New LED headlights terrible light output

So I bought this assembly:
http://www.carid.com/2012-toyota-tacoma-headlights/spyder-projector-headlights-83736413.html

which labels this as a LED assembly.

I ordered these bulbs since the sales person said the original bulbs were pretty weak:
http://www.carid.com/lumen/lumen-plazma-led-lights-10064457.html

I ASSUMED that was all I needed. The original bulb was a standard halogen lowbeam bulb. As it turns out, the new LED bulb was too fat to fit into the housing completely, so I had to bore out the lip so that the bulb could slide in. No big deal. 4 dremel stones later both are done. I spend 2 hours figuring out how to remove the factory headlight assemblies and install the others. I plug everything in and it all works. I notice that the light isn't too impressive but shrugged it off as it was still daylight.

Skip to the evening when my girlfriend and I take it for a test drive to see how it works. I wanted to punch a brick wall. Driving down a dark road with my lights on was like I was driving with no lights at all. I didn't know if it was the built in "wall" I will call it blocking the primary front light source on the bulb from firing outward in the projector lens or something else. The bulb and assembly were simple plug and play, but the light output was underwhelming.

QUESTION: Do LEDs need an extra (amplified) power source to fully illuminate or should the stock lighting harness in the truck be enough? Remember, these were my primary low beam headlights.

 

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I just installed these projectors in mine, but I got some morimoto H7 XB35s that I am putting in it at the end of the week. I don't think they are that bright with the stock bulbs. Im thinking about ordering some OPT 7 LED high beam bulbs for it but I didn't think about whether or not if they would even fit. Did you by chance have to adjust your bulbs at all? I think mine are slightly low, but I need to look to see where the adjuster is on the head lamp assembly.

Coot

 

Besides boring out the housing to slide the bulb in, I did not have to adjust anything. I will have to end up finding a legit pair of LEDs to install and will certainly look at the options you are! Other than that the assembly install was quite simple, once i could get the old ones out. I believe the bolt clip on the OEM assembly (the bottom "foot" that sits close to the wheel well) needs to be used to secure the new assembly. I figured this out after i put the other one in and didnt feel like taking it out to place on the new "foot" yesterday though i plan to fix it later.

Admittedly the LED strips on top and bottom of the main lamps is kinda silly and cheap looking as opposed to higher quality OEM ones, but they still do the job.

 

Ah good to know then. When I installed mine I just took off the bolts on the bottom of the bumper underneath the skirt. After that I just pulled out the side of the bumper right where the hidden 3rd bolt is. I didn't put mine back on either as Im putting on new fenders this weekend anyway so they will have to come back out. You are satisfied with the outputs of the LEDs though right? I will probably get the OPT7s next month, but I pretty much got this assembly with the idea that I was getting different bulbs to begin with.

Coot

 

Well, spyder housings are some of the lowest quality you can get. They look nice. But don't perform the greatest...
I can't find any information saying what bulb type it takes, but I'm guessing it's gonna be h1. And even being classified as "led" hoysings, they are halogen. When they say led, they are referring to the led running lights. My first gen spyder housings are called led even though they take halogen bulbs. That being said, I believe, that aftermarket true led housings are not a thing. Only some of the newest cars are running factory led headlights and they are far more advanced as well as using multiple led's and optics to produce a good output to compete with hid. Because as far as I understand it, led still has not surpassed hid. And with THAT being said, you have one led source for output per headlight with that h7 "led" bulb (even though it uses multiple led's in it) it's still only producing light for a single source being the single projector per headlight. On top of that, it's so low power it's acting like a running light. Most led bulbs are only efficient enough for running light applications. Some have used the high power led kits with ballasts just like the hid kits, but still don't come close to the output of hid kits especially when used in higher quality projectors..
So with all that said, I would have gone with an hid kit for those. Because led kits still aren't up to oar, or if they are, they don't last very long. That's not to say hid don't have issues, but he performance offsets the minor issues like a single ballast replacement or relay issue. Led kits can have all sorts of issues on top of not performing as well as hid..
So since you cut them up, you might be sol. Unless you can still retrofit an hid kit with the same bulb type you cut it up to fit. Otherwise I'd be contacting the company and complaining big time for false/insufficient advertising. But since you cut them, they probly won't be so happy to help you out since you didn't contact them first regarding bulb fitment. So I'd say you have two options. Try to retrofit a hid kit in, OR, call theretrofitsource and see if they have a retroquick retrofit for those, where you can completely remove the projector housing inside and replace it with their kit (by they probably don't because they only fit certain spyder applications, but it may fit IF it's the same design). Which will come with a more advanced projector bowl as well as the hid kit. Then you can work on something better for the high beam bulbs as well because I'm sure those suck too.

For now, I'd probably throw those led bulbs in the trash, and put in some halogen bulbs.

