3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights

You will need to do very minor trimming on the metal bulb collar to fit. Lunex seems to use wider flanges than other H9s I’ve tried that don’t require trimming.

 

And these arrived today. I’ll test them this evening and post results.

One of only 2 claimed H9 +100s

 

On pins and needles. I Want them to WORK.

 

I broke out the promising sounding Lunex H9 +100s to test tonight. These are only one of two bulbs that claim to to be an H9 +100. Supposedly there is no such thing as a high performance H9, according to the lighting community it does not exist. I am going to put that to the test.



First thing I always do when checking out a bulb is scrutinize the filament. High precision, smaller wire, tighter wound, shorter filaments are characteristics of a high efficiency performance bulb that are attempting to shrink the light source for greater focus and intensity. I compared the Lunex filament to my standard Osram H9 I had on hand. The Lunex coil was shorter but the wire appeared thicker, and the wind appeared slightly larger than the standard Osram bulb. Major red flags. I immediately suspected this bulb was not at all what it was advertised to be and instead a very different animal.

Firing it up on the power supply confirmed my suspicions. 5.24A at 13.8v. Meaning this is not a high efficiency bulb at all, it is a higher powered one.

5.24A x 13.8v = 72.3w. A standard H9 is 65w, as indicated directly on the box. This bulb is an over wattage H9, not a high efficiency +100 H9. The higher performance rating is not achieved through increased focus efficiency which extends distance projection, it is achieved through higher power.

Lunex H9 "+100" left vs GE H11 +130 right



While the higher wattage Lunex H9 provides a slightly bit fuller beam pattern coverage, it cannot match the overwhelming focus of the GE H11 +130s. A true testament to the level of outstanding engineering at GE, that their ~1300 lumen stock wattage bulb has managed to outperform a ~2336 lumen over wattage H9. The Lunex bulbs also fall far short of their promised 3700k color rating, coming in at ~3300k, lower than the GE bulbs 3500k.



I had moderate hopes for the Lunex bulbs, being a newer UK company manufacturing bulbs in the UK and claiming to make a real H9 +100, I was hoping maybe they'd be 'startup' enough to build such a product, but no such luck. Props for the higher performance H9 but as usual the world class industry heavy weights trump those with artificially high claims, proving they understand and execute the science of lighting better.

 

I woke up to this. Damn . I was excited. Now what. The other H9 XXX. Should we wait. And thanks for the never ending work you do. I appreciate it.

 

However today was not a total loss.

I am always searching and testing for what I believe to be the best possible lighting products to share with TacomaWorld, most of which you never hear about because they end up being not noteworthy, typical unfulfilled promises of performance.

In my search to find the ultimate H9 performance bulb, I found the Xenon Hella H9, listed as a standard bulb. Standard = non-performance longer life, lower output bulb. While Hella makes great lighting assemblies, they do not actually make bulbs. Their bulbs are outsourced. And I generally recommend against buying Hella brand bulbs, because often they are total garbage, but it just depends on who the outsourcing company is, which you likely do not know when purchasing the bulbs. They are not made in Germany like their other lighting products. You can see a previous experience with a "performance Hella bulb" in post #809 and 810 here. Warning! If you like headlights it is graphic!

So why would I even bother ordering a 'Xenon Hella H9'? Because supposedly these were manufactured by Osram for Hella, and are from Osram's Hyper Series.

Osram Hypers are the worlds highest performing halogen H4, by far. That is what I run in my 2nd Gen headlights and no other H4 halogen can touch the performance of this bulb. Most 'Xenon' Hellas claimed they were a +50 bulb. But when the bulbs showed up, they were boxed in a Hella "Standard" box, and even worse the bulbs said "Made in Korea". Sigh, more money down the drain, I'm pretty used to it. The Hyper series are made in Germany.



I figured in the interest of science, I should still give the Hellas a try. When I fired up the power supply I literally did a double take. I checked the settings to make sure they were set right. All I could say was wow! These bulbs were noticeably brighter than the Lunex bulbs.



