LED Lighting Conversion

Sorry I am no help as I fixed the orient at the original installation.

 

Excellent. Thank you for posting up your opinion. I certainly am not trying to tell anyone they should switch if they are happy. Just saying that if they are in the market these might be a better choice for different reasons, and they are currently cheaper. I too had a issue with one of the Hikari's and was taken care of the same way. I was satisfied. I know one of our thread brothers wasn't as lucky which surprised me considering my experience, and now hearing yours.

Thanks again, I am hoping for more stories like yours.

 

I reoriented mine...mostly because I’m an OCD electrical engineer. I honestly didn’t see that much difference (except in my mind), but hey...at least they’re both sitting straight in their housings.

 

I've got a set of the new Hikari's in my LBs (and they are great), but I needed another set of LEDs for the HBs and so I ordered the XD Xtreme Pros. Currently, both are about the same price. The XD's are on sale for about the same price as the new Hikari's (which are not on sale currently) which is why everyone is so interested in the XD's lately.

I plan on taking pics of both at the same time so that you can have a better side-by-side comparison...so hang tight for those pics.

 

I'm Hangin' I'm Hangin'!!!

 

@RobP62

Do you have any photos of what the XD look like? As far as when you are looking at the truck when they are on?(sorry if I missed this, I been shuffling thru all these pages)

Thanks for all the help from everyone in This thread. I am thisssssss close to pulling the trigger on 3 sets of XD...

 

He posted a lot of pics along with a great review a few pages back.

 

You're welcome. This is a great thread with a bunch of helpful people.


I have one pic, of the XD in the High beam, and the Hikari in the low, with the DRL on. Color is identical.



Is this all you needed or do you want more or something different? Oh, I am right n the sweet spot here so not really that much glare.

 

I've been so busy lately though and should go out and shoot some looking straight at the truck from some distances like I did with the Hikari's. I know some people hate those shots but I think they help others decide if maybe these might not color match or maybe be too bright, if that is really a thing.

 

After skimming through some of this threads recent pages; you seem pretty knowledgeable about LED lights.
I have the F16 LED bulbs in my low beams. They are ok but I want better. So considering the Hikari or XD for lows and maybe switch the F16s to highs.

It seems like the position of the diodes are important (3 and 9), well at least for the high beams? Is the clocking not important for the low beams? If so, how can we tell the clocking position inside the projector?

Thanks in advance.

 

Awesome thanks. I found that pic and was trying to read thru the post to figure out which bulbs were installed in that pic. Thanks for clarifying.

 

So the HBs are reflector style headlights and the LBs are projector style headlights.

For the HBs, the position seems to be more important because it is bouncing the beam pattern off the reflective rear surface and then sending it out. With halogen bulbs, the light is fairly uniform no matter how it's positioned, but with the LEDs, there is a narrow shadow cast between the diodes. This shadow means there is less light to bounce off of the reflector and down to the road. So the best positioning for the LED's is for those diodes to be horizontal (at the 3 & 9 as you've noticed). This puts the shadows being cast at the 12 & 6 which are the least important areas for us when driving.

THe problem with our HB's is that Toyota did not take the time to position the sockets properly. So the Driver side HB is off about 9 degrees and the Passenger side is off by about 35 degrees. This causes the reflected beams to cast those shadows differently and so they will have inconsitent beam patterns. Plus, I wouldn't be surprised if they are not throwing out a dimmer light output because of that. It's not super noticable because these LEDs are much brighter than holgen bulbs, but it's something to consider.



For the LBs, things are more forgiving in since all the light is being magnified through the projector lenses. Not only that, it looks like the LB sockets are positioned properly so our LEDs sit at about 3 & 9. If you want to be sure, grab a black marker and mark the 12 o'clock position on the back of your bulb before you put it in. Once it's installed, you will be able to see if it at the 12 o'clock position or not.


Hope that helps!

 

That makes sense. Why didn't I think about that, duh! lol

Thanks man!

 

Great questions!!!! I hate to be the fly in the ointment but have you considered moving the F16s to the fogs? Then buy XDs for the LB/HB? @Parker315 did an excellent review with the F16s in the fogs. His pics were impressive as hell!

Perfect explanation Drew! Thank you! Took the words outta my mouth!

