The SAE J581 Aux High Beam Thread

This Hella testing kinda makes me curious to try the Hella 500 fogs and compare to the fog thread. They'd be more era appropriate on my 1st Gen than LEDs, though mounting would be a challenge. According to views on Candlepower, they are not great though. But I'm still curious.

A 3000k 95 CRI emitter set would be pretty amazing. I've only seen one company focus on CRI for driving lights, the name escapes me at the moment (really bugging me), but it is 5000k and 90 CRI. They are of course not inexpensive.

High LED color temps really do make it blinding. The short wavelength light scatters easier so that when put against a highly reflective surface the effect is amplified. Add that to humans higher visual sensitivity to short wavelength light and it is all bad.

 

I'm sorry luminus sFt-40. Not the sst (which is domed). It's been getting very good reviews on budgetlightforum (and my least favorite place, reddit). Juuuust below the BBL curve, not terribly rosey in tint at differing drive levels, fairly efficient even in comparison to its self-same cold white versions. And just like the cold white sft40, its capable of both very high drive current levels and very high surface intensity. Lots of throw, even with very small reflectors.

I would pitch in towards a 500 fog lamp kit to further the testing, just let me know. I appreciate all the time you invest in these threads Crash.

 

@Toy_Runner here are the requested thermals for the lamps running 55w Osram +150s. I ran them on the Hella 500FF and 700FF for the best direct comparison.

Measurements taken after 10 minutes of run time in 65-66 degrees F ambient.

Hella 500FF


Hella 700FF


You can see the 500s run about 21% hotter than the 700s. The 700s also have a diameter about 17% larger than the 500s (6.9" vs 8.1"), so the smaller lamps running hotter with the same heat/light source and less area makes sense. I'll retest thermals with the 100w Osram SuperBrights.

I also just noticed, the H3 Osram Night Breaker Laser +150s are from Osram China. That caught me by surprise, every performance Osram bulb I have tested has been from Osram Germany. The bulbs are obviously very solid performers regardless.

 

Thanks for the temp data. A concern with high wattage bulbs and small lamps is if the lens can be damaged by thermal shock. Not sure if these lenses are borosilicate or not, erring on the side of "not" based on what Too Stroked said about replacing the lenses several time.

 

In searching on the subject, I didn't find any credible source specifying the 500/700 lens as borosilicate. So I'd agree with not.

 

I can’t wait to see how the high watt bulbs work out! I finally got the 700ff’s mounted on my f150 and installed the 100w Hella bulbs and they’re still just so ridiculous I love them. If the +150 55w bulbs are close, I’d probably swap to them and recommend others do too as these lamps get HOT.

A side note: the wiring harness supplied by hella with the lamps as a kit is completely inadequate for the higher watt bulbs and marginal at best for the 55w bulbs. 100w bulbs will require 14ga minimum and preferably 12ga all copper wire.

I’m using the MICTuning HD 12ga harness again, same as I used on my Tacoma, ordered from Amazon for $20. I tied in to the high beams directly to trigger the relay, as the included switch will drain the battery the way it is wired and where I live separate control of the driving lights is not required.

 

I haven’t tested the Hella 100w H3s, but based on testing other Hella high wattage bulbs, Hellas do poorly compared to the German brands. Osram Superbrights have tested as the best high wattage bulbs in H4, which is why I selected them for these H3 tests. Hella doesn’t manufacture their bulbs, they are outsourced. Some decent stock wattage ones out of Taiwan, lots of poor quality ones out of China. I’d recommend swapping the Hella bulbs out for the German made Osram Superbrights.

 

Hella 500 vs 500FF vs 700FF with Osram 100w Superbright bulbs

In extensive testing of high wattage bulb options in the 2nd Gen Ultimate headlight upgrade H4 thread, German Osram Superbrights were the decisive winner for the best high wattage bulbs available. As such, for H3 testing in the Hella assemblies, German Osram Superbrights were selected as the high wattage bulb of choice.

German H3 Osram Superbrights


Except they are not actually 100w. They come in at 89.7w.


It's pretty common for high wattage bulb manufactures to round to a near 'nice number' for nominal wattage and not label actual wattage. I was mildly surprised to see it a full 10w low though. Keep in mind that the standard wattage bulbs have an allowance on the nominal rating and also will not necessarily use what is listed on the package. The high performance '55w' Osram Nightbreaker +150s actually pull 69w. And these 100w Superbright bulbs are actually pulling about 90w. So what may look like a 45w spread on the package (100w - 55w) is actually only a 21w difference (90w - 69w). That is only 23% more power, not the 45% the package labeling makes it appear as.

High wattage bulbs also use thicker filaments, which reduces focus and output intensity despite the higher power, especially compared to performance high efficiency stock wattage bulbs. So the balancing act is to increase output that is more beneficial than the reduced focus loss. Again, based on testing in 2nd Gen, the Osram Superbrights did that best.

