LED Lighting Conversion

Ok, so, I apologize for the delay @XenonDepot Steve. Things are just insane right now at work and at home. The weather has not been cooperating either. I do have some "teaser" pics of the new Exnon Depot H11 Pro Series LED bulbs and drivers.

My take so far is that I am both impressed overall, and a just a little confused about one aspect. I could have contacted Steve about the confusion part but I wanted to shoot from the hip so to speak on this review and not have any other influence but my own assessment of everything. The confusion is in regard to the wiring. You'll see below what I mean.

The quality of the bulbs to me is 110%. I pulled and twisted and man handled all the parts and there are not any weaknesses I could find. Assembly appears to be on par if not better than anything else I have seen. Materials and fit are superb. From a "in the hand" look, they appear to be drop dead sexy.

What sets these apart from other bulbs or makes these very unique?

Two things actually. Most automotive LED bulbs use a fan for cooling but these bulbs use a unique flexible aluminum ported fin style heat sink instead. I'll refer to these simply as "Fins" from now on for ease. This assembly should allow for an easier installation in tight spaces compared to rigid heat sink designs. The other thing is, these are adjustable and they even went as far as including markings on the inside of the mounting collar to help you do it.

I will have more photos and more updates as time permits then ultimately a comparison between these, OEM Halogens and the Hikari bulbs most of us are running. For now though, here are the unboxing and getting acquainted photos.





































I hope these will make you wonder......... like they are making me....................

Rob

 

So I was very interested in these LEDs when I first started looking into all of this months ago. However, my wallet (which has been screaming at me since I've been on this forum) kept me from spending that much on something that I had not seen tested on a 3rd gen (at that point). Now that I've had a chance to see some of the cheaper options, and Rob has been able to upload these inital pictures, I can see that you're proably getting what you pay for (in a good way) for these Extreme LED Pro's.

From what I can see, we are getting the adjustable metal collar on an all metal housing. You're getting the newer Philips LUMILEDS LED chips that are also on the Hikari's new set. And they are really thin (thanks rob for including a pic of you measuring how thin the actual bulb is between the 2 PCBs)!

Many don't look at the thickness when looking for new LED bulbs, but when this is going to be installed into a reflector style headlight, you want as much light reflecting as possible. The thicker it is between the LED chips, the bigger the shadow will be...that means there will be less light to reflect out onto the road.

Rob - I can't wait to see more pics of these in use this weekend, but I am pretty sure that you will be happy with the results.

 

Thanks Drew. Like I said I'm very impressed so far. I have very high hopes for these. Honestly, if you can catch a sale the price between these and the full price Hikari is not much different. Especially for a fanless design that is adjustable too.

We shall see. I promise you that.

 

Oh, and these have a 2 year warranty!

 

@RobP62 - thanks! Fantastic pictures so far

Happy to hear that you like what you see so far!

Your question re wiring: Some vehicles have a dust cover that closes overtop the back of the headlight housing. You can technically fit the heat sink and the LED driver inside the headlight cavity inside the housing, but we suggest drilling a hole in the plastic dust cover so that you can mount the LED driver outside the headlight cavity as they dissipate heat as well. We prefer to have the headlight cavity space for the heat sink itself to dissipate heat, as opposed to having both the heat sink and driver in there. The drivers on our Xtreme PRO H11 LED kit are waterproof (They are potted on the inside), so you can safely mount them outside the headlight housing. The grommet that we include allows you to reseal the headlight housing once you drill the hole to allow the wires to run between the driver and the bulb -- hope that makes sense.

Also... We posted this on our instagram account yesterday, but thought you guys would like to see. We purchased 2 LED kits from Amazon (will remain nameless). Both claimed to use Lumiled Z EZ emitters, but one came with fakes.... Can you tell which is which?



Steve

 

What are you guys doing about the fast blinking with front and rear LEDs. Is there a specific Canbus LED so my truck doesn’t think a light is out?

 

Are you referring to the turn signals? If so, we use this LED bulb load resistor with the replacement LED bulbs that we sell.

