3rd Gen LED and HID Lighting upgrades Discussion (POLL)

So I did, what I thought was just going to be a very minor upgrade the Tacoma. @deAutoLED.com sent me their side marker bulbs and they are a huge upgrade.

You can get these in both amber as well as white.



It is the same bulb used for the licence plate light (second post on that soon). I prefer the amber color for the side makers and you can see why below.

Stock OEM (driver side).




White LED




Amber LED




The Amber color looks much better IMO. However both are awesome and are much better than stock.




They are pretty bright which will pair great with my deAutoLED front turn signals. Their signal bulbs are incredible quality and are hands down the brighteston the market today. Here is my video on that.

https://youtu.be/UtxbvQSd-JM

With all the upgrades to brighter headlights, it's important to remember your front turn signals. As the brighter LED and HID lighting upgrades are great. At night time they can drown out the OEM halogen turn signals on your Tacoma. Be sure to upgrade your turn signals as well and be safe out there.


I also upgraded my vanity mirror light with deAutoLED as well and they turned out great. You can check out my video on that as well.

https://youtu.be/aAO7vfBKO4w

 

Great job Brett! Do you still have your OEM tails? Sure would be nice to see a review on those upgraded with the @deAutoLED.com bulbs. [Wink wink]

 

I've actually got a story for you on my Tail Tailights. I'll tell you about that later. However, yes I do still have my OEM Tailights.

That's actually a good thought. Let me get with @deAutoLED.com.

 

Alright guys im stumped? Ive been running xenon h11 led extreme pros in my low beams for a couple months. Just received their hid kit today and installed and they work great. I put the leds in the high beams and they dont work? Any ideas? Thx

 

Try reversing the connections? Although I doubt you unplugged everything. Right?

 

Did one bulb at a time..but ive been known to f stuff up before. Ill have to check tomorrow its 25 and snowing sideways. Thx rob

 

Welcome Chad.
Well, if you unplugged the drivers from the bulbs they can go back on both ways. The plug to the wiring on the truck is one way only. Or it should be. But if they were working in the lows, and all you did was disconnect the entire harness from the truck plug, then there is nothing to stop them from working in the Highs. Remember though, the truck plug connection has the little tab sticking out and it has to mate with the little clip that holds them together.

Yea, best to wait until daylight so you are not getting frostbite!!!

 

I just remembered i plugged in the old halogen bulb and it worked? Hope i didnt mess them up when i clocked them.

 

I'd like to see that.

Edit: Love me some MESOJDM tails but a little, okay a lot, out of my price range at the moment, but I still would like to upgrade the light output.

 

For what my opinion is worth (probably nothing, but readers choice) I like to see both @crashnburn80 and @Parker315 post reviews AND opinion/fact in the thread. I get that the OP would be offended or pissed at times but I like to see both sides. It's like everything else associated with these trucks......tons of options for them from the ground up and along with that comes personal likes and preferences. I'm personally leaning towards the HIDs but that's just me. I know some of my buddies with Tacomas prefer the LED, regardless of the science between the two. Both of you keep up the good work and try not to let it get to you!!

 

There is way more to the science of lighting that brightest light source, it is about what light source is able to best project that light down road as that is the entire purpose of the headlight.

You can see my post with a measured comparison of the technologies here on page 2:

And another post here:

I constantly point out how smaller light sources make drastic impacts on light focus and projection. While these are halogen, and this thread is LED/HID, the concepts are the same because you are utilizing these sources in a halogen projector. The light on the left is a 2100 lumen 65w H9. The light on the right is a ~1300 lumen 55w H11. The left light source is far brighter in output.



H11 GE Megalight +130 left vs H9 Volsa right (reversed from above picture)


Measured lux readings:
GE 984 vs vs Volsa 784

The lower power, lower output light source actually puts out 25% more light because the engineers understood the lighting physics and shrank the light source that small fractional amount between those two filaments shown in the photo earlier to create vastly superior output. Looking at those two filaments, and understanding that the higher power, higher output one cannot compete with the lower power one more highly tuned to the OEM optics with that ultra small size change, it is very predictable what happens when you stick a comparatively massive bulky LED in there. Bulky large LED light sources do not use the OEM design optics, which is why performance suffers so poorly. The LED sources in many cases are actually way brighter, but the are not at all correctly tuned for the headlight assembly, meaning they lack the ability to project all that light. For the LED to work correctly, it needs to be the same size as the halogen wire filament, and emit light in all directions, not just point to the sides, or straight ahead. TRS/Morimoto is building a real LED headlight, where the entire housing is designed from the ground up for LED, which is the correct way to run LED headlights. Oversized light sources placed in a halogen housing cause loss of beam focus and loss of projection and dump lots of foreground light right in front of the vehicle, which makes for great looking photos, but poor real world performance.

