The SAE J581 Aux High Beam Thread

500FF w/ 100w (90w actual) Superbrights


Hella 700FF w/ 130w (110w actual) Au-lites


The 700s running 130w bulbs hit the same temps nearly identically as the 500s running 100w bulbs. Running 100w bulbs in the 500s are pretty common. I would not have high levels of concern in the 700, though there are risks as @Toy_Runner mentioned, thermal shock likely being highest. @Too Stroked mentioned going through several lenses on his 500s. As mentioned before, I would not use the 130w bulbs in a 500. The data is for the Au-lites, though I’d expect temps to be very close with the Flossers, Flosser 130w data coming soon.

 

That sounds pretty reasonable. Worse case i might have to change out the 700s after some years. Im still going to look into the 4000s and the 4000 compacts. The compacts are in between the 700s and 4000s in size and have a deeper bowl than the 700s. Anyone have experience with any of the hella 4000s?

 

Out of curiosity I ordered the 500 fogs... and a 4000 fog to have a comparison. I'll be able to provide the thermals for the 4000, but obviously the performance with a different optic won't be comparable for driving lights.

 

I think i have a set of 4000 compact hids in a pencil beam in the garage

 

Oh nice. Did you ever use any decent 100w halogen bulbs?

 

If they're the 4000 HID's, I'd say probably not, lol

 

No they came from hella as an hid lamp

Correct they're a d1s bulb

 

Ahh ok i wasnt sure. I know alot of people convert the 700ff and 4000s from halogen to hid. That was popular for quite a while till led lamps became the popular choice

 

Hella 700FF w/ Flosser 130w bulbs



Looking to find a reputable 130w H3 for sourcable bulbs comparable in performance to the Au-lite the 130w, but there are not a lot of reputable manufactures for a 130w H3. Flosser is a German brand that is supposed to be comparable in quality to the big name industry leaders.

Powering up these bulbs I was surprised to see the power draw so low. These are not 130w, they are 85.5w. That is lower than the 100w Osrams that pull 90w. Fortunately I ordered a pair of the Flossers, but checking the other bulb the results were the same. Worse still, looking at the filaments the Osram had a smaller (better focused) filament than the Flossers. Sigh. But still tested them anyway.

Flosser 130w H3 pull 85.5w


Hella 700FF w/ Osram 100w vs Flosser 130w


This caught me by surprise. A bulb that pulls less power and has a worse filament performed better? That doesn't make sense. Again double check everything. The gain isn't huge, its about 5%, but I was surprised to see a gain at all.

Analyzing the bulbs
Flosser (left) vs Osram (right)


First thing I noticed here, the power leads. The Flossers have massive leads connected to the power prong on the bulb vs the Osram bulb power lead is much smaller wiring. Larger wires reduce voltage drop and higher voltage increases output. Very impressive wiring on the Flossers.

However, as I mentioned earlier the filament on the Flossers isn't nearly as good as the smaller one on the Osrams. Then noticed the Flossers filament is not in the proper position. It is too far forward. In a reflector driving lamp, moving the filament forward slightly will change the geometry angles to reduce the pattern area with increased focus which will return higher output intensity numbers. Kinda like the old adjustable mag lights and moving the optic further out to reduce your beam but increase the intensity. That might sound great on the surface. When I ran a comparison in the Hella 500 fogs between the Osrams and the Flossers, the Flossers had a 40% loss against the Osrams. Absolutely pathetic. Because the pattern was out of focus, because the filament wasn't where it was supposed to be. But it still gets worse.

The Osram bulbs fit the Hellas like precision engineered aerospace parts. The bulb has zero possible movement in the mount before locking it into position.


The Flosser bulb base is too small and mount tab openings too large. This bulb has so much play in the mount it is absurd. This isn't precision German engineering at all.


Between horrific manufacturing slop on the base and the filament, I really question whether Flosser bulbs are made in Germany. They are careful to not say 'Made in Germany' like Osram does and instead just say 'Germany'.

While the Flossers return a very slight gain in the 700FFs (if positioned correctly), the Osram Superbrights are the vastly superior bulb. I would not recommend the Flossers as this has all the hallmarks of a cheap Chinese import.

 

Well thats disappointing. Were you planning on testing any other "130w" bulbs?

 

I’ll take another look around, I’m open to suggestions.

