LED to Halogen Conversion swap?

I have a 2023 TRD OR that came with factory LED lights. Unfortunately my wife is very sensitive to LED lights, both the flicker and the added high frequency output. Oncoming LEDs really irritate her so we often take routes with less traffic at night. I had hoped that outgoing light from the truck would have less effect, but that was naive of me.

So to make both her life and hence mine more enjoyable I'm looking to convert from LED lights to halogen lights which I'm told requires a wiring harness and control modules and will cost "many thousands" according to my local toyota dealer.

Is there anyone in the New England area with halogen lights of a similar year that would like to do an exchange?

BTW - I love the output from the LED lights so I don't need any comments about how I'll miss them. I know I will. And no, swapping out wives would not be less expensive.

 

Many convert the other way, so if you post in your regional forum (https://www.tacomaworld.com/forums/north-east.38/) you should be able to arrange a swap-with-cash with someone. Also @daveeasa and @Puppypunter can tell you about the wiring.

 

@Usedtoownaford He's right. Your best course I would say is swapping your LEDs with someone else, plus some cash. The LEDs go for $1300-1400 new, so I don’t think you’d have a problem getting $800 or better in addition to some halogen lights? As to the wiring harness, don’t listen to Toyota Everything you need is there already. The only thing I’d do is add an additional ground as the LED wiring harness only has one small ground, where the halogen version would have 5 grounds. If you wanted to keep it all plug and play, I’ve made a few LED “downgrade” harnesses, so it’s something I can do. I charge $100 for them, but it will be all plug and play, no splicing. There will be one larger ground wire that goes to the frame, so you’ll need to loosen a bolt, then tighten it again, but that’s the hardest part.

 

I have a 23 Offroad Premium with halogens and would be happy to switch with you if interested. Its currently on the boat to Texas and scheduled to arrive mid September.

 

While I’m not sure this really solves the root problem, given you can’t control other vehicles on the roadways, this is one of a few situations where I see the logic.

No control modules needed.

 

Personally, though, I’d keep the LED headlights in boxes just in case.

 

In a couple of years a like-new set of 3rd Gen LED headlights will be even more sell-able.

 

I recall of one and only one forum member who switched from LED back to halogen.

The factory LED headlights are at least $1500 if they're bought over the counter. Keep that in mind if you opt to trade or sell for halogen. Another vote for saving them in a box.

 

I'm interested in the downgrade harness approach. I failed to mention in my initial post that I have a fisher homesteader plow with LED lamps for plowing my parking area. My wife doesn't ride with me when I plow so they aren't an issue. The fisher harness plugs into the existing LED harness. I was planning to replace the plow harness as well after conversion. So, if a harness could be designed that would interface between the LED harness and halogen headlight assemblies and the fisher harness it would save me a lot of time and money. I'd pay $500 for that.

 

I bet I could do that for $499, tops
Can you get me more info on the fisher harness? Does it just plug in between the headlights and the truck?

 

I wonder if the blue light blocking glasses would help her in the case of on coming traffic? I also don’t like the color / temperature of most LED lighting and went with amber for Baja Designs fog lights.

 

What part of New England are you in?

Southern NH here

 

OP, you might be able to send your plow harness to Johnny and he could build an integrated solution for you. He tends to enjoy those types of projects. At least more than he enjoys doing my painting or harness or auto headlights or seat heat or …

Since you’ll be sourcing frame grounds anyway, and you probably need fused power for the plow lights, he can probably make something super clean with a GEP and some micro relays.

 

You and @Puppypunter ...

 

I'd buy new or used halogens (ideally in some sort of stock style box), keep the boxes and stick the LEDs in them. If/when you ever sell the truck, swap them back. For people who specifically want a truck with LEDs, it will make the truck a lot more valuable. I searched for a while and never found the truck I wanted with LEDs so I bought mine and then had to do the swap for my preferences.

 

Yep. I passed a lot of trucks in 2022 looking for factory LEDs. Took me 9 months, and I got Sport instead of Off-road to get LED and Advance Tech.

 

After your swap, do the H9 low-beam bulb conversion. You'll miss your LEDs less this way (not necessarily that you won't miss them at all, but the H9 is a definite improvement over stock H11s).

I too am one not fond of LED lights, the high CCT LEDs most have causes more eye strain than I'm comfortable with.
Indeed, the glare from oncoming car headlights has increased drastically over the last 5 years or so.

 

If it's just the color of the light, maybe a yellow tint could raise the color temperature and make it more bearable for her.

 

No, a yellow lens tint would have to be very dsrk, approaching amber to filter enough green and blue light from the LEDs to skew yellowish... and besodes being illegal and a ticket magnet, would dim the headlamps significantly.

I've been healfheartedly looking for a broken but functioning (e.g. just smashed lens) LED headlamp, to see what it would take to crack it open without destroying it, and then to see what LEDs it uses. They're a domeless variant, several single emitter LEDs, likely Osrams. But they're behind a glsre shield so I haven't been able to id thwm yet. Potentially, a new pcb board could be designed to utilize say, a cree xp-p, which would have very similar emission (illumination angle, intensity distribution across this angle) and performance (in terms of lumen output and surface intensity) at the same drive levels of the original chip, but the pcb will likely have to be thinner, as the xp-p emitter is slightly thicker than an osram whiteflat 1 (in addition to being a different size format, the cree being 3.5x3.5mm, the osram likely being a 3x3mm). But with a replacement board that sets a new emitter at the corrected height in relstion to the reflectors, it should result in minimal performance change.

But the xp-p is available in much lower color temperatures than Osrams lineup.