While the HID bulb is not intended for the halogen projector, it is easy to see it has way more in common with the halogen technology platform compared to an LED. HIDs produce light via an electrical arc. An electrical arc is exceptionally small compared to a bulky LED. It is far more alike to a small halogen filament. An electrical arc also produces omni-directional light, just like a halogen, utilizing all parts of the projectors internal reflector bowl, unlike an LED which only shines to the side or forward. HIDs create a very small intense light source that will project distance while also providing a very full beam pattern by providing omni-directional light in the housing designed for a very small omni-directional light source. Compared to a large bulky one which dilutes the beam pattern and reduces projection distance, and doesn't emit light in all directions, but instead only projects it to the sides or forward and does not utilize the OEM optics at all.

While HIDs do vastly superior in every single measured regard in a halogen projector compared to LEDs, the light source is still not the halogen the projector it is designed for, so further gains can be had around using a HID based projector for an HID light. And real LED output can be had from using a properly designed LED lighting assembly, built from the ground up for LEDs, rather than trying to put a LED light source into an assembly designed specifically for a halogen light source.

 

I really wanted to go with HIDs but man I've seen people on here have WAY too many problems with shaking, suck that can't figure that out.

 

No, "clocking" them doesn't affect the wiring. Have you tried installing them this morning yet?

 

That is odd but how did you reinstall the LED kit in the high beams? If you literally just removed the bulb from the housing and plug it in the high beam then you may be having a polarity issue.

Danny

 

In regards to my Winjet Taillight issues.... Long story so let me try and make it short and sweet lol

Let me start by saying the best thing i could have done was buy these taillights from TacomaBeast.com. They have been absolutely outstanding with customer service to help resolve my issues. The issues i faced had nothing to do with Tacoma Beast and it was all QC problems from WinJet. In fact TB stopped carrying the WinJet lights because of all these issues.

I received my first set of lights from TB back in April this year (2018). The first issue was that the brake function and signal function was backward. The brake light would flash when i hit the blinker and the blinker lights would illuminate when I hit the brakes. TB offered to send me a new set and when I received them just return the other set. I declined because it wasn't that big of an issue as you can see from the video below. After 3 months i noticed condensation build up in the passenger side. I took it off and did my best to dry it out, only to continuously have the same thing happen. After getting fed up with that issue, I contacted TB and they offered to send a new set and when I received just send by the defective ones and they would handle the RMA. This was a huge help because WinJets RMA process can take months. So they sent me a new set and I installed them. At first they seem to be working fine. The blinker function was now normal and the water seals seem to be better around the edges. Well then i went to check the brake lights and the driver side worked fine, but the passenger side had 8 LED's that were out and didn't light up.


Pretty frustrated, I put the original WinJet back in and contacted TB in which I got an immediate response. I explained the issue and sent photos and asked if it was possible, could they send me the new taillights they just released that week from Spyder Auto in the "smoked" configuration instead of another set of Winjet. (Click here to see the new ones).

They apologized, they said they absolutely would send the other taillights if that's what I wanted or they would refund me in full for my original purchase of Winjets. They assured me that these type of QC problems would likely never be seen from these new ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKinZoPcgWI

I have the Morimoto 55W HID kit installed. Amazing setup and light output. Im using the double relay harness with this kit. I had the H11a or Standard H11 bulbs in first and I notice very minor bounce. I then read somewhere (can't remember where) that they recommended the H11B bulb. I pick up a set and I don't notice the shake or bounce at all anymore. The tabs between H11 and H11b are slightly different so that's all I can think as to what corrected the issue.

 

Great post Brett!

 

Hey there Rob!! Well, thank you sir. I hope it helps to anyone looking to get these Tailights. Feel free to share it on any threads applicable to the topic.

 

Sup Homie!? You know I will.

 

How are you liking those compared to the xenondepot HIDs?