Hella 500 with Osram 100w Superbrights


Hella 500 with Osram +150 vs Osram 100w Superbrights


The Osram 100w Superbrights in the Hella 500s return about an 11% gain over the Osram +150s.

Hella 500FF with Osram 100w Superbrights


Hella 500FF with Osram +150 vs Osram 100w Superbrights


The Osram 100w Superbrights in the Hella 500FFs return about an 15% gain over the Osram +150s.

Hella 700FF with Osram +150 vs Osram 100w Superbrights


Hella 700FF with Osram +150 vs Osram 100w Superbrights


The Osram 100w Superbrights in the Hella 700FFs return about an 24% gain over the Osram +150s.

A few observations.
Free Form optics are more efficient with bulb upgrades than fluted lens optics.
In the 500 size, the fluted lens optics do a better job with uniform beam pattern and centralized hot spot
The 700FFs excel with high wattage Osrams.

In terms of focus changes due to larger high wattage bulb filaments, a larger assembly will have a smaller relative geometry change than a smaller assembly. So all things being equal one would expect a larger assembly to be less negatively impacted by the increase in filament size and the larger reflector to better benefit from the greater bulb output. And that is exactly what we see with the 700FF and the Osram Superbrights. While the 500FF put down higher numbers with stock wattage bulbs, the 700FF was able to outperform with high wattage bulbs.

Halla 500FF vs 700FF with Osram 100w Superbrights


The 700FF also has better pattern, with more centralized focus than the 500FF running the Osram 100w Superbrights.

Of the 3 lamps, the best performing combination is the 700FF with Osram 100w Superbrights. The combo delivers the highest output intensity plus the 700FF has a much better pattern than the 500FF with better centralized hot spot and larger pattern area and less striation, while the FF optics are also far more efficient than the fluted lens optics of the 500.

More comparisons.

KC Pro6 LED vs Hella 700 with Osram 100w Superbrights


The KC Pro6 is an exceptionally high performing and expensive LED driving light. The Hella 700s running Osram 100w Superbrights beat the KCs in peak intensity by about +18%. The KCs have a wider pattern area, so it isn't apples to apples per-say, not to mention much lower power consumption. But the 700FFs pattern coverage is not small, being larger than the 500 series, the Hella performance is impressive.

Testing for these lamps is done at 13.8v, which was my measured voltage at the headlight connector on a 2nd Gen. HD wiring harnesses relayed to the battery can gain small improvements over that voltage, ~0.2-0.3v. But my voltage booster thread will boost voltage by +0.5v when using an AGM battery. Halogen output increases exponentially to the power of 3.4 with voltage increase. So with a +0.5v increases that would be 14.3/13.8=3.6% voltage increase, ^3.4 = ~12.9% output increase over the measurements shown. Why mention this?

Hella 700FF with Osram 100w Superbrights vs DD SS3 Max Driving


At 13.8v the SS3 Driving Max beats out the 700FF by about 12%. But multiply the 3675 lux by 1.129 and you get 4149 lux. Greater peak intensity output than the SS3 Max. Again, patterns are a bit different, obviously the Max uses way less power by comparison and has a much smaller form factor. But impressive regardless.

Hella 500FF with Osram 100w Superbright bulbs in 64 degrees F ambient


Hella 700FF with Osram 100w Superbright bulbs in 64 degrees F ambient


Again you can see the larger lamp assemblies run cooler than the smaller ones.

I'll combine all the Hella review posts into a single post for easier reference later with small amounts of additional information.

 

Seems like for winter driving the hella 700ff and the osram superbrights are the clear winner, mad output plus tons of heat to keep the lenses clear of snow and its a super affordable setup

 

Hella 700FF with 130w bulbs

The assemblies that @Too Stroked sent me included this Au-lite 130w H3. As bulb wattages increase, so does filament size to handle the extra power and heat. Larger filaments reduce focus, which decrease output intensity which works against increasing the output. So there is a balance between increasing output with higher wattage bulbs vs reducing the focus which reduces output intensity to achieve the best results. I'm not familiar with Au-lite, and it is a 130w bulb, which I'd generally not recommend, so I didn't test it. But I had a little extra time today, so I figured why not.

Au-lite 130w H3


I've not heard of Au-lite. Looking them up they are a bulb manufacture out of Taiwan.

130w Au-lite pulls 8.0A at 13.8w, or 110.4w. Again high wattage bulb wattage labeling is very approximate to nice sounding numbers. At 110w, these are 20w higher than the Superbrights which came in at 90w.


700FF with 130w Au-lite bulb


Hella 700FF with 100w (90w actual) Osram Superbrights vs Au-lite 130w (110w actual)


Um. What? Full stop.

