3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights

That would be a challenge of course..... fog being the most refractive of the airborne 'water elements'. Snow of course does a good job at reflection (maximum angle refraction).

But how do you ensure constant saturation test to test? Perhaps with a reference light and all tests are normalized?

 

I was being a bit facetious, but that is how I would approach it with a low tech method. Maybe standardize the test temp and fog machine run duration as well to get a somewhat close environment. It would certainly be a challenge to provide consistency. A studio rain set where you could program the flow would certainly be more controllable. Of course that would be taking this craziness to a whole other level.

 

Not anymore, I swapped the TRD OR fogs I got when I got my bezels from a member here in order to give a fair comparison and liked the TRD fogs way better. I will be selling the Subaru fogs soon.

 

Diffraction bulbs like the Xencn 2300s still produce blue light, rather than filter it they bend it out of the main beam whereas yellow coated bulbs filter blue light out. From what I saw the Subaru fogs with glare guards did a good job blocking this blue light whereas the open face TRD units did not, meaning you get much better color saturation (More yellow) with the Subaru fogs on a diffraction bulb like the Xencn 2300.

 

Sorry, yeah, the Ultras in my Tacoma are what I was talking about. There is damn near zero uplight. If I pull up real close to the garage door, I can see a teeny tiny bit, but nothing like the stock halogens. The uplight portion of the beam is definitely provided by the vertical lighting that is not present on the side firing LEDs. The LEDs I was comparing it to are the stock LEDs in my '17 Fusion Sport. That thing lit overhead signs from miles away, but my Taco barely lights them at all.


Side note with a couple points: I went to Iowa City this weekend to pick up a bike (1999 Honda CBR1100XX Blackbird), and my GF drove my truck. I had to let her lead for two reasons. 1) The Hikaris were blinding me when my mirrors fell below the cutoff (which was pretty much always because we haven't discussed car/bike follow distance etiquette), and 2) the previous owner of the bike has never heard of @crashnburn80. The headlight bulbs in that bike are the worst I've ever seen. As far as I can tell,

2x H7 100W 2323 LED 8000K Ice Blue Fog Light Daytime Running Bulbs Lamp

these are the bulbs he has in there. They are a blue LED running light... In both high and low beams! I rode about 5 hours in 40 degree temps on a new bike with headlights that gave me about half a second reaction time. I had to use my trucks headlights to see where we were going. Needless to say, I won't be taking that bike out of town at night again until those are changed.

PS: that bike is bonkers fast.

 

Interesting, good to know. I have a set of the Nokya Yellow h11 bulbs in my wife’s CRV and it’s funny to me how the color at the housing is wildly different. Hers shine bright yellow and mine are more of a warm white, but in the ground in the fog pattern they’re both still nearly the same yellow.

I’m more or less only using the fogs in wet and foggy weather, as one should of course, which we’ve had a ton of it this fall. I know I’ve doubled down on glare with H9’s in the TRD fogs but they rarely see use on the highway and I’m telling myself it’s still better than a LED in a reflector.

 

Having used Roscoe fog machines on several photo shoots - the standard Hollywood fog machine, all I can say is that they are a nightmare. Totally unpredictable and barely controllable and not repeatable at all. And, of top of that, the Roscoe fog juice is nasty nasty shit. You really don't want to breathe that in, and on top of that, the last time we used it, it tripped the anti-smoke sensors in our AC units and left us with no AC until the repair dudes could come out. If anyone wants a nearly full bottle of Roscoe juice, I'll gladly sent it your way.

 

Curious....

 

Pretty standard. Happens almost 100% of the time I give a positive review on a lighting product.

TW influenced buying on Amazon has even led to the reclassification of bulbs in the case of my gy6.35 HIR reverse thread, causing a landscaping bulb to be reclassified as an automotive bulb, which it is not.

 

Thanks Crash! I'll probably check out an H9 philips here at some point as it does seem to be the highest output while maintaining an easier-on-the-eyes color temp. Everyone's eyes are different, of course and my eyes can't stand the super-white LED options folks are running and it's hard for me to see how anyone uses them, but to each their own

For now the blend of the whiter GE 130s + the Nokya 2500 H11s seem to be working ok. Honestly I'd almost be scared of melting the stock fog light housing putting any more heat in the fog housing b/c one thing is that the Nokyas "seem" to run really hot, but of course nothing's melted yet so I guess it's not that big of a deal and the plastic tolerances in there are pretty good it would seem.