As far as knowing how they are rotated, with any round bulb you can do like Drew said and mark the top back part of the housing. I did exactly that on the Hikari's because they don't have any tell tale indicators which way the diodes are oriented once they are installed in the socket. I mean, for the High Beams you can look at the front through the headlight lens, so I am talking Low Beam only.

That's another nice thing about the XDs. Those assemblies are set up different so it is easy to tell where is the top. Look here:



This photo above is looking down onto the bulb as it comes out of the box. I have fanned out the heat sink fins but that is it. The diodes are mounted onto both sides of the thin shaft and the main assembly is to the right of the blue gasket.

In this photo below you can see how the holes of that main assembly are aligned with the shaft (from the factory). * Note - the bulb on the left is upside down at this time.



So what I did was put the bulbs in the Low Beam socket and look at the holes on the main assembly. I guessed how much I needed to rotate the collar (the part with the tabs that has the zero degree mark). I loosened the set screw, turned the collar, tightened it and tried again. It took me two tried to get it right. Once I saw that the holes on the main assembly were exactly at 12 o'clock I knew the diodes were at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock. Sometimes it's the simple things that makes us the happiest.


Now, I want to play devils advocate here for a bit so bear with me.

How important is the orientation of the Low Beams with our projector type housing? I don't know what the inside of that reflector look like but I can guess. My guess is, the light is bouncing off of a circular reflector and then back to a second circular reflector and then out of the headlight assembly. With all that reflection on those circles why does it matter how they are oriented? Additionally, why does the design of the LED bulb need to match a halogen in there? My brain can understand it better in the High Beams because I can see the design of the reflector. It's basically a faceted clam shell. Light hits those faceted panels and shoots forward. I get it. But the low beam....

One of two answers are possible and could be tied to something else in regards to answering this correctly. Either it doesn't matter and the only thing that matters is the bulb design. Or it does matter and it is also is related to bulb design. I think it is the latter and the orientation is key as well as the bulb design.

I could be totally off here but.......... The actual thickness between the Hikari diode shaft and the XD diode shaft is very close. Yes, there is a slight difference but very close. And, the Hikari's were not rotated in my truck, I rotated the XDs just a little bit. Finally, if the orientation and thickness is not a issue then how is the XD possible of projecting the "light boxes" shown in my installed photos that mimic the OEM Halogen bulbs? As I said before, I have only seen those light boxes in one other review for LEDs and those were $200 a kit.

That was the very first thing I noticed when I turned my lights on that night with the XDs. I was so stoked to see those. I am not going to try but I would like to know if someone with Hikari's can orient those LB bulbs to be 100% perfect and get those boxes. The curiosity is killing me.

Again, great job @ToyoDrew !!!!!!

 

Thanks for the feedback guys.

When I installed our H11 LED bulb on my personal 4runner, I took a picture of the output (not the greatest pic) with one bulb having the diodes facing 3 &9, and the other 6 &12:



The 4runner projectors are different from the Tacoma, but you can see that there is a clear difference between the two just from having the diodes oriented correctly. The bulb on the right has the diodes facing the right way, and look at how much better the hotspot is. Hot spot is what is going to get you "throw". You'll find that many people claim that LED bulbs appear to be brighter, but the throw is terrible. Getting better throw is a function of having a bulb that puts out enough light and has a proper optical design.

Not a Taco, but a good representation of the color:



Steve

 

Excellent Pics Steve!!! Just as I suspected!!! Correct orientation does play a major role in all applications.

 

haha no problem

 

Yea, you know I meant "regardless of vehicle or which beam you put them in" ? LOL

 

Installed my @XenonDepot LEDs in the LB and HB last night, but haven't gotten out to test them yet. Install was about as easy as it gets, in and out in under 30 min for all four. I did end up needing to adjust the HBs to get it to line up properly, but as noted above, I think this is more a function of the sockets being angled rather than the lights being off. In either case, the adjustment with the hex key was easy enough and the lights have the degrees labeled, making it that much easier.

If anyone is curious like I was, the color on these LEDs are not as "white" as my TRD Pro fogs from Rigid, but it's close enough and way better than the stock halogens. Since the XenonDepot lights are 5500K, I would say the Rigids are 6000k. Like I said, it's not an exact match, but for me at least, not a huge deal. I'll hopefully get out and test them tonight, but initial impressions are very positive. I came from stock, so don't know how they compare to the Hikaris.

 

Excellent, glad you're happy so far! Wait until you see them in the dark!