3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights

Re Hella H9 vs Philips, doesn’t seem like enough of a difference to matter.

But, while we are on the topic, could you help me find a post or posts where you explain why there are no 100w H11 bulb options which might outperform H9?

 

There are no legit 55w HIDs, that would definitely be something to avoid for many reasons. But yes overall HID is far more involved and can be problematic on many levels.

It is interesting that KC seems to have semi-recently discontinued their flagship 7" 40w LED Gravity Carbon light, but continues to offer the older 70w HID version. A 70w HID is very problematic, and the Carbon LED performance looked to be amazing.

I had picked up some of the earlier Volsa HIR bulbs, I'm pretty sure they were 9011s though before discontinuing those. Volsa made a 9012 HIR, then the 9012 +50 then the 9012 +120. They are the only ones to offer the 9012 in a +xxx high efficiency bulb. Some companies do offer 9012s in a blue coated bulb for whiter appearance, they should outperform a 9006 assuming it isn't too dark, but won't match the performance of a clear bulb, much less Volsa's latest high efficiency versions.

As to HIDs in the fogs, that should be avoided. While it certainly won't look glaring standing in front of the vehicle because they are so low, in a dark environment it only takes a few degrees over a long distance to be glaring to oncoming drivers. The case of the 880 is especially egregious, since the halogen filament runs top to bottom and not front to rear, so while an HID does not mimic a halogen, in the case of the 880 the direction of the arc is 90 degrees off from the direction of the filament. While I certainly wouldn't promote an LED replacement in a factory fog, a well designed LED will do far better in replicating the halogen than the HID with significantly less glare. A SAE DD lamp replacement (maybe the SSC2) would be far better and higher performing with less glare.

It isn't a lot, but it is some, takes a bit of the yellow edge off.

I don't have a specific post to reference. A good H9 has nearly every halogen optimization available. The German 90w H11 Flossers I've experimented with have heavy duty filament windings which result in far thicker filaments than an H9. The larger/thicker filaments of the high wattage H11s designed for longevity reduce focus which reduces the output intensity compared to an optimized H9 bulb. Similar to how the Nokya 75w H11 was underwhelming, the H11 used larger thicker filaments which reduced the focus output even though the Philips H9 bulb used nearly identical power, the Philips H9 performance was significantly better. I could throw some Flosser 90w bulbs that on the rack to compare to the Philips H9s in the next day or so to demonstrate since I have some on hand. Just waiting for some dry weather for the Morimoto XB testing.

Also, I think you'd appreciate, in the earlier conversation about LED outperforming HID, I really felt the appropriate adjective for such an advancement would be 'revolutionary' and couldn't think of anything to better describe such a hypothetical achievement. As such I changed my earlier adjective to 'remarkable'.

 

To be fair, this forum used to be no different. It was frustrating how people would disregard science in favor of marketing and opinion. I was involved in many ugly threads on the topic. It doesn't help when you have some vendors with claims like 238% brighter! When it isn't, but peoples immediate perception of the high foreground light is that it is. And trying to combat ridiculous marketing claims of an LED vendor paired with ill-informed perception of an emotionally attached consumer is a real challenge. As someone passionate about lighting it really bothered me to see so much bad information propagated across the forum. I don't have a 3rd Gen, but I bought the stuff to mock one up and create this thread to share measured data rather than opinion with others here to combat the misinformation. It wasn't long before all those hugely popular LED threads started fading away.

I feel your pain in trying to convey that message. Maybe you should point those guys to an Jalopnik interview with the worlds top automotive lighting expert about why those products don'ts don't work as advertised, which interestingly references this thread as an example.
https://jalopnik.com/why-most-led-headlight-upgrades-dont-really-work-an-ex-1843070472

 

As I have said, I bought the F3 led from a local company with high hopes but returned it because I have noticed all the flaws you described here, mainly the hot spot being lower than the cutoff. Although they were brighter than the halogen (not as bright as those in the video), they gave me a weird sensation of unsafety. All my friends thought I'm crazy because I said that I see worse with the leds than with halogen, given the fact they are brighter. ) Now I had hopes for the morimoto 2stoke 3.0, but you said that even it has a lower hotspot even though it is only 2mm size.
About the halogens, I switched to bosch gigalight 120, which are similar to tungsram 120/130, but I noticed something weird. After 2 weeks of use, that silver foil cap started to peel off and drop in the projector. I hope it doesn't do any damage to the projector.

 

The weird sensation of unsafely is the shift of the beam pattern from distance light to foreground light, causing the ability to overdrive your headlights, which is a major safety hazard from running these products. If you were able to recognize that you have a more tuned eye than many, because most focus on that foreground light being brighter. Brighter isn't better unless it is brighter in the right spot, brighter in the wrong spot is harmful.

Even once LEDs meet the same halogen filament thickness, the hot spot will still be dipped and performance will be sub-par vs performance halogen. LEDs are not an omnidirectional light source like a halogen bulb and therefore based on the current leading bi-directional blade style designs they will not be able to uniformity light a projector to provide the focused hot spot at the cut off. See this excellent post for how this works, and why LEDs will not work in achieving performance halogen results.

As to the Bosch bulbs, I haven't tried those specifically. I have noticed flaking on the blue coating of the GE/Tungsram bulbs (which it seems like are the same as Bosch), but not the glare cap that I recall. It wouldn't do harm per say, worst case is it would tiny debris in your projector bowl. Certainly not ideal though.

 

I don’t know the specifics behind how the 55w worked or didn’t. The pop-up assembly required 55w to work, so his it was done I do not know. They were super sensitive though and I hated them.

I know mine are 9012, but I don’t know if they’re the basic or the +50. I know they’re not +120s.

