3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights

Recall as covered in the OP, the key to building a better LED is to make it the chipset cross section as as thin as possible, you'd also want to minimize obstruction of the LEDs with bulky designs above or below the chipset to attempt to best replicate a halogen filament. Their design looks better than many and they seem to do more due diligence than most. You'll notice even in their own photometric measurements that their LEDs cause increased foreground light, where as a bulb like the GE +120 or +130 will only increase the distance illumination.

Also note that I'm pretty sure Ford uses Long Life (LL) bulbs for headlights, which are lower performing than the Standard bulbs Toyota uses. The last couple Fords I've changed out the headlights on have been LLs. LL bulbs are literally the lowest performing bulb available, but last seemingly forever which is why Ford uses them. I pulled some out of a friends Ford that were 8 years old and still going strong, to upgrade him to the Volsa +120s that I had purchased for testing in this thread (I had already given away my 2nd set of the GE +130s). Also keep in mind halogens dim over time. So if you were running tests against a 4 year old stock long life bulb in a Ford assembly (as in 2015 stock Ford F150 noted in the test) and comparing it to an LED, the tests would not be inaccurate, but they are certainly slanted to favor the LED. I cannot say if they replaced the bulb with a new standard bulb for the test, but it would seem unlikely if your goal is to sell the other product you are testing against. It also doesn't list what voltage was used for their tests. If the tests were run at battery voltage of 12.6v instead of alternator voltage, which I measured on my truck as 14.1-14.2v at idle, the halogen output and distance projection would be significantly reduced.

Using the lower 14.1v measurement and doing a little math:

(14.1/12.6)^3.4 = 1.465

In other words, the halogen will be 46.5% brighter at alternator voltage than it would be at battery voltage whereas the difference does not affect LED output. Running the test at battery voltage isn't inaccurate per say, but it also isn't representative of what you'd experience driving.

Top down photometrics are useful but also do not capture beam quality very well, for example some extended low level distance illumination could be measured glare. And depending on how the measurement is made may not capture beam saturation very well, it doesn't show hot spot quality and it also doesn't show glare (which isn't an issue in 3rd Gen projectors).

Lots of variables.

Also note on the site it says "Street Legal Output" and "We like to call it street legal". No it is not. No drop in LEDs are street legal. All LED manufactures would certainly like to call their drop in LED headlights street legal, but the only ones for a Tacoma thus far that can do so are the upcoming Morimotos replacement headlight assemblies and the upcoming 2020 Tacoma OEM LED headlights.

Funny you mention that, I've long thought the same thing. You'd have to boost intensity while shrinking the LED 'filaments' which would lead to some technical challenges but if it could be achieved it would produce a much more similar light to incandescent than the bi-directional LED.

 

It’s like Christmas today. The voltage boosters arrived from Australia, as did the Chinese Philips H9s for comparison testing (thanks @Frank_Zuccarini ) and Toyota’s latest LED fogs that are compatible with 2012+ Tacoma’s. Lots of new stuff to test.

 

$137 PT413-42190 Toyota Fog Light - PT413-42190

PT413-42190 ?? Can't wait to see this!

 

Close! But effectively yes.



PT413-42191 has the black surround
PT413-42190 has the chrome surround

Too many questions on how they stack up. Need to collect some actual data.

 

I considered these but ended up just going with the KcHilites Gravity G4 drop ins and they are awesome!

 

Fairly certain the KCs are going to be far better than these.

 

Yeah def wouldn’t consider replacing my amber g4’s with fogs made in China regardless of the data. Why China Toyota? Smh

 

Toyota likely just sourced from Valeo for the fogs whom is their OEM supplier. And for the LED fogs Valeo decided to build them in China, because cheap. The pair of the LED fogs is literally cheaper than a single OEM Tacoma halogen fog, without the bulb or surround.

 

Surprisingly, the Philips German bulbs and Philips China bulbs seem nearly identical.



The China Philips filament quality and build quality appear perfectly on par with the German counterpart.



Philips German left vs China right


While the German bulbs are ever so slightly higher in output, the measured difference of 2% is within noise you’d get from testing multiple bulbs of the same label. So it appears Philips has good reason to sell these bulbs as interchangeable. I’d still personally prefer the bulbs said Germany on the back, but Philips does appear to build high quality bulbs from their China plant.

I’ve tested many Philips bulbs from Germany. I only have a sample size of 2 from China. But I don’t see anything in the Chinese version build quality that would lead me to suspect anything different. The bulbs are virtually indistinguishable. You can always get bad bulbs from any batch, so this isn’t to say the overall quality/error rate of the two plants is the same, but based on the products I have they appear virtually equivalent.

 

I had recently changed out my low beams to the GE H11+130s as per the recommendation of crashnburn80. They were a vast improvement over the stock H11s that came with my 2018 TRD OR. Again following this site, picked up some REAL German Phillips H9s and with great anticipation changed the left low beam (to compare with the GE's right). Did the modification, removing the little tab with my Dremel, but the bulb wouldn't fit. Compared the H9 with the H11 and one of three little mounting tangs on the H9, the one on top, was slightly wider to the left where as the H11 was slightly wider to the right.