 

The high beam, turn bulb (since it didnt come with the larger one) and the LED strips work like a charm. I will be putting the standard bulbs back in this evening to get back to headlights that are functional, until I find LED low beams bulbs.

 

I also got my HIDs at theretrofitsource as well. It could be worth asking them as they are pretty responsive to what can work. Hopefully you can solve your issues with that. On a side note, would running a LED bulb for the high beam be technically legal if it has a reflective background unlike the projector low beam?

Coot

 

You will be much better off with a decent HID kit. LEDs are great, but the performance is not quite there yet. Not sure how you will make it work with the housing being cut up now though.

 

If you look at the rated lumens on those LED bulbs that you purchased, you will see they are only 420. That bulb is not designed for headlights. An LED bulb that is designed to be a headlight will cost over $100 at this current time.

Most stock headlights are somewhere around 1000 lumens a piece.

 

A good 4500K HID is about 1750 lumens.

 

HIDs for headlights. LED isn't there yet but make great fogs.

 

Those aftermarket light housings have terrible light output in general, and no bulb you put in is going to fix that. Sure, you can make things brighter with HIDs/brighter halogens, but it still won't give good light output (there is more to lighting than just how bright the bulb is). If you really want good light output out of those housings, do a proper retrofit with the Mini H1 7.0 from TheRetrofitSource, or if you don't want to spend that much, the Acme H1s from TRS are also a decent option. Otherwise, put your stock housing back in, and get brighter halogen bulbs (none of the tinted crap) like the Philips X-treme Vision.

Not what you want to hear, I'm sure, but it's the cold hard truth. Those that tell you otherwise don't know the physics behind lighting up the road.

 

And the superior halogen solution is a blistering 2400 lumens at a fraction of the price.

Ultimate halogens left, stock on the right:



Dollar for dollar you will not find a better performance headlight solution than this. Cheap retrofits will botch the light output and have poor beam pattern. Putting LEDs or HIDs in a halogen reflector will result in scatter and glare everywhere, as well as lost light output. OEM and CAPA halogen reflectors with massively upgraded halogens will outperform setups many times more expensive because all components are properly designed to work together.

The Ultimate Headlight Upgrade:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-ultimate-headlight-upgrade-not-led-or-hid.398066/

 

Sticking a bulb designed for a normal halogen housing into a projector housing and expecting projector performance is probably where you went sideways.

LEDs draw super low amperage at the same voltage as a halogen and produce the same light. That's a fancy way of saying "This shower head has the same amount of intensity with less water due to a tighter fitting at the end of the hose."

 

No. A good projector will work regardless of the same bulb type.

Where he went wrong was skimping out and buying a poor quality housing, which is well documented to have horrible beam pattern/light output. Then compounded the problem by trying to run cheap garbage LEDs that are vastly underpowered and poorly designed in a poor quality housing and expected this to somehow be an improvement over stock.

I always preach CAPA Certified lights, or OEM because aftermarket lights have no performance standards they need to meet. Unless you are going full $1k retrofit from a reputable vendor, chances are you are downgrading your lighting performance with an aftermarket housing.

 

OP: for just a bit more than the disposable Spyder lights you have, you could get the highest quality OEM PRO lights from the link posted above. Flip what you bought and put quality parts on your truck designed to maximize light output with the given technology.

 

Speaking of expensive retrofits... if you truly want LED headlamps, get a set of these: http://www.rallylights.com/hella-90mm-bi-led-headlamp-module-hi-low-beam.html

That is $710 per LED projector. And they don't put out as good of light as their bi-xenon counterpart.

 

Since you already wallowed out the sockets on the Spyder housings, I would do the following.

Replace factory housings for temporary.
Sign up on HIDPlanet and start asking those guys for help or read the crap out of the retrofit threads.
Purchase some of TRS's latest MH1 7.0 Projectors or if you can determine clearance, the MD2S 3.0/4.0 projectors.
If you can only fit the MH1's stick to 35W ballasts. If you can get the MD2S, you can run a 50W without any bowl UV scorch.
Bake those Spyder housings and yank those shitty halogen projectors out.
Replace with quality BiX projector.
Reassemble.
Enjoy real cutoff and light output.
Drink beer.
Pat self on back.

Or, go full bro status and install Baja Designs Squadron Sports in Flood in the low beam position and get middle fingers everywhere you go.

 

So I ended up putting the halogens back in and the headlights are working now as they were designed--as crappy as they were designed. They still look "cool" but don't function as I had hoped.

Fyi, I think I may have misled a few of you. I didnt necessarily cut up these housing, but merely widened a hole (now it is clear it was done in vain) of the internal housing for the projector. The first picture below was the more narrow hole and the second is the wider hole. That is the only modification I made to these (so far).