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3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights

Discussion in '3rd Gen. Tacomas (2016-2023)' started by crashnburn80, Jan 25, 2019.

  1. Feb 4, 2019 at 1:55 PM
    #201
    Tacosrus

    Tacosrus Carpe Diem

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    Ordered my H9 Hellas last week from Rallye. They are moving so I'm not sure when I'm gonna get em. Bummed.
     
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  2. Feb 4, 2019 at 2:36 PM
    #202
    crashnburn80

    crashnburn80 [OP] Vehicle Design Engineer

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    I was unaware are moving. That is a bummer for timing to try and convince them to alter a product which will require sourcing new connectors.
     
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  3. Feb 4, 2019 at 2:55 PM
    #203
    Tacosrus

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    They are moving they're House and Shop. At least my lights I have now work fine
     
  4. Feb 4, 2019 at 3:03 PM
    #204
    Heepspo

    Heepspo I wouldn't say I'm missin' it, Bob...

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    Just put Headlight Revolution Supernova V.4 headlights and high beams on my truck. AMAZING results.
    Was considering a light bar bit it's no longer needed.
     
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  5. Feb 4, 2019 at 4:13 PM
    #205
    Critical05

    Critical05 Well-Known Member

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    Order mine through Amazon on Feb 20, still waiting unfortunately.
     
  6. Feb 4, 2019 at 4:23 PM
    #206
    Tacosrus

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    Are you talking about the Hella H9s ?
     
  7. Feb 4, 2019 at 4:27 PM
    #207
    Critical05

    Critical05 Well-Known Member

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  8. Feb 4, 2019 at 4:35 PM
    #208
    Tacosrus

    Tacosrus Carpe Diem

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    Gotcha. Just wondering . They have the Hella H9s but are Chinese. Hoping you didn't buy those.
     
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  9. Feb 4, 2019 at 5:10 PM
    #209
    smikec

    smikec Well-Known Member

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    Wondering, did you even read the OP?
     
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  10. Feb 5, 2019 at 6:20 AM
    #210
    commbubba19

    commbubba19 Well-Known Member

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    my only problem with the testing is except for one test, the output was only measured at the hot spot. i would have liked to seen output measurements at 3 consistent points across the light's output.

    my hypothesis is that LED's may have better output outside of the hotspot vs halogen / hid in the same Tacoma projector. Albeit this is still dependant on the design of the LED itself. There is also something to say about lifespan of an LED vs the GE's or even base H9's.
     
  11. Feb 5, 2019 at 8:50 AM
    #211
    mobgma

    mobgma Well-Known Member

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    Thank you so much! I trust what you are saying from the various posts you have. Definitely a true asset to the TW forums.

    I have to ask if I go H9's for LB and HB, will I get way longer life expectancy than an H11?

     
    Last edited: Feb 5, 2019
  12. Feb 5, 2019 at 11:21 AM
    #212
    crashnburn80

    crashnburn80 [OP] Vehicle Design Engineer

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    The LEDs were measured in multiple spots, their highest performing spot, which is effectively pointing at the ground at 42’ and where the hot spot should be near the horizon. At 42’ the “hot spot” is not visually recognizable as it fans out to cover a large area of the garage door, it doesn't maintain the smaller spot seen at 18'. Hot spots cover a large area at distance which is part of why they are what is evaluated for beam performance, it is just easier to identify, see and understand at short distance which is why closer wall shorts are helpful. I have to grid search with the meter to find the high reading at 42’ since the hot spot is not visually identifiable. At 18’ yes the LED would have some higher readings in areas of the beam where light should not be concentrated, but this a red flag indicating it is operating more as a flood light and not a projected light, but due to the lack of ability to project those higher readings are diminished by 42’. You just cannot fight a 40%+ loss in projection efficacy. And 42’ is nothing for headlight performance, that is a little less than 2.5 Tacoma lengths, headlights need to project much farther than that, it just isn’t practical for me to test farther than that. Yes the GEs and H9s will definitely have reduced lifespan over stock, but if caring about the lifespan the stock bulbs will last a very long time and still perform better at distance than an LED. There are also less extreme bulbs like Philips +100s which will offer improved gains but still retain bulb life. I took stock halogen H11s out of a friends car to upgrade them the other weekend, he had never changed the headlight and owned it since new, in 2013. Shifting your beam pattern to significantly increase foreground light and lose distance projection which is effectively what you are hypothesizing and correct in short range is a terrible practice in a lighting assembly designed to project distance. You are turning your projected lights into flood lights, and flood lights put out greater coverage at very short range but do not project distance, which is the entire purpose of the headlight light assembly.
     
