Kickstarter Thoughts?

I will skip out on the crush test. PM inbound.

 

In for results!

 

Got the bulbs today from @Airborne22.



Initial impressions:
-Packaging is poor. Drivers are beat up and look used, likely due to no packaging to secure them in place the they are bouncing off of each other in shipping.
-No instructions or method to change bulb color. Which I suspect means cycling the lights on/off to rotate it through the color spectrum to get to the selected color.
-The LEDs are very thin, will measure with a micrometer later to get exact measurement. Thin LEDs are better to provide more focus to the beam, though it is still significantly wider than a halogen.
-The LEDs themselves feel very light/cheap feeling. Even though it is fan cooled, heavier LEDs provide better heat absorption ability, which means the LED can be driven to higher output.
-The LEDs have a plastic dome over them, which is strange. I’ve not seen any other LED do this, as this would act as an insulator and you want the product to cool. My guess is the LEDs look glued on where as most others are mechanically fastened. The bulb cover could be to avoid damaging/knocking the LEDs off on install as they appear more fragile.
-The LEDs use 2 rows of stacked chips, as I mentioned earlier this means neither chip set is positioned correctly. One set is to high and the other is to low, which will affect pattern performance as all the optics are designed around the chip being centered.
-On the box they market this as H9/H11, 3600 lumens per bulb. Likely way over inflated, probably a raw spec which means about 1800 actual lumens per bulb. By comparison an H11 is about 1300 lumens and an H9 is 2100 lumens, but proper filament/LED positioning in the reflector/projector housing is actually far more important than lumen output.

I’ll test these out soon and post results.

 

AWESOME INFO!!

There site claims you change the color/mode by tuning them off and then back on again.

 

Quark squarter

 

Right, but that means you are going to have to turn your lights on/off multiple times if it isn’t the next color in the sequence. Or in casual driving turning your lights off then on will change the color or cause them to strobe when you don’t want them too, which really doesn’t seem ideal.

 

Agreed

 

Looking at these now, will report results in a bit. Their lumen output drops pretty quick before reaching a stable point, making measured readings take a while for output to stabilize for the different color temps. The 4300k is a bit of a hack just running partial output on both chipsets.

 

As predicted the off center LED placement by trying to use multiple chipsets at the center location, but placing neither in the correct location, have some very negative effects on output pattern performance.

The following 3 pictures are right side light only, to help establish pattern performance without getting overlap.

6500k, you can tell the LEDs are not in the correct position by looking at the dip on center at the beam base, that shouldn't be there. This indicated the pattern has shifted downward in a negative way, which is expected because the LEDs have shifted downward off center. There is also no hot spot, meaning distance projection will drastically suffer.


4300k, clearly uses some amber LEDs on top paired with white LEDs on bottom, causing a further lack of focus and non-uniform beam color.


3000k, great color and intensity but completely lacks hot spot. You can also see how the pattern dips down to the sides and up at the center because the amber LEDs are placed off center too high in the housing.


You can the see the Bolsa (right) next to a stock wattage performance halogen bulb (GE left), the halogen concentrates light into a hot spot for improved distance projection. Not only does the Bolsa bulb lack any concentration of hot spot, the off center LED projection has actually shifted the focus of the beam intensity significantly downward in the beam. Hot spots/focus should be at the top of the pattern for maximum distance projection. You can see the Bolsa focus is shifted downward to the lower center of the beam, leaving even a dim area in the part of the pattern critical for distance projection and actually bulging the pattern at the bottom of the beam, where you do not want light. Lack of hot spot focus reduces distance projection and increases foreground light. The Bolsa measured center of intensity is way down in the center of the beam, which means that foreground light is further increased while distance projection light is even further decreased, only compounding the LED in a halogen housing performance problem. This is an unsafe pattern shift, as you want to project light further to have more warning of what is ahead, not shift the light away from distance projection to further down in the pattern to what is right in front of the truck. Unfortunately this makes for great photos, and people don't immediately realize their distance projection is lost.

