3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights

I have the H11 +130's. Definitely an upgrade from stock. Buying a set of H9's for when they go bad and will go with H9's next.

 

Cool , thanks man. Im not ready for shaving fins on the bulb housing and all of that , hehe. Just a little better than ive got. Thanks again bud

 

I can subjectively confirm that my GE 130’s dimmed a fair amount over the course of 7 months. I removed my first set at 7 months (they weren’t burned out), installed the new set, and they’re unquestionably brighter.

Are the new bulbs bright enough to justify pulling still-functioning bulbs out and replacing them at 7 months? No. Run them until they die.

 

One reason I went with H9s, they're rated for nearly 400 hours. They'll dim a little but not as much towards their end of life.

 

More than that.

 

Yeah, i read on here somewhere that they do dim over time. If I notice a considerable drop I might just replace them before they die.

 

The GE Megalight +130s are a great upgrade, but as the halogen output chart is post #2 of this thread shows, the GE Xenon +120 H11s are a little bit better. The Xenons have less blue coating which reduces output, meaning the Xenons are slightly warmer in color temperature and slightly higher in output. All the output intensity and color temp data are in post #2.

 

More blue coating would mean the light is whiter at the edges of the beam pattern, but in the center, shouldn’t it be the same? (roughly)

 

Awesome , thank you sir

 

I’m falling behind! I’ve got the Morimoto 2.0 Stroke to test still and the latest Philips just showed up from Japan today.

 

Are you testing these for use in low beam projectors or the fogs? Since they’re 6000k I presume low beams.

 

Low beam. LEDs in reflectors produce excessive glare, especially in fogs. For fogs I have this SAE thread:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-led-sae-j583-fog-pod-fog-light-review.554813/

 

Right, thought so. Look forward to the review.

 

@crashnburn80 thanks for all this information.

I ordered the H9 bulbs (link in post #2), lucked out and got German bulbs.
FYI, my truck required trimming the top metal tab at the base of the bulb. No big deal, just a heads up for those going this route.

Noticeable difference in the brightness!

 

I think the insertion just comes down to technique, the H9s are certainly more difficult to get in, but with the right angle should be doable. Nothing wrong with trimming the tab to make it easier though.

 

It’s for sure about technique. There’s no variation from housing to housing. You absolutely 100% can not hold all three tabs flat against the housing and rotate the bulb until all three tabs “drop” into place as you can with an H11.

If you fiddle around with it at various angles, you might get lucky and be able to force it into place. I’m not convinced that’s the best way to go about it.

 

Since I'm able to do it on a rack outside of the truck I have an unfair advantage. Being able to fully see the arrangement and angle the bulb accordingly it isn't hard. But yes, you cannot rotate the bulb flush and expect all the tabs to drop into place like an H11. It will need to be put in at an offset angle to get all the tabs aligned without modifying the bulb tabs.

 

This doesn't get a lot of airtime on here b/c it's not the most intense light nor does it likely have the same throw, but I'm back on these lights personally. I loved the H9s but the hotspot was actually kind of distracting to me at times, I got flashed a few times (and my lights are aimed properly), which just brings me back to what's truly important to me - illuminating the road and sides. These Philips Xtreme vision have a unique pattern based on the 15 different bulbs I've tried that's very balanced and even and it does have great throw, brightness, perfect uplight, the cutoff isn't as pronounced - the light kind of blurs at the cutoff making it less distracting when bouncing around in the truck, and is a bit whiter in color than even the H9s, but just barely. For them to be lower efficiency bulbs rated to 400hrs, these are now in my low beams and fogs and I can see perfectly. I suspect they are very well engineered to be able to put out as much clear bright light while also being a longer-life bulb.

So personally I've basically repeated a similar process I did last year when winter hit. Got all excited to try a bunch of lights - tried the GE +130s, Nighthawks, Nightbreaker Laser, Philips H9s, etc., - all of these bulbs technically brighter as proven by Crash, but for my eyes I actually see landscape ahead better and more clearly illuminated with the X-treme Vision +100s. And it's bright enough to be a major improvement over stock, but not so bright that I find my eyes adjusting to intense light which then naturally leads to an inability to see by the ambient light outside the beam pattern as our eyes naturally adjust to brighter light and thus let less light in, impacting your "night vision" overall.

I'd love to know why these are so pleasing to my eyes but I suspect it's just personal preference vs. anything that would test out scientifically as crash has done such a wonderful job of.

 

Those are the Philips I tried. They were not as bright as the H9, so they went back.

 

I certainly don't anticipate them being comparable to an H9, or even the Hikaris as their cross section isn't as small. But I am curious as to the performance numbers of a passively cooled LED from one of the big name brands in lighting, for those that want the LED look but without the fans.