LED Headlights

Hey guys, I just recently installed some LED headlights on my Tacoma. The light output is great but I don't have a clean cutoff. Anyone know the reason why? If so help a brotha out. This is low beam
This is high beam

Again, love the lights but hate that there's no clean cut off. Anything helps.

 

There's no cut-off because you threw LED bulbs into a reflector housing. Halogen bulbs are designed to throw light on certain areas of the reflector which is how you get a cut-off. It's the same as throwing HID bulbs into a reflector housing w/o doing a retrofit to focus the light where it should go. More importantly, your vehicle is no dangerous at night as you're blinding oncoming drivers.

 

Then how do I see other tacos with LEDs but they have a sharp cut off with the reflector. Same with other vehicles.

 

H4 halogen bulbs have a little shield inside the bulb that directs light. Some LEDs have their own version of this shield to direct light to the proper areas of the reflector. If you just throw any old LED in there you risk it not having the proper cut-off. My guess is your LED has diodes on both sides of the board for 'twice the light' or some marketing gimmick.

 

Yeah there are two diodes on each side. I've seen vids with the same lights and they have a clean crisp cut off. Do you have any cheap solutions?

 

Maybe they were installed in a projector housing which aims the light differently but your halogen housing will not do that. There are no cheap solutions as you would need a new housing, new bulb type or possibly both. Put your halogens back in, return the LEDs or pawn them off on some other sucker and move on with life until you can afford a real solution. There are high wattage halogen conversions (high wattage halogen bulb plus a higher wattage wire harness to handle the added power) that run about $140ish that will probably get you the best light output for your dollar invested. The next option is retrofit which will cost you hundreds more.

 

I was thinking about the higher wattage but i hate the temperature of the halogen lights. Never mind with cheap, what are some solutions to help me out? Do you know of any companies that make LEDs designed for a halogen reflectors?

 

Warning: Do NOT run bulbs with higher wattage than stock bulbs w/o using an aftermarket wire harness to handle the additional electrical load. Electrical fires aren't fun.

As for LEDs... I'm not up to date with the latest options available so do some searching both here and on Google (which will likely bring you back here if you have 'Tacoma' in the search term) and see what the latest is on this form of lighting.

 

The general consensus is owing to the inherent limitations of LEDs, it is impossible to build an LED bulb that can mimic a halogen bulb. There's a reason why LED housings have several different LEDs that light up different parts of the road. The Truck-Lite 7" LED headlight which uses two LEDs for the lowbeams does not produce a completely clean light pattern. Most LED headlights use at least 3 LEDs, each with their own light focusing system for proper distribution on the road. Given that information, imagine the technical hurdles necessary for producing an LED device that can mimic a halogen bulb.

The Philips H4 LED comes close, and might be good enough for what you want. It isn't perfect, but it doesn't have the glare that other LEDs have.

 

might sound dumb, but have you made sure they are seated all the way ? when i picked up my truck from the dealership, the passenger bulb threw light in some crazy way. i thought it was a faulty housing until i looked at it, they put the damn bulb clip in upside down. meaning it wasnt seated against the housing correctly. flipped it, fixed it.

 

Yeah I checked and rechecked.

 

Thanks man. I'll have to check them out.

 

Aftermarket housing?

 

Your disasterous beam pattern which will only get you pulled over in a matter of time is due to no beam shields or not using a projector retrofit as others mentioned.

You don't like temperature in kelvin color or in fahrenheit? If is is color you can look at over wattage optilux bulbs, which look like HIDs but are still halogen. I don't recomend them as they have a coating and are not as high of output as the Osrams.

Best correctly done light output for the buck:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-ultimate-headlight-upgrade-not-led-or-hid.398066/

 

I have these headlights on the left inside my housing.



FXR on left and LED on right

 

What is with the two splotches of light above and below the LED light output?

Also, that does not look like the FX-R light output.

 

The two splotches are from the running lights.

I had high beams on but not hooked up on LED side yet. Everyone raved about them and I hated projectors, maybe I just had bad projectors or bad bulbs, who knows. Just not the best experience with them.

 

This is what you seek

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/problem-solved-the-led-headlights-glare-guard-mod.395222/

 

I saw that and I'm gonna try it out

 

Ouch. It doesnt seem like FX-Rs, judging from the high beam pattern and mini gatling shrouds. I hope you didn't pay FX-R price!