    Last edited: Feb 5, 2019
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  13. Feb 5, 2019 at 11:38 AM
    #213
    crashnburn80

    crashnburn80 [OP] Vehicle Design Engineer

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    A standard H9 is 250 hours and 2100 lumens. The Hellas list those numbers as the specs, but they are clearly not a standard bulb, so I'm certain the specs are inaccurate. It is difficult to say what the actual life will be but the GEs are only 150 hours. The GEs have massive performance gains relative to the stock H11 bulb and as one would expect pay for it in a large hit to bulb life. Whereas the Hellas are a modest 13% performance gain over the stock H9 so I'd speculate that the Hellas life expectancy drop is not nearly as severe, but H9s do have a much shorter life baseline than H11s (250 vs 1000). The Hellas are going to be less than the 250 hours spec, but I expect their actual life will be a little better than the GE.
     
  14. Feb 5, 2019 at 12:31 PM
    #214
    commbubba19

    commbubba19 Well-Known Member

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    thanks for the info.

    since the phillips hid's cannot seem to be found, what hid options are available for h11?
     
  15. Feb 5, 2019 at 12:45 PM
    #215
    commbubba19

    commbubba19 Well-Known Member

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  16. Feb 5, 2019 at 1:12 PM
    #216
    ReconMarine

    ReconMarine Well-Known Member

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    Awesome thread. Thanks for all the work you did on this. I wish I would have found this before I made my purchase. I went with the auxbeam LED T1 H11s on all 6 lights and so far so good.
     
  17. Feb 5, 2019 at 2:25 PM
    #217
    Tacosrus

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    The other thing I'm factoring in is how much night driving I actualy do. I'm sure the H9s will be fine for me with bulb life. If I traveled a lot at night I might have left regular H9s high and low like what I have now. Plus my Morimotos work pretty good.
     
    Last edited: Feb 5, 2019
  18. Feb 5, 2019 at 2:37 PM
    #218
    crashnburn80

    crashnburn80 [OP] Vehicle Design Engineer

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    They claim their measurements are at 25', my short measurements were at 18'. Who knows what they used for an H11 bulb as well, it could have been an H11 long life bulb which is lower in output and yellower in color, and/or one that was older as halogens dim some over time. The bulb I used was pulled out directly of my 2015 Toyota Tacoma fogs and is the OE Osram H11 standard bulb Toyota supplies for their vehicles. They also say they power the bulbs like you would in a car, but do not specify the voltage. If running the tests off 12.4v battery voltage, the halogen output is going to be significantly reduced. When you drive your vehicle you are running off 14v+ alternator voltage, making a huge difference in halogen performance. The test I ran were at 13.8v which is the measured voltage at the stock headlight connector with the truck running accounting for losses in the OEM wiring harness from the 14v+ at the battery. In other words exactly like you would see driving the vehicle. LEDs are indifferent to the minor voltage change, so running at the lower voltage would give them a major advantage. I have no idea what they did in making their video, but if you wanted to make a video to sell an alternative product, you could select a low output "stock" long life bulb (Tacoma does not use LL bulbs as stock), and run the test at battery voltage and easily make the test very favorable to LEDs. The test wouldn't be 'wrong', it just wouldn't be a very accurate comparison to a real world scenario. My test attempts to best replicate the OEM setup as possible, using an OEM bulb pulled directly from my Tacoma running at OEM voltage measured at the headlight connector in a Tacoma.

    But as discussed in the thread, the fixed point data doesn't really tell the whole story. You can have a massively bright LED bulb which may outperform a halogen at close distance, but it cannot hold the projection intensity so its intensity will rapidly degrade over extended distance. The pattern also shifts to foreground light rather than distance projection which is not a good thing for seeing distance at night. 25' is less than 1.5 Tacoma lengths, not a good distance to judge projection performance on. Hence my trying to demonstrate the performance change over distance to give a clearer picture of the performance characteristics of the differing lighting technologies.

    Also for what it is worth, I'm not trying to sell anything and make no money off these threads vs others with an objective to sell you a product.
     
  19. Feb 5, 2019 at 2:55 PM
    #219
    commbubba19

    commbubba19 Well-Known Member

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    Do you have an HID kit you do recommend that doesn’t shake over bumps?
     
  20. Feb 5, 2019 at 3:03 PM
    #220
    Tacosrus

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    Mail Call. Just need my Bulbs. Which are being Drop Shipped from Hella. IMG_20190205_150039.jpg
     
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