PROBLEM SOLVED - The LED Headlights "Glare-Guard MOD"

Do you run these?

 

Yes. Low beam is excellent, hi beam reach could be better.

 

I hear you on wanting better forward lighting, but even if you modify an LED bulb to prevent glare, you're still not going to put more usable light on the ground. And isn't that what you really want. Have you considered this?

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-ultimate-h4-headlight-upgrade-not-led-or-hid.398066/

 

Is the reach comparable to stock HID?

 

Our vehicles do not have stock HID. I’d say reach is better with upgraded Halogen bulb on hi beam, but low beam is improved considerably. Keeping in mind my lenses are fairly hazy. I’m going with projector retrofit, in new headlights for proper fix.

 

Sorry meant Halogen lol Thanks for the info!

 

Got the copper, should it go slightly past the led bulb

 

Alright so I did one short right to the end of the led and one long. Going to check them tonight, EXCITED!
This is the long one

 

Just picked up a set! Was reading around and the Phillips reviews say the same about the high beams and you can't really beat 50$ and free shipping compared to 200$. Thanks again for the info, hope they work well!

 

Not even remotely close. LED reach is worse than stock and it doesn't matter which LED, this is basic lighting optics 101. A directional light source will not out perform an omni-directional light source in a housing designed for an omni-directional light source.

Guys,

This glare guard mod is an innovative garage solution for those that have made the mistake of buying poor quality lighting products and want to fix them to not blind others with glare, a respectable cause. It is not a reason to deliberately buy poor quality LED products and then have to try and 'fix' them. The fix is still imperfect. There should be a reverse bucket cap on the back side of the glare guard to prevent light leaking out the back side into the lower high beam reflector. The OPs solution does drastically improve the glare issue, but it is not equivalent to the engineered solution of brands such as Philips. And no, buying a $50 set of cheap Chinese LEDs is nowhere near the quality, output, or engineering of a brand like Philips.

It was mentioned some were surprised I hadn't participated in this thread, I admired the OPs ingenuity to try and solve the problem, but seeing others deliberately recommend and waste money purchasing poor quality lighting products because of this thread so they could be 'fixed' needs some interjection.

Cheap LED headlights are just that. Cheap. Regardless of the specs (lies) that cheap Chinese manufactures will tell you about the latest LED headlight, there is one saying that always holds true. You get what you pay for. Companies like the ones recommended above advertising 12,000 lumen LED headlights for $50 is completely laughable. For comparison a good high quality HID will be about 3200 lumens. And HIDs are far brighter than LED. Do not waste your hard earned money on these products. They are complete garbage.

Even if you semi-fix the glare issue with this mod, you do not address the inherent incompatibility of the directional LED in the omni-directional halogen housing. LEDs point light at the sides of the headlight reflector (the least important part) and specifically do not point light at the upper rear of the reflector responsible for distance illumination. Meaning you sacrifice the 'throw' of your headlights, and fubar the fullness of your beam pattern trading a uniform pattern for isolated hot spots in the beam resulting in overall decreased performance over stock. Many will look at the whiter color or glare and think it is an improvement when it is not.

Take a look at the photos in this thread below. Ignore the glare issues, as the glare guard solves a good amount of that (