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3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights

Discussion in '3rd Gen. Tacomas (2016-2023)' started by crashnburn80, Jan 25, 2019.

  1. Feb 6, 2023 at 12:30 AM
    #6181
    Yodastacotruck

    Yodastacotruck Well-Known Member

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  2. Feb 6, 2023 at 4:05 AM
    #6182
    atc250r

    atc250r Recovering Ram Owner

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    99.9% sure @crashnburn80 mentioned that "new" bulb a while back and found it to be wider at the point where the leds are and therefore not good for any chance at a decent focus.
     
  3. Feb 6, 2023 at 10:16 AM
    #6183
    McPickle

    McPickle IG: @ThatTopoTaco

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  4. Feb 6, 2023 at 10:59 AM
    #6184
    NotATacoFC2

    NotATacoFC2 Well-Known Member

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    I'm not Crash, but those look very...interesting to say the least. But their promo photo seems to show the lack of distance vs the traditional two-sided LED.
    upload_2023-2-6_12-58-53.jpg
     
  5. Feb 6, 2023 at 11:29 AM
    #6185
    crashnburn80

    crashnburn80 [OP] Vehicle Design Engineer

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    Sylvania Silverstars are not typically a performance upgrade, they are a cosmetic one. Sylvania Silverstars focus on "whiter light", but the way you make whiter light with a halogen is to add a blue filter to remove warm color/yellow light. The bulk of halogen output is warm color/yellow light. Making halogen light whiter reduces output, and the whiter the light color by blue filtration the greater the output loss. Sylvanias tend to be in the 4000k+ color temps, as they are marketing whiter light, and at 4000k you really start to take noticeable losses in output.

    This is a halogen spectrum plot taken from a standard H9 bulb. Everything above 700nm is IR heat, not visible light, total amount of light output is essentially the colored area of the plot less anything past 700nm. Blue filters are reducing the red-yellow spectrums on the output so that the bluer colored light is more dominate and thus makes the light whiter. But you can see the bulk of the output is those warmer colors, so to significantly reduce those to make the light much whiter causes large losses in output. So whiter light typically means less bright, and brighter light means less white. Pretty difficult to have both. You can optimize the filaments for higher efficiency, by H9s already typically have all the optimizations. And you are now fighting to regain output you have lost, much less any true performance gain over stock. Coated bulbs run hotter and any further filament optimization will lead to even shorter bulb life. The Standard Sylvania H9 is rated at 240 hours, the Silverstar is likely half or less. I'd speculate 100-120 hours or good for about 6 months based on my usage. Sylvania Silverstars have had multiple class action lawsuits about misleading performance claims and short bulb life. That said, I've not personally tested those specific bulbs.

    IMG_0880.jpg
     
  6. Feb 6, 2023 at 11:40 AM
    #6186
    VTi EG6

    VTi EG6 Well-Known Member

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    Nice, never tried them but…. I think this would be a good alternative if a bulb ever burned out and they needed to be replaced in a semi emergency, on a trip, etc. (especially if they are available at a local parts/walmart etc)
     
  7. Feb 6, 2023 at 11:42 AM
    #6187
    VTi EG6

    VTi EG6 Well-Known Member

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    B72FCE6F-4184-4B74-8682-3D0461A02E63.jpg
    Took another photo with out the fogs yesterday morning, also w no rain, @ 5:30am or so…. (Phillips H9)

    *so far these have been working very well for anyone still on the fence about it.
     
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  8. Feb 6, 2023 at 11:44 AM
    #6188
    crashnburn80

    crashnburn80 [OP] Vehicle Design Engineer

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    They are horribly unfocused and not recommended. The emitter area is way larger than a halogen filament, that emitter should be 1.4mm wide, that design is off by almost 3x which is not even in the correct county, much less correct ballpark. Hikaris latest developed products seem to have fallen down the typical PnP LED path of chasing the brightest LED designs rather than the most focused, when the most focused designs is what gives you the brightest output in a headlight. Ultra bright PnP LEDs with unfocused emitters look great in an integrating sphere when measuring total output, but it is total garbage in a headlight assembly.
    upload_2023-2-6_11-30-37.jpg