 

The mystery deepens. Remember that 130 watt Au-lite bulb I send @crashnburn80? Whilst straightening up my bulb stash the other day, I came across this:



The package was sealed and never opened - from 2013! What got my attention was the blue colored insulation on the lead and the fact that I only had one. (I always buy bulbs in pairs.) Could this be the mate to the one crash had? I sent him a picture and his initial reaction was that there was no way it could be.

So, I opened the package. Guess what?

Winnah! (As they say in Maine.) Looks like KC marketed this particular bulb that was made by Au-lite. A little digging reveals that they no longer sell it either. No matter, I'll send it out west to live out its days with the only other surviving one in the world.

 

Some thoughts on those Flösser bulbs- perhaps there is a method to their madness.

Halogen bulbs trade output and intensity for lifespan. To many, this is an unfair trade- many want to eat their cake and have it too, happy when their headlamp bulbs have lasted years and years- despite their low cost and poor performance.

Flosser may have realized that the typical use for high wattage bulbs would most likely be people using them in large driving lamps, not necessarily fog lamps (which many characterize as low output lamps). So, they may have opted to purposefully shift the filament placement forward, meaning that the focal point of a lampnis primarily catching the edge of the center of the coil, but not the center most point of the filaments coil. Perhaps this was the tradeoff, to let them have "impressive" performance with a bulb filament and power draw that would lend to much longer lifespan than competitors high wattage h3 bulbs, which draw much closer to their claimed wattage, and would have a shorter lifespan as a result.

Or -equally likely- they're just a rebrand by a 3rd party made on worn out equipment.

 

Possible. But attempting to alter the lamp’s optical geometry with an intentionally out of spec bulb without knowing the lamp seems like a poor practice at best. And the base is out of spec too. The high wattage H3 life is short, 50hrs for 100w bulbs and 35hrs for 130w bulbs. So additional life would certainly be a benefit. I do have a few more H3s on order including a 130w, though they seem to be delayed, which makes me think the 130w may be discontinued.

 

That doesn't seem unsurprising considering the rise of cheap hid and led lights, the demand for 130 watt bulbs has probably all to disappeared

 

Hella 4000 fog w/Hella 55w bulb



Somewhat surprisingly, these run hotter. But they are all metal construction with a much deeper reflector providing better focus and comically larger than the 500s.

4000 vs 500




Some of the picture difference is perspective. But using the same bulbs the 4000s put down an impressive +35% output intensity over the 500s in the fog optic. However these lamps are so large and heavy their mounting options will be very limited. This is way to large of a lamp for me to use so I’ll be returning it and will not be taking it apart to try every bulb option.

 

So... I was surfing Amazon, and bezos got me... the valeo store had a p/n 45306 7" LED oscar on sale for less than $40. Had to buy. Will likely be disassembled to see of its feasible to crack open my larger super oscars for an emitter/driver swap.

 

I had a pair of HID 4000s in pencil beam with external ballasts, not the "i" integrated version on a Jeep several years ago. Fantastic light for long dark roads.

I'd really like to get a pair of these, but I have no practical place to mount them:

https://www.kchilites.com/carbon-po...ir-pack-system.html?attr_pim_beampattern=5579

 

I feel you on wanting a light and not being able to mount it lol. I went ahead and got a pair of 4000 compacts and got the 100w osram superbrights. Impressive lights. I dont have any measured readings, but they definetly seem to outperform the 700ff with the same osram bulbs. The 700ff takes an h3 and the 4000 compact takes an h1.

 

I was always very interested in the 40w LED version of the Carbon lights, they looked insanely impressive. Unfortunately they were discontinued. 70w with HID certainly has more output, but 70w HID isn't really a good thing. All HIDs are 35w. When you drive them over 35w with a high wattage ballast, the capsules life decreases, heat increases, UV increases and color shifts. Except these changes are not linear, the further over wattage the more rapid the diminishing returns, where each additional watt is adding less and less light and more and more negative aspects. 55w HID is already considered bad, pushing that to 70w HID isn't going to be good. Now on the other hand, you're unlikely to leave these on for long periods of time where product lifespan really comes into effect. However, as a high beam type of lamp, I do like the instant on aspect. HIDs have warmup time, and also is best practice to have a cool down time before reigniting them.

Mounting of round driving lights always seems to be a challenge unless you have an off road bumper.