This is a very poor performing LED product due to the offset chip position negatively affecting the pattern intensity distribution. Being geometrically off in multiple axis in the housing kills the engineered beam pattern.



Objectively measured data is always best. The 1300 lumen stock wattage performance halogen is 28% brighter than the brightest '3600 lumen' white setting of the Bolsa LED. In actuality, the Bolsa bulb is likely much brighter in output, but because the optics are so far off and the GE's are precision engineered, there is no contest in projected output. What these numbers do not show, is the lighting distribution, these numbers are just max lux output in the pattern. The Bolsa is so far off from where the pattern intensity should be at the upper edge of the beam I should have also measured a comparable focus point to the stock designed beam pattern like the GEs utilize.



Here you can see the measured output of the 4300k vs 3000k modes. The color temp is on spec for these colors, the 4300k/3000k output is lower than the 6500k which is predictably expected.



Measuring the LED cross section, which is important for hot spot concentration:



The LED cross section is 2.71mm, which is better than many. Smaller light sources are better focused than larger ones. A halogen filament is going to be less than half that, and small changes in cross section make a huge impact on beam focus. Many other LEDs are in the high 3mm range, so these are decent in that regard, the Hikari listed below is 2.2mm which is better. With their better than average cross section, these would likely perform somewhat decent (compared to other LEDs) if they only used a single chipset on center, rather than dual chipsets off center.

When comparing them to other LEDs, they fall below the better cheap Amazon Hikari LEDs. Again, likely not due to output, but due to poor chip placement design, which is not properly aligned to correctly utilize the OEM optics.



Watching them cycle in action:

https://youtu.be/ZkYRxS_xxGM

I have added a link to the youtube posting to reference this thread.

This cycling the lights to change the color means that every time you start your truck the lights will be a different color. So to maintain the same color, you will need to turn your lights off/on 3x to rotate through all the colors to get back to your desired color to maintain the color.

While the bulbs claim 30w, actual power draw is less.





2.03A x 13.2v = 26.8w, over 10% less power than advertised.

The LEDs in this test were positioned so the blade was vertically up and down with the LEDs pointing horizontally to the sides. This is the correct orientation for best performance with LEDs in a halogen assembly. Unfortunately the LEDs do not lock into this position like some other brands, leaving room for "free hand adjustment". Lights are precision instruments, there should be no adjustment. The concept of 'adjustable lights' is one of LED companies who's lights do not work correctly in halogen assemblies.

While neat in concept, the product performance is predictably awful. The pattern is wrong due to bad lighting geometry, the light intensity has shifted to where it is harmful rather than helpful, the focus and hotspot is lost, the distance projection is lost, the product fails to meet power output spec, the output is lower over other alternatives with better focus, and you have to turn your lights on/off 3x to maintain your beam color. I wish these companies could be held accountable for mis-advertising these products as 'safety improvements'.

Their amber LEDs did produce excellent color and intensity, it would be far more ideal for them to build a dedicated amber bulb with their LEDs on center and better than average cross section for a decent performing amber LED rather than compromising the design by trying to make it serve multiple purposes with multiple light sources in a single product, which makes it so neither work well.

I should add, I do not like to do reviews on these predictably poor quality lighting products. I prefer to spend my time recommending high quality well engineered lighting solutions instead. So while I took time to review this product at a members request, please do not expect me to review similar quality lighting products by request in the future.

 

Is there a Diode Dynamics SL2 Pro test coming soon or did I miss it in another thread (yes I searched)

 

I don’t know how you revived this thread but the name sure is disappointing.

 

I saw “The Vikings Garage” on YouTube recently promoting these bulbs on his FJ build.

 

I’m a medic, the dead come back on rare occasions. And others probably would have been better off dead unfortunately.

I guess I got lost in the light rabbit hole again.

 

Maybe we should revive it since it is Friday?

 

Coming soon.