LED Lighting Conversion

Also, make sure if you are buying Hikari's, get the better version with the Lumileds. They are typically $90.

 

Ok will do, I figure if I’m going to do one set I might as well do them all.

 

Also, and this is huge, there are no idiots in this thread, especially if you're here for help.

 

Ha, thanks!

 

There is a thread on them now. For $430 total with discount and shipping I think its a great deal. I never would attempt the BHLM myself. Just have this image of a melted headlight. They look exactly like the $1600 oem Pro lights to me. I think the only real mods left for me will be trailer towing related. Possibly airbags or new leaf springs and maybe just possibly the OVTune (for towing aid naturally). Guess first towing experience will help make those decisions. With some home updates needed before I retire I probably won't get serious about a camper until August or September. Still would like to retire before 2019 but that is up in the air right now. Youngest still has 1 more year at VCU.

 

I agree, but the Hikari's, while so far almost perfect, may be bested by these Xenon Pro LEDs. I for one am completely satisfied but I am always willing to be shown the better light. LOL

 

Seriously though, that's a great plan for sure. All of it!

 

Ok, I know I said I would have some photos of the comparison results but things have changed. I do have installation photos but not any of the actual "at night" results. Yes, those will be later. Why? Because the Steve at @XenonDepot has agreed that we really need to a true apples to apples comparison and have his bulbs mounted inside both the low beams and the high beams. The second set of bulbs are on the way. In the mean time, check these photos out of the install. I think you guys will be impressed, as was I.

So at first I was a little concerned about stuffing these bulbs with the heat sink into the low beams since the room there is so tight because of the body structure of the fender.



Here's the same area from the side



This is the drivers side and I knew the passenger side was worse because of the washer fluid reservoir. I PM's Steve and he called me about it. I showed him these pics. I also showed him these next pics.





Steve said that the way I had the heat sink fins was perfectly fine. He assured me that while they will get hot, they will not get hot enough to melt the led wire between them or any of the other surrounding truck wire insulation/wires. Steve also told me that because these fins are drilled, they can touch one another and don't have to be separated to the extent that I have them. I am just OCD and this was my first time with anything like this so I went a little overboard. LOL When I do this for real I will take my time to make sure they are spaced a little more evenly just because as I said, OCD.

Ok, so that was the Low Beam socket. The High Beam socket is nowhere near as tight as most of you know. I had no problem spreading the fins out to the maximum potential. Here are pics of how that looks on both the drivers side and the passenger side.





So ok, what have we learned so far? We now know that these bulbs, without fans, and with bendable heat sink fins will fit just fine in a Toyota Tacoma. We have been assured that the fins will not get hot enough to melt wiring and/or wire insulation. Ultimately I am going to test that with a laser thermometer.

Great so far but how do they look from the outside? Obviously the design of the Low Beam projector will prevent us from seeing the orientation of the bulbs but take a look at how these stack up in the High Beam socket!

Here is my Hikari Philips Lumiled bulb, which I am completely satisfied with, in the drivers side.



As you can clearly see, the diodes mounted on the shaft of the bulb are at about 4 o'clock and 10 o'clock. Not too far off what we would prefer, of 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock.

The new Xenon Depot Pro LED in the driver side was also off a little. However, these bulbs have an adjustable mounting tab collar, and besides being easy to adjust, come with the allen wrench to do it, and two extra set screws in case you lose one.

Here is the result of adjusting the mounting tabs CW about 15 degrees as shown on the "clocking" collar of the bulb.



*Note, they come from the factory with the top of the shaft at 0 degrees, or with the diodes at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock.

Here is the result after the 3 minutes it took me to remove the bulb, make the adjustment, and reinsert the bulb.



BAM! Exactly 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock!!! That's right, go back and look at the Hikari to see the difference. Not much I agree, but not perfect like this either. I was actually smiling at this point. Big time.

Now the real test. I wanted to see how much adjustment would be needed on the passenger side since that was the side that required the major adjustment by removing the set screws and redrilling the holes to spin the collar.



So, unadjusted, the Hikari bulb on the passenger should be considered unacceptable. The diodes are obviously at nearly at 2 o'clock and 8 o'clock. WTH!? To be fair though, I was happy with this and too scared to do the modification.

I thought, wow, I never really looked at it before but now that I was, I just thought, wow. So naturally I thought, I am going to have to really adjust the new Xenon Depot Pro LED.

Well, low (no pun intended) and behold, looky looky!



I thought no way. I was so surprised that I actually pulled the bulb back out and put it back in again to be sure I had the bulb in the socket completely!!!! That thing is dead on at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock! Zero adjustment on my end!

Now, you all can make your own assessment, but so far here is what we know. The bulbs are more money. Not much but more. The bulbs do not use fans and use heat sinks instead. The bulbs are, and this is the kicker, are adjustable, and in my case, the passenger side did not even need it! What we really need to see though is the comparison I know. That will be the real deciding factor.

Here's a teaser shot though.


And I know it's not as scientific as we would like but I was able to download a Lux Meter app and just because we are comparing side by side. I measured the same Lux with the bulbs in the drivers side as the Hikari's in the passenger side.

But, as I said, the real apples to apples test will be when I have all 4 bulbs installed and can get some pictures of the dark wooded lane up behind my house. We know what the Hikari's look like in that scenario, so let's see what the Xenon Depot Pro LEDs look like in the same setting!!!

Stay tuned, those bulbs are on the way and I will have them installed this weekend and will have pics uploaded by this Saturday night!

Rob

 

Why do you need the high beams to compare? Low beams are far more challenging for LEDs and the 3rd gen uses completely different housings (projector low vs reflector high) for the two different beam patterns.

