these lights?

This is exactly what I was talking about earlier when I said those lights are not compatible with your stock headlights. You have no low beam control, that tree in front of you is lit all the way up to the top of the frame, meaning you are blinding everyone. There should be a sharp cut off line on the low beams.

Compare yours to mine:

 

Said it before, I'll say it again. Your headlights are crap. Two tips for taking pictures of headlights:

1. Comparing high and low beams should be done while not moving. This will let you compare the same stretch of road so that you can do an apples to apples comparison. It also helps avoid the situation of "Well officer, I was trying to get a good picture for the internet and somehow managed to wind up in the trees" (I may not agree with your opinion of your lights, that doesn't mean I want you dead)

2. Try and get a couple of good pictures on level ground, facing a wall. This will show the cutoffs and how the lights are adjusted.

Now, why are your headlights crap? Take a look at the top picture, your brights. See that massive pool of light that's right in front of your truck? Yeah. That's all being reflected back into your eyes while you drive. If you're in a situation where you really truly need to be using your brights, you're going to be looking waaaaay further down the road, but that bright ass pool of light is going to compromise your long range vision. Again, think about holding a lantern out in front of you to try and see into the woods. Doesn't work very well. Your eyes are lazy in that they're going to adjust for and be drawn to the brightest light, which looks to be about three car lengths in front of you, at a time when you really need to be seeing a lot further out.

Let's take a look at the lower picture. See that tree to the right? Ask yourself, "why do I need to see almost 30' up into that tree? With my low beams?" But more importantly, ask yourself what that light is doing to oncoming drivers.

Improving your headlights is a good goal, but there's a lot more to it than just grabbing the first thing that catches your eye. From what I've seen, lighting companies seem to spend a lot more money on advertising than they do for R&D. There is a lot of really stupid and crappy stuff on the market right now, and I don't think it's going to get any better. The best thing you can do for yourself is to become informed. There is a lot of good information out there but there's also a lot of bad info. I recommend Candlepower Forums (though if you think I come across as an asshole, perhaps you should stay away from there). A word of warning, they are huge into legality (something that we haven't even touched on in this conversation- undoubtedly your headlights are NOT legal). Daniel Stern is another great source of info. He has a good description of why too much foreground lighting is bad in his discussion of fog lights:

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/lights/fog_lamps/fog_lamps.html

 

I moved them down and now one has bright lighted me since. It may appear that my headlights would be in people's eyes but they aren't. I haven't had a single person flip me off or bright light me since I adjusted them. I agree with you, these headlight assemblies suck. Not the LED, the assembly. It's putting all the right light in the wrong places. Somebody smashed my old lenses in a parking lot when they ran into me so I had to order a cheap set off eBay and they suck. I'm looking into doing projector retrofits but every tutorial I've seen doesn't clearly explain what to buy and what to do and I don't just want to cut into my assemblies. I'm not rich lol.

 

My GE Nighthawk LED's are bad ass. Super bright and the low beam cutoff is very clean.

 

You look like a homeless Ryan Reynolds which is still a compliment.

 

Hahahaha, huge compliment! You guys see Deadpool? Hahaha, loved it. Back on topic. @jjsul do you have retro projectors? Or are the LEDs designed for a standard halogen housing?

 

Oh, I forgot you're the early taco with the sealed beam headlamps. Those GE Nighthawk LED's you have are in a housing designed for LED's so they should be excellent, have great cut off, etc. I didn't even know they made those now. That's pretty cool.

 

Yea and you can see what it took to get that cutoff with a bright led. The bottom half of lens is completely blocked off for the low beams to make sure theres no glare. If i didnt already have retros id probably look into them.

 

I wonder if that general idea is something folks could incorporate into their existing headlamp housings on the non sealed beam tacos. I didn't even look at the pic of em, just noticed it was sealed and that's when it dawned on me that that's why jjsul has good lighting. Maybe peep can darken the lower half of housing with a similar result? Glad you pointed that out.

 

I'm always worried about what the tops of trees are doing when I'm driving down the road, guess now I just need to throw leds in my stock housings. Problem solved.

 

blacking out parts of the reflectors is just a bandaid fix for poor or incompatible reflector deisgn. You're just wasting light when you do that.

 

Right, just wondering, for those who have already purchased these, if it's a way to give them a cutoff line so they're not blinding people. Because you know they're not gonna swap the bulbs out, lol. I was young and dumb once.... Now I'm old and dumb.

 

Like I said, a bandaid fix...

But pretty sure that will require opening up the housing, at least for the non sealed beams like my 04, and that almost always results in leaky housings. Or you could just paint the outside of the housing, that should look cool. Actually, if you want to be REALLY cool, you'll get 10,000k hid bulbs and throw them in your stock housings. Purple lights are all the rage... ;-)

As far as tips for those who purchased sweat ass leds, expecting awesome light (bro), I've done similar things thru lack of research. Only after purchasing something do I realize I should have gotten something else.

I call it the dumbass tax, and have been a victim before, and will probably be a victim again...

 

For sure, no way I was implying it was a correct fix. Hopefully it didn't come off that way because it definitely isn't. But dammit I want their lights out of my eyes when they drive past me going the opposite way.

 

If you have to open up the housing to fix the beam pattern for an LED bulb you might as well throw in some projectors and convert to HID. At least then you can be Old Skool Kool.

 

No, I understood what you were saying.

I (and others) are just trying to convince as many people as possible that super bright LEDs (distinctly different from the website, superbrightleds.com, lol) in stock housings are a TERRIBLE way to go for ALL involved, despite what the ebay listing or manufacturer claims. Sure, they're super bright and cost $50, but they throw all that light where you don't need or want it (like the tops of trees).

I drive a *truck*, and nothing grinds my gears more than some lowered Honda blinding me with his stupid LEDs. Now take that same light and put it in a truck, and figure out what you're doing to all the drivers.

The "best" way to go is probably true HID retrofits, but those can cost $1000 to do it right. So I'm going to stick to new factory housings (which I installed last night) with the upgraded wiring harness (which should arrive today!) with 70w or 80w Osram bulbs.

If I still need more light, I'll throw some LED pods or a light bar on the bumper/roof, and put it to an aux switch.

For some tacos, a proper HID retrofit ($1000) is pretty much your only option unless you want some cool looking form-over-function lights like Spyders or something. This is why the "ultimate upgrade" halogens are so appealing.

 

I made my first set of retros for under $200 using ebay housings and used projectors. The retrofitsource now has budget friendly kits so I see no excuse.

 

Didn't even know it was possible for that price... And I should've. I'm a huge proponent of buying used good quality over new shiz quality. Hmmmm... I might get started on some retros sooner than I anticipated.

 

they were some original morimotos a guy took out just to upgrade them. got em for $50

 

i'm just waiting for some nicer weather and i'll be doing a retro from retrofitsource. i'm actually really looking forward to it