These Au-lite 130w bulbs produce a +34% output improvement over the Osram Superbrights, pushing nearly 5000 lux. This was very surprising. I double checked everything to make sure this wasn't an error, and the numbers are accurate. With limited H3 testing, I'm unsure if the Osrams are not that great, or these Taiwan Au-lite bulbs are just that much better. Again in H4 testing the Osram Superbrights were the best, and it is an OEM supplier with bulbs made in Germany.

SS3 Max Driving vs Hella 700FF with Au-lite 130w bulbs


The Hellas with the Au-lite 130w bulbs put down about +20% higher peak intensity than the SS3 Max. Incredible.

Converting the measurement to candela for additional comparison, 4939 lux at 18' = 148,666 cd.



You can see that in terms of output intensity, the Hella 700FFs with 130w Au-lite bulbs fall right in-between DDs large SS5 Sport and Pro Driving beam pods for cd.

More power produces more heat. The 700FFs run +30 degrees F hotter with the 130w Au-lite bulbs than the 100w Superbrights.

Hella 700FF with Au-lite 130w bulbs


I haven't seen online sources where these Taiwan Au-lite bulbs are available, still waiting to hear from where @Too Stroked got them. Makes me curious to maybe try other H3s as well.

I did not try the 130w bulbs in the 500s. Those were already approaching 200 degrees with the 100w Superbrights. Maybe I'll give it a try, but heat is certainly a significant concern in the smaller lamp platform.

 

Holy hell, now that's one heck of a result.

I've linked to Dan Sterns website for different things before. He has a page

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/bulb_types/bulb_types.html

At this link, about the bulb descriptions and their nominal rated wattages and lumen outputs. I swear there was a third H3 line, with 130w H3's being described as having a ridiculous, seemingly unlikely jump in lumen output from the 100w rallye spec to the 130w version. On CPF this had been referred to s few times as a misprint, and seems to have been removed... this results lends some credence to it being close to reality.

I think you'd be right about the high temps being a risk for smalller lamps, Crash. Not just for the lenses, but for the reflector coating as well.

Very cool result to see. "Au-lite" = Gold Light? Perhaps.

 

I cannot tell a lie. As living proof the memory is the second thing to go, I cannot remember where those bulbs came from - other than my basement stash. I'd be willing to bet that they're 5-10 years old though. Maybe the aging process increased the output?

 

Apparently they're still around - however that does not mean there hasn't been changes.

http://www.au-lite.com.tw/product.php?pi_id=1&

Edit- not listing a 130w H3 currently.

 

I found the original chart posted on candlepower.
Bulb/wattage/lumens


Thread discussion on high wattage H3s in driving lamps here, and some driving lamp alternatives.
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/130w-bulbs-for-aux-lights.479425/

As mentioned in earlier review posts, there is discussion in that thread on how higher wattage bulbs have thicker filaments which reduce focus in the lamp, which is why I didn't initially test the 130w bulbs. But now I'm curious to try an find one from a reputable manufacture that still has them available to see if it is possible to still source something relatively decent. I can't find the Au-lite bulbs anywhere, so they are likely long discontinued. And as mentioned Hellas high wattage bulbs tend to be garbage. Lots of cheap Chinese bulbs, but those will surely be poor as well for the reasons mentioned earlier.

As far as reputable brand 130w H3s I can find:
Flosser
Narva

The Flossers are from Germany and not super common in the US, but readily available on ebay. Narva is a German brand, but interestingly the 130w H3s only seem to be on their Australian site, and only available in Australia, which has high shipping costs and long wait time.

 

They are, in a word, fantastic. They might start out with a little bit of ice but stay clear even at -40F at 70mph.


I love ‘em!

 

I ordered the Flosser 130w bulbs, should be here later this week. Flosser is supposed to be comparable to Osram/Sylvania/Narva/Philips/Tungsram. We'll see how they compare to the Au-lite bulbs.

 

Hmm this has me curious about switching my 700ff to the metal housing 4000s and running higher wattage bulbs. Currently running the 100w(90) superbrights and they are nice...but thats a nice bump lol. I guess ill see how the flosser bulbs perform.

 

I've curiously looked at the 4000s as well, those appear even larger than the 700s though but could be a nice upgrade if you have the space. Hard to say without comparison data though. If the Flossers compare to the Au-lite bulbs, those would be an easy upgrade to the 700s.

 

I took some measurements for the 4000s and it would be a tight fit where i have the 700s mounted. What would be the safe limit for lens/housing temps to stay under for the 700s if i was to just upgrade to the sonething like the flossers?

 

Besides lens failure from thermal shock or nirnal rock damage, the extra heat will likely degrade the reflective coating much faster. Probably just something to look at when swapping bulbs.