Rather than facing the light source, I would strongly recommend trying to face a wall at ~25ft for comparison beam pattern photos with both lights being compared at the same time, taking a picture from the driver seat. Photos facing the light source are good to demonstrate glare, they do not do output any justice.

Note that an app based light meter will not register correctly for LEDs. It will be calibrated for an incandescent profile, which is going to assume low short wavelength emission. Meaning your reading will be drastically skewed by whatever light produces the sharpest spike in short wavelength light. What am I talking about?

Comparison. That massive LED spike on the left is not in an incandescent profile, an incandescent light meter will see that spike and think the light must be insanely bright to fit the halogen slope because it expects it to be at 0.2 when the reading comes in 5x brighter at 1.0, so it gives drastically overinflated readings. But then you may think, well they are both LEDs so it doesn't matter. But different LEDs have different amplitudes of this spike, and the spike is generally considered low quality light. KC for example has light with outstanding quality to suppress the amplitude of the low wavelength spike while boosting longer wavelength light, while lesser expensive LEDs do not. The incandescent profile based meter will rate the lower quality cheaper lights as brighter, even though the higher quality KC light is brighter because KC is successful at suppressing that wavelength whereas cheaper ones may not be, causing the incandescent meter to incorrectly rate them as higher.



To correctly read the lux of an LED you really need a dedicated LED lux meter. Here is a super cheap white light LED meter to run some tests with:

$104 Extech LT40 LED Light Meter

https://www.amazon.com/Extech-LT40-LED-Light-Meter/dp/B00FF3X34M

I used the full color spectrum Extech

$322 Extech LT45 LED Light Meter

LT45 before upgrading to the Asensetek Light Navigator.

 

Sorry if I missed this...but how do you adjust the bulb heights? Mine seem to be aiming pretty low for my liking.

 

@RobP62 - thank you for taking the time to put this review of our Xtreme Pro H11 LED kit together!! Really excited to see your night shots as well. @crashnburn80 's request for a garage shot (if possible) at 25-30 ft would be great! When we do our testing we typically use at least 30ft.

Steve

 

There is an adjustment knob on the back of the headlight housing circled in yellow shown in this picture below.



If you turn that knob CCW you will raise the lights. Be aware that there is only this one knob that controls both the low beam and the high beams. I recommend you pulling up to any wall while it's dark and doing the adjustment. That way you can see the results in real time. If you don't have a place at home then go to a mall or a Walmart or something where it is darker. The passenger side is very hard to get at but if you look closely you'll see how the housing right above the knob is formed into a channel. Also look at the knob itself and you'll see it has teeth facing forward. I used a very long flat head screw driver and sticking it down that channel and between the housing and the teeth turned the knob. It may seem like this will take forever this way but you are not actually adjusting that knob very much. If you have skiiny arms and smaller hands use a wrench. A wrench will definitely work on the drivers side, there is a lot more room.

At about 25 - 30 feet from the way you should only need to raise your lights about 2 or 3 inches. Look for the brightest part of the beam. Make an adjustment and then take a quick drive around the parking lot to see if you like the results. While you are in the parking lot pull into a spot with cars parked if front of you in the next isle. 2 way parking lot drive isles are 24' apart. Look at where your headlights are on the back of the car in the next isle. They should not be illuminating the rear headrests. The light should just be riding up on the back of the trunk. Then go to another part of the parking lot and check the height by pulling up on a parked car like to are gonna T Bone them, each space is 9 - 10 feet wide. Pull back 3 or 4 spaces. This will mimic you sitting at a red light and cross traffic entering the intersection. Your lights should not be above the top of the door at the bottom of the window, or on the people in the car.

I raised mine to the max, about 4 inches but have yet to be flashed in any situation, city, or country. I don't have any lift on my truck either. If you're lifted, you'll have to take that into consideration with my numbers above.

Hope this helps. Post up your results with some photos so others may be helped.

 

Steve,
No problem, I aim to please. Yeah, when I did my Hikari review I did just that. I even took it a step farther and post processed the photo so that the true heart of the beam could be identified. I will do the same again.

Rob

 

Alright I realize this is extremely basic and I should know this by now but I'm a bit confused by the different lights on my truck. (I was never taught this because this is my first truck) So I seem to have three bulbs on each side, two in the main headlight compartment and one down below. (After looking it up I think the bottom ones are DRLs) So are high beams and low beams on the same bulb and the other bulb is for fog lights? or are fog lights the same as high beams? As you can tell i have no idea what I'm talking about here. Can someone just give an overview of what each light is and where it's located? Thanks!

Edit: Also is this a good choice for headlights? https://www.amazon.com/Auxbeam-Head...3S4P/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

If you have a 2nd gen 2005 to 2015 then this thread is for 3rd gen 2016 to 2018 trucks which have completely different lights

 

As mentioned this thread is for 3rd gen which uses different lights. The 3rd Gen has projector headlights which can run different light sources without glare issues. 2nd gen has reflector headlights which are very sensitive to the light source for glare.

See this as to why LEDs in your reflector headlights is a bad idea:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/why-leds-should-not-be-run-in-halogen-reflectors.454371/

To answer your question about what lights are what on the 2nd gen, the lights below the bumper are fogs, the large lights on either outside edge are the headlights (both high and low in the same unit) and the amber inner ones are your daytime running lights (DRLs) and signals.

 

Every time I open the thread I get more and more confused......

 

Second set of Xenon Depot Pro H11 LEDs arrived yesterday so this weekend I'll be able to do a proper comparison to the Hikari's. I hope to be able to process the photos and post up Saturday night.

 

Feel free to give us a call or PM us and we would be happy to help.

Danny

 

By the way, so far my assessment of the customer service from Xenon Depot is that it is Stellar! Just been meaning to put that out here.