I see this higher powered H9 trend is a thing. These 'Hellas' are consuming almost 73w as an H9 while claiming to be a 65w bulb. However, while similar in current draw, Osram has the science down better than Lunex, which if you have followed Osrams Hyper series should be of no surprise. While the coating on the Lunex bulbs is only on the tip, the Hellas have no coating for maximum performance.



Even these Hella (Osram Rally) H9s have a hard time beating out the GE bulbs in peak intensity. However, if measuring outside of the hot spot, the Hellas really start to excel. Assuming a linear relationship for wattage to output, that puts these Hellas at 2350 lumens. What is a bit misleading in photos is color. The photo below looks like the GEs on the right are far brighter due to the whiter color temp, but in person and by measurement that is not the case. Also spacing a measurement 12" off the hotspot places the Hellas 20% higher in output than the GEs, meaning that the Hellas are very almost identical to peak hotspot output while providing a fuller uniform light pattern.

Hella (Osram Hyper) vs GE Megalight +130


This was so close that even with professional grade lighting equipment I really had a hard time determining which was best. These bulbs were impressive. I'll have to set out a long distance comparison test again to confirm that it is the best choice which I will try to do tomorrow.

Based on the information at the moment, if it were my truck, I would sacrifice a few points in peak intensity for the fuller beam pattern and go with the Hellas (Osram Hyper). However, I do have a few other performant H9 products coming in. I cannot say what their performance will be, as clearly even these are misleading, but I have more high wattage and high efficiency claimed H9s which should be here soon.

For high beams, high wattage or raw output power is more effective than high efficiency. Meaning these Hellas will provide improved high beam over stock wattage H9s and would be a ~12% output improvement.

Hella Osram Hypers:
https://www.rallylights.com/hl78178-h9-12v-65w-xenon-bulb.html
NOTE: The Hella Hypers specs are suspect. They are clearly more than 2100 lumens, and the 250 hour life may be longer than actual.

 

So can you run Four of these ? Highs and lows . Says 250 Hours . I'm impressed. Thanks.

 

Yep. These are upgrades for both the highs and lows. 250 hours is the "standard" h9 rating. Clearly these bulbs are not standard, and they are not 2100 lumens like a "standard" bulb. These are higher powered H9s. Higher power = shorter life. I'm not sure of the relationship life correlation, but very conservatively I'd say 200 hours or so which translates to about a low beam bulb change once a year.

 

Do we have to mod the H9 Base to fit the H11 spot in the lows ?

 

Crashnburn, the value you provide us in the TW community is huge, and deeply appreciated.

Although the results are not what we were hoping for, they are genuine, precise, well documented and reproducible. In other words, priceless (and very rare here).

Thanks so much................. Frank

 

It was a little tricky but I was able to mount these in the headlight with no trimming of the collar. The internal tab on the bulbs connector will need to be trimmed off to plug into an H11 socket, or run an adapter as some on TW have done.

 

I have looked for the post on the wiring adapter. Can't seem to locate it.

 

I’ll find it in a bit and link it here.

 

great read.

if led's could get their focul point to the same level as hid/halogen i believe they would be a good alternative.

 

Maybe these are what I need
https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/372523779422

And no glare caps on the Hella H9s ?

 

Post #78 here has what one member did to make an adapter harness.

No glare caps are needed for the projector headlights, as the projectors internal light shield takes care of the glare. H11s are sometimes run in fogs, like the Tacoma TRD fogs, in which case there in no cover over the end of the bulb and a bulb glare cap is required.

 

They'd also need omni-directional output, otherwise you have an inconsistent beam pattern and will not saturate the designed beam pattern area leading to hot and dark spots in the beam. But LEDs are directional. The technologies are not compatible.

Ironically people spend all this money to 'upgrade' to LEDs when $20 for those Hellas are going to blow the LEDs out of the water.

 

what about heat? i may have missed the post but in the fog light upgrade thread using + power Halogens in such a small housing could have an issue right?

 

I could take some IR temp measurements to compare, I’d expect the Hellas to run ~30% hotter. Not not an issue with the GEs since the total power into the system is the same.

 

Nice work!