Again, the Dremel to the rescue, shaved off the left side of the upper mounting tang and it fit nicely.

Excited, jumped into my truck tonight for drive up and down the block, and for all intents and purposes to my untrained eye, the amount of light thrown by the H11 and H9 were basically identical. The H11 appeared to be SLIGHTLY whiter.

BTW this is a great site for lighting information. @crashnburn80 what’s your PayPal (dm or share here)? Would like to make a donation; I greatly appreciate all your diligent work and great objective data.

 

Keep in mind I am chasing somewhat diminishing returns here. The Philips H9s are brighter than the GE +130 H11s, but the GEs are so far ahead over stock that the incremental improvement of the Philips projection over the GEs is relatively small in comparison to the gains the GEs offered over stock, if that makes sense. With the Philips H9s you will gain a fuller beam pattern vs just increased hot spot focus, they are brighter so you will gain some distance projection, the Philips H9s should be good for ~250 hours vs ~150 hours of the GEs, and the Philips bulbs cost 1/4 that of the GE bulbs. Aside from the direct plug and play factor the Philips really come out ahead.

I'll be testing the voltage boosters this weekend to see what kind of compounded performance improvements we can see with the Philips bulbs.

I really appreciate the support and offer for a donation, I'll PM you my PayPal.

These threads have really started to gain amazing traction across the internet, far beyond what I ever expected. They have been reposted across countless other forums, I am regularly being PM'd by new TW members coming from other forums that don't even have a Tacoma or even a Toyota asking for lighting help because the lighting information on TW is so much better than their automotive forum. These threads have been reviewed by the industries highest lighting experts, and Rigid Industries literally uses my TacomaWorld SAE fog thread as mandatory training material for their staff. I'm not sure what better validation exists than that. The ironic thing to me is all I do is apply basic scientific methods to evaluating lighting performance instead of blindly following marketing hype. With an engineering understanding of how the systems work, it is pretty easy to see when people are being misled. I just use science to present measured data with high caliber equipment and share it online with no vested interest in the outcome. Self funded with no one to answer to, I can provide honest no BS assessments and recommendations without the conflict of interest in trying to sell a product, because I don't sell anything or make any money off these threads or recommendations.

 

You've certainly brightened up things for me, at a minimal expense. That, plus I've learned a lot about lighting along the way. I thank you.

 

I just got the DHL notification this morning, the “70w Off Road H9s” will be here Monday. We’ll see if they are what they claim, my hope for them is the high beam bulb. Stay tuned!

 

How much did you spend on all these bulbs and fogs haha

 

Stupid amounts, I don’t even want to know. Over $200 in products that from China that never showed up alone for the latest halogen testing. I think the fog thread on its own cost me around $4k+ with equipment, some of which I was able to recoup via selling the stuff afterward. I have a losses spreadsheet for that thread that gives me an exact breakdown by item. A handful of the stuff I test is so bad I don’t bother to post about it and feel too bad to actually sell it to anyone, that I just give it away.

Edit: Actually $4k+ was the initial price. I then added the KC and Morimoto amber, and OEM Toyota lights on top of that.

All the extra H9s from testing in this thread though, I plan on making my own glare capped H9 bulbs with professional grade coatings and selling as an inexpensive option for the ultimate fog light upgrade. We’ll see how that works out. There is one curing challenge I still need to figure out.

 

4K+....Holy.... Thanks for sharing all those info and testing with us!

 

Did you not do a chargeback on those?

 

Nope. Awesome China tracking has this method of claiming a package is still in transit when late with no traceable data till nearly right before the dispute period ends, then appears to just change the status automatically to delivered to absolve them of the lost package issue, even though it wasn’t actually delivered. No data presented at all. I have this stuff delivered to my office where my front end people receive it in person, so porch pirates are a non-issue. Hence why I paid extra to use a respected German carrier (DHL) this time around. I can tell you the bulbs were scanned at DHLs processing center in Hong Kong at 17:30 today. They also text me to tell me the bulbs will be here on Monday, and require a signature. I like companies that provide good data like that.

 

If you order AC Delco part number 92095788/10351666 from RockAuto, this is what you get right now. Seems to have shipped from Syracuse NY.

For Canadians, if you buy four, will cost you $11.37 per bulb all in. You can get the same bulb from any GM parts counter for $14.68 plus tax.

 

Just posted this question to deAutoLED.
Wondering if crashnburn80 would have any insights.
Would a improved night lighting setup be HID low beams from a reputable vendor, and a quality LED H11/H9 bulb in the high beam?
I always dip my high beams with oncoming traffic, and the scatter from the LED in the high beam reflector housing shouldn't make much difference anyway.
And, since the Tacoma low beams remain lit when flashing the high beams, you wouldn't have the problems when rapidly turning on and off the HIDs.

Feedback?