    Another horrible design. Shining an emitter at the base of the LED down their 'bullet' tube into a spreader optic. Yes, it may shine light in in more directions than a bi-directional industry standard LED, but for proper focus that spreader optic needs to be the size and shape of a halogen filament to have focus. It is not, it is absurdly massively larger. It will have no focus whatsoever, just like shown in their own marketing photos. Headlight assemblies also are designed to bounce light off the back off the assembly to project it forward, bi-directional LEDs are not great at this, but the do achieve it to some extent. This design does not look like it would bounce hardly any light off the rear of the assembly at all since it is all forward facing again negating the headlight optics. The output pics are what I would expect. Terrible.
    upload_2023-2-6_11-38-39.jpg
     
  9. Feb 6, 2023 at 2:34 PM
    #6189
    daveeasa

    daveeasa FBC Harness Solutions Vendor

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    OEM LED will fix that problem :)
     
  10. Feb 6, 2023 at 4:21 PM
    #6190
    InThePlains

    InThePlains Well-Known Member

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    Silverstar glass is all clear, Sliverstar Ultra has the blue tint.
     
  11. Feb 6, 2023 at 4:29 PM
    #6191
    crashnburn80

    crashnburn80 [OP] Vehicle Design Engineer

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    Are those H9s clear? They looked slightly blue in the photos. If they are truly clear maybe I'll try some.
     
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  12. Feb 6, 2023 at 4:37 PM
    #6192
    Firn

    Firn Well-Known Member

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    Fwiw once removed you never need the green thing again and can go back and forth as you choose. It just prevents an H9 from working, once removed the plug works for h11 or h9
     
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  13. Feb 6, 2023 at 4:47 PM
    #6193
    smikec

    smikec Well-Known Member

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    The Silverstar website shows them as tinted


    silverstar webpage.jpg


    However, @InThePlains bought them and presumably has them in hand; but the picture in their post looks like they are tinted
    tint.jpg
     
    Last edited: Feb 6, 2023
  14. Feb 6, 2023 at 4:49 PM
    #6194
    crashnburn80

    crashnburn80 [OP] Vehicle Design Engineer

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    That's what I had thought.
     
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  15. Feb 7, 2023 at 7:18 AM
    #6195
    atc250r

    atc250r Recovering Ram Owner

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    @Drippy4x4 So long as the bulb is properly sealed to the housing I don't think it will matter if it's not "clocked" perfectly with a bulb like an H9 or H11.
     
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  16. Feb 7, 2023 at 8:18 AM
    #6196
    Nyrob

    Nyrob Well-Known Member

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    Anyone with experience on the h9 for low beams. I threw them in low beams and fogs over the weekend. I know the h9 has less run time than a h11 but anyone take long trips with the h9 on at night. I travel to visit family and drive through the night most times. Curious if having them running for 10 hrs would cause an issue. It’s obviously not 10 hours straight but that is the trip time. Normally 3-4 hrs and I stop.
     
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  17. Feb 7, 2023 at 8:31 AM
    #6197
    Aws123

    Aws123 Well-Known Member

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    No issues. Ive been running them for years. Youll be fine. Youll need a glare cap on the bulb for fogs. Run the tungsram platinum h11 for that.
     
  18. Feb 7, 2023 at 8:39 AM
    #6198
    daveeasa

    daveeasa FBC Harness Solutions Vendor

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    You don't want h9's in the fog location, that's not safe for oncoming drivers. Stick with H11 there.
    You should be fine with h9's in the low beams for long drives. I run that in my Odyssey and we've driven through the night. I'd keep an extra set of bulbs on hand though, and also replace once a year, typically in the fall.
     
  19. Feb 7, 2023 at 8:42 AM
    #6199
    Nyrob

    Nyrob Well-Known Member

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    Thanks I already have an extra set just incase I’m on the road and one fails. Did not realize that about the fogs. I really only use them for “extra” light opposed to “fog lights” so they almost never go on but I may change them back to the 11’s
     
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  20. Feb 7, 2023 at 9:31 AM
    #6200
    Toy_Runner

    Toy_Runner Well-Known Member

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    Another issue is that while it projects light "forward" into the backside of the projector lens, it appears to have nothing to direct light "backwards" towards the small portion of the reflecror closesr to where the bulb enters the reflector bowl. This is typically the region that creates the primary hotspot near the center of the beam/cutoff, resulting in distance projection...

    So... their own pic isnt really surprising. There would be less effective light being directed to the rear of the reflector bowl with this design...
     

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