in an H9 bulb. Use a German made H9 from Sylvania/Osram/Philips/Volsa. You need to trim one internal tab to fit as shown below. Or you can purchase some adapters like @skierd did so you don't have to bother with trimming here:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...de-not-led-or-hid.475064/page-4#post-18845649



If you want to change away from a halogen light source, HID is going to provide better distance projection than LED due to its small source with omni-directional light over the offset source of bi-directional LEDs, which causes loss of focus and distance projection. However, HIDs in a projector designed specifically for HIDs will do better. If you do go with LED, Hikari has the best focus, but I would question the build quality, though others on here could give more feedback with longevity.

Note that if you have lifted the truck, such as a leveling kit, it could also be an aiming issue too, as you will need to re-aim the headlights.

For some reason the pics didn't show in your post for me, but when I quoted you here they did. So fixed? I guess.

 

Good one Brett!

 

Nice Job!!!!!!

 

I have tried to gather all the information I need by sifting through this thread... But I am still torn on which headlight to purchase. Light projection and clarity is my goal, and with that in mind would LED or HID best suit my needs? And would the XenonDepot HID's or the deAutoLED HID's be the way to go?

XenonDepot:
https://www.xenondepot.com/2018-tacoma-h11-hid-kit-p/34b3-0000-h11-hid-kit.htm

deAutoLED:
http://deautokey.com/product/35w-slim-digital-ac-canbus-ballast-h7-h8-h11-h15-9006


Additionally, I am wondering what I should go with for the tail light/rear turn signal bulbs.

I apologize if these questions have been answered already, I have already spent hours looking through all this information!

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain all of that. I'm digesting all of the info. Other than changing a burnt out stock bulb years ago, I have no idea about lighting whatsoever. Seems like a couple different avenues.. The only thing I do know, I definitely want something different from what I currently have.

Would changing to any of these in my low beams require adjusting them? I'm not that comfortable doing that..

 

HID light projection will be superior to LED. Lower color temperatures also provide less scatter for better performance in rain/snow/fog/dust than higher color temperatures.

Not much info on the deAutoLED HIDs yet. For HIDs there are a couple things to consider.

4300k is the highest performing color temperature in HID, nearly all OEMs choose this color for superior output. The further you drift from this color temperature, the lower the output. Xenon Depot offers their own bulbs in the 4300k color temp, as well as higher output genuine German made Philips bulbs for a premium. I chose quality German made OEM grade lighting products over Chinese ones every day. But to me quality is the highest priority. deAutoLED offers 5000k and 6000k with no German made Philips option.

Ballast startup can have a significant amperage draw to ignite the HID capsule, well over what the OEM system is designed to handle. The XD ballasts have a low startup draw of 4.5A, which is about 54w. I've confirmed these numbers on a bench power supply. The OEM low beam bulb is 55w, meaning you can safely run the the XD ballasts without an additional standalone harness. deAutoLED provides no information about their ballasts startup.

 

LEDs loss of focus/hot spot reduces distance projection, some people try to correct for this by aiming their lights higher as shown just a few posts earlier, it is a band aid fix as it does not address the root of the issue. Halogen upgrades will work identical to stock requiring no adjustment. HID upgrades should work similar to stock, the rebased HID relocates the omnidirectional light source to the same location as the omnidirectional halogen filament but the arc is different than halogen. No adjusting should be required but it may benefit from fine tuning.

 

After weighing all the options and looking at the positives and negatives, I decided to order the xenondepot H11 led. Based on Rob's pictures, that's what my goal is. I'm hoping to be able to see better than the halogen's.

It's been raining the last couple days here. Being in my wife's rav4 with stock led then driving my truck, it's night and day difference. I don't expect to get exactly what hers project, but if it's better than stock, I'll be happy.

It seems like a really easy upgrade, I like that they don't have a fan that could break. I also like how easy they seem to adjust inside the housing so you get a good pattern. Fingers crossed I made the right choice. A little nervous about snowy conditions, but figured I would run the high beams occasionally to keep them warm. We generally take the other car for long trips in the winter, so it may rarely be an issue. Thanks to all who helped!

 

I for one can not recommend the Phillips 4300K from XenonDepot. They do not even come close to factory HID's like I had in my Audi's and VW.
These are no different in color temp than the factory halogens. You can't tell the difference when I have the stock halogen hi-beams on side by side. Way to yellow. I would not get anything less than 5000K.
And I did not see anything superior with the output from these bulbs.

 

I’ve measured the color temp, halogens are about 3200k and the Philips HIDs are about 4300k.



You can see they are not the same color. However you may prefer a higher color temperature which is completely fine if that is what you like. You lose about 7% in output going to 5000k which may be very well worth it for your preference. Stepping up to the 6500k results in a 12% loss. All my recommendations are based on best possible performance, not lighting cosmetics. Your OEM HIDs also benefit from having an HID projector and not putting rebased HIDs into a halogen projector optimized for a filament light source, it simply isn’t going to work as well or look as good as using the correct projector.

 

If you want white with a slight hint of blue which I and many prefer then do not go with the 4300ks.
If you want something to match in my case the factory LED fog lights then do not get 4300k bulbs for your head lights. I should have known better!
I posted in a thread that had a comparison chart that I thought the 4300ks looked yellow there. Someone who had the 4300ks said they look just like factory HID's. This color does not look like factory HID's from which I was used to, these are way more yellow.
Just trying to help someone not make the mistake I did.

 

Right the TRD Rigid Pro fogs are about 5900k. Even though a 4300k light is whiter than halogen it is going to look yellower than the 5900k LED fogs. Measurement for reference.

 

My latest project.

6 months ago I met with Rigid reps on my idea to build this LED product, an SAE fog compliant high output amber pod. I have now received the pre-production prototypes. They are significantly higher performing than the previous alternative.









See all the details here:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-led-sae-j583-fog-pod-fog-light-review.554813/page-14

 

Sweeeet!!! That's badass ass man, nice work.

 

Like the idea, but I hate goddy branding like that.

 

Those Rigids seem awesome. Sadly I can't justify spending that kind of money on lights.

 

Quality is not cheap! There was quite a bit of work that went into these to maintain SAE pattern compliance and get the improved output intensity in the amber color. Much easier/cheaper to build a product that does not need to meet SAE beam compliance standards. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. Just waiting on the brackets to mount them on my truck for street testing.

 

Do you have to move the washer fluid to the side or remove completely to access the passenger bulb? Not tackling yet, but it looked like there wasn't any room to get in there.