 

Steve,
Thank you for the wiring explanation. I assumed it was something along those lines. Obviously a grommet means there is a hole in something for the wires to be in. At first though I was just a little confused. Since we don't have the dust cover on the 3rd Gens would removing the wire and grommet be an issue, or void the warranty? Asking for others. I personally am going to make it work as is, and will try to use the extra wire length to my advantage, but if I feel it is getting in the way or just too much excess I wanted to ask.

Yea, those LEDs do look nearly identical! For the untrained eye like mine I will be fooled for sure.

Rob

 

If this is true and you can prove it, this constitutes fraud. Amazon should be notified and the seller required to pull their product and offer reparation to those who have been scammed.

If you can't prove it, you should restate this as an opinion and not fact.

 

Lol Amazon is absolutely riddled with fakes for everything you can imagine and I’m guessing they don’t care.

 

I bought a Canon 6D SLR battery pack from Amazon and it was a fake. I reported it, sent pictures to prove it, and they pulled the listing. I was sent an OEM battery pack.

Oddly enough, they seemed to care.

 

Yes thank you, the hyperflashihng from my truck thinking a bulb is out. Looks like I just crimp this on a set of turn signals and good to go.

 

Amazon definitely cares.

 

Weather they care or not, they are struggling with knock-offs. Apple, Yeti, TRD Pro grills and on and on, fakes are rampant on Amazon -even the reviews. Yet I got Prime and I shop with them all the time Hahahah.

 

Just wanted to post a comparison for those thinking about doing the LED reverse lights. I used the ones posted in this thread. https://www.amazon.com/your-orders/...ryId=&returnUnitIndices=&shipmentId=DGYb9l0p9

Here's a picture. Boy, what a difference!

 

I didn't have a problem with this one, but with the 31mm I eventually destroyed trying to pry it in.

 

@Techsan - I have forwarded the information to our contact at Lumiled.

Steve

 

Thanks. It’s appreciated.

 

Hey guys, I did not drop off the face of the planet but I do feel like a bucket of crap for not posting up. Long story short, for what it's worth, family crisis at the nursing home this past weekend and didn't get the lights installed but come hell or high water, this Friday I am taking off and doing it. I WILL HAVE COMPARISON PHOTOS BEFORE SUNDAY MORNING!!!!!!!

Sorry again.
Rob

 

They are in no way suitable for any forward facing light application, same stuff I have been saying in this thread for a long time.

He is saying don't buy LEDs that look like this with lots of diodes everywhere:


Buy ones that look like this that try to mimic the halogen filament placement:


(Generic LED images grabbed online)

Buying quality once is far cheaper than buying guaranteed garbage multiple times. LEDs everywhere will have worse beam and likely lower output than concentrated LEDs in key locations attempting to mimic halogens. Amazon reviews are exceptionally deceiving for LED lights, as most face the light source to evaluate the output and think they see them as brighter, when really they see glare. Or they see street signs light up far more and think they are brighter, when it is due to glare. Few actually look at real output.

Exactly, which is why LEDs retrofitted into a halogen housing do so poorly.


Because I don't think people understand the extent of headlight optic precision:

Examine the filaments of these 2 bulbs.



The bulb on the left is 40% more efficient in output due to precision coils compared to the bulb on the right. Human eyes can barely tell the fractions of a millimeter difference in the coils which has a huge impact on beam distance projection and beam intensity. Looking really closely and you can tell the difference, (may require a desktop monitor). The difference between the filaments on these two bulbs for use in a halogen housing has significant performance impacts. Smaller more precise light sources equate to greater focus and projection. Larger light source reduce focus and projection. See an overview explanation from Philips:
https://www.philips.co.uk/p-m-au/au...e-articles/article/improve-your-lights-easily

It is easy then to see how the difference between a smaller high precision halogen filament light source and a completely different large (by comparison) offset bi-directional LED diode one attempting to approximately mimic an omnidirectional halogen filament in a halogen housing is reduces beam intensity and distance projection.

Going to a halogen +130 bulb like Philips Xtreme will employ an even more precise filament for 130% more beam intensity at stock wattage. Precision at this level in not something you are not going to get with LEDs in a halogen housing.

I realize those in this thread are hooked on LEDs and unlikely to change. Consider the light source precision difference your PSA of the day.

Late edit: Provided Philips link on how precision works.