It was really just a moment when I was unloading my gear after a camping weekend and turned off my headlights, but still had the fogs on and damn if I didn't look up and could see, literally a quarter-mile down my neighborhood with ease just with those 2500k lights on and I really didn't expect that kind of throw from cheap $18 halogens in the fogs.

 

Not gonna lie. I thought about it but I will wait for some type of replacement assembly other than the $1200 morimotos lol. My GE+130's work just fine. I also read some reviews that they either die or begin to flicker anywhere from 3 to 9 months. There's a 2 year manufacture warranty but just not worth the hassle IMO.

 

installed mine two days ago. build quality is okay.. design seems smart. color is what i wanted, but actual lighting is not the best. The bulbs dont lock in like a "stock" bulb does into the housing. tried swapping seals with no luck, its the plastic tabs and adjustable beam that make it not so great.

 

The stock fog housing is designed around h11’s so if they melted I’d be really surprised.

One nice thing about halogen bulbs: they have decades of engineering and likely millions of dollars overall spent on their development, specifications, and tolerances. It’s a mature product with published specs, meaning a secondary manufacturer like Nokya gets to benefit from all that development to bring us $18 bulbs that work instead of $50+ worth of false promises...

 

They won't melt. I've run modified H9s in mine, and even *gasp* 90w Flossers. No melting, but the Flossers were pushing the envelope for sure.

Yellow color temp is so much easier on the eyes when out in the dark like camping. I use yellow KC Cyclones on my RTT, the light color is awesome. (Not the best pic, but only one I have).




But while the fogs may look to project far after your eyes have adjusted, it you turn off the headlights and try driving with just the stock fogs and you'll quickly realize you cannot actually see that far without giving your eyes some very significant time to adjust.

Yeah, the China LED factor. Flickering is often caused by over heating, and with those you are relying on a microprocessor style cooling fan to cool the LED. Should the fan fail or otherwise loose cooling capacity the LED will overheat and start to flicker. Pretty sensitive design for inside an off road trucks engine bay.

 

Thanks Crashnburn80 for all the research and expense to give us 3rd gen owners the best detailed reviews on the subject. I ordered iJDMTOY harnesses and modified them for H9s, I finally got the Philips H9s today and installed them in about 5 minutes. I picked up my stepdaughter from the mall and noticed that I could see better and have more side illumination than before. Thank you sir, now I am just waiting for my Osram reverse lights. I have an SR model and if I am prewired, I may just go with adding the fogs in the future. Now off to order an extra set of Philips H9s to carry around for spares.

 

Welcome to the forum from Eastern North Carolina !

 

For a lighting life hack, running the H9 swap you can always pull one of your high beam bulbs and swap it to the low beam should you have a low beam bulb fail, allowing you time to get the replacement low beam. They are the same bulbs.

For fogs, be sure to check out the fog thread:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-led-sae-j583-fog-pod-fog-light-review.554813/

 

Gonna try my luck with the Nineo genII LEDs for my bike. It doesn't have built in glare caps, so I expect some glare. The bucket is fairly deep and narrow, and looks like it mainly reflects off the sides, so I'm hoping it [glare] isn't too bad. On a bike that was once the fastest production bike in the world, I'd rather have people be pissy at me than have them not see me. I chose LEDs in the bike over high performance halogens because swapping them in the bike is a bitch, and they are on 100% of the time. Longevity and visibility are both very important in this case.

 

I am running the philips h9 for my lows and its a total upgrade for only less than 14 bucks. Definitely worth the try.

 

This is the main reason I went with the Philips H9 after i found out they were the same as the high beams in a full read of this thread and per your recommendation. Not to mention one of the most important factors. Cost! Came in under $35 to get the extension harness, mod it, and a pair of H9 Philips. Definitely worth it to run them in both configurations.

I got no flashes from other drivers on the road, but I have yet to travel down a real dark road to see how much the throw is. Like my earlier post, I can see road signs and reflective markers out to over 100 yards. I checked the dealer to see how much the high beam lamp was for a replacement just in case. They quoted $117 each for the high beam replacement. Going to get another pair of the Philips H9s from Amazon or eBay for backup in the truck. Thanks again.

One co-worker mentioned they had installed LEDs in their car and how much better everything looks, I mentioned that everything looks good cause of the color temp, but the throw most likely will not be very far and visibility at distance would be poor. Kept saying they were bright and I agreed yes they are bright but just see how far the light carries.

Now I just wish my Osrams for the reverse lights would get here. I ordered 4 hehehe.