My fogs are a faux pax for sure, the one leftover remnant of my ignorant days. It’s rare for me to even have the headlights on and the fog lenses are in such poor shape anyways. I’m grasping at excuses here, so let me grasp.

I actually link that exact thread along with this one. But don’t forget every Corvette owner is the smartest guy in the room. They also own the fastest car ever. The only car faster than their Corvette is another Corvette.

We all appreciate the work you’ve been doing here.

 

that's awesome. Porsche is bad for it too. That's what I like about Tacomas and Landcruiser forums and meetups. Oh, you bought a brand new vehicle and then chopped the frame, etc etc? Cool!

 

Saw this article about quality of oem headlights. Interesting stuff

https://jalopnik.com/more-automaker...oDSHER0p5Km9He67VxskWYM_kAZEtIPy-S6vop6n0A1q0

 

Nissan Frontier: HOLD MY BEER AND WATCH THIS!

those things are junk. I'm assuming the '21 will be better.

 

Yeah they started tying headlight performance to safety ratings a while back. It puts most pressure on the family vehicle segment where vehicle safety ratings are highly sought after. It is a great shift though since headlights are a part of the vehicles safety systems, that they should be included in evaluating vehicle safety.

 

Need some help with some Hikari Ultras I bought off of ebay. When I was installing them, I noticed one of the light’s base was looser than the other and when installed, I can take the led out without that much force. Im worried it will fall out with time.

When I took the base off, I noticed one light had red o-rings and they are set slightly higher on the bulb. The other has clear o-rings that are a little thicker and set lower on the light.

The light with the red o rings is the one with the looser base. Probably because of the thinner o-ring not applying that much pressure.

Is there anyone with a set in hand that can show a pic of both lights with their o rings and in what position the base should be installed in.

 

Um, they don't even look like matching bulbs ... I think you have two different part numbers there.

 

As you’re turning the base, push slightly down and they should slide right back in place.

 

Thanks, I can see how the base goes on. Im just worried about one being looser than the other and the potential of it sliding out from the base.

 

Mine slide up and down too, if I move them. However, when the red O ring is flat against the heat sink and attached to the projector, they don’t move and attach pretty solid. At least mine did. I love these lights but went back to halogen for a bit

 

Sorry, this will be a bit long winded. But I like to give as much context as possible for people trying to learn.

For headlights this greatly depends on the choice of parts used. If you stick with 35w ballasts and pick up a pair of Hella Gen III ballasts from a salvage yard from an early 2000’s Audi A4/A6 (locally I am able to pick them up for about $20 a pair) then you’ll have extremely fast start up, fully water proof and almost indestructible. Denso ballasts are also extremely good too. But they have 2 downsides....1 they are much harder to OEM by and they are not waterproof so they have to be installed inside the headlight housing OR they have to be “potted” (an epoxy compound poured into the housing to encase the circuit board) to make them waterproof. There are tutorials on increasing the output up to 57w I believe in many different increments if you want to use them in off-road lights. You can also use these on H11 based bulbs (or any other as they all use AMP connectors if not a D2x based bulb) if you use a 9006 to AMP conversion harness.

Then comes to the issue of the wiring harness used...if cheap relays are used and aren’t protected from the elements very well then you are guaranteed to issues, just like anything thing else you would add. I personally like the MotoControl harnesses from Morimoto since it’s an fully incased unit and controls HI/Low beam no matter the headlight connector. Even available with a 10sec delayed start-up which is important with motorcycles during cranking, especially with aftermarket ballasts.

Now for the reason you DON’T want to higher than 35w ballasts in your projectors (or god forbid OEM reflector housings) is due to “burning” the chrome off the projector housing (no matter if its OEM or aftermarket). It’s not caused by heat like many think it is. It is in fact burnt up by excessive UV rays output by the bulbs. Which increase exponentially as the ballast wattage is increased. No matter what a manufacture says an automotive HID bulb says, they simply are not made to be ran above 35w. ALSO while on this subject. You should make 100% sure that the HID bulb has an “anti-UV coating”. Generally speaking OEM bulb manufactures (Osram or Philips) will have the coating without stating it. But, when using H1, H3, H11 etc bulbs they are VERY hit and miss on whether they have that anti-UV coating or not since NO OEM manufactures make those bulbs (except Hella for the H1 and H3 i believe and XenonDepot sells a rebased Philips D2S capsule on an H1, but those are $175!!). Even at 35w if there is no anti-UV coating the projector housing will end up getting burnt, some sooner than others. Plus when they don’t have the anti-UV coating stated, they are generally going to be lesser quality thus a higher probability of the capsule not being aligned properly and making output less than desirable/less reliable. Not to mention that OEM or quality aftermarket HID bulbs like Morimoto or NHK will be a lot more reliable than eBay, Amazon or aliexpress bulb ever will.

 

Mine have the clear o-rings and sit snuggly. Does it look like you could possibly swap a red and clear o-ring, to seat better on the loose bulb? (If they are the same diameter)

LOL! Curious when Hikari started stamping their bulbs with DOT as that is clearly a lie.

 

I saw the DOT stamp and thought it was funny. Ill see if I can swap an o ring from side to side if not, possible at something between the base and o ring to make it it fit tighter.

 

made the switch to phillips H9 today. ordered 4 from Amazon and got lucky - they're all german made. swapped out the highs while I was at it and turns out I already had german phillips H9's in there. saved them for spares
the performance bump is great. wife sent me out to pick up dinner and the difference is very noticeable. I dont do much night driving anymore, so I guess the timing was great

 

Yes the stock high beam bulbs in 3rd Gen are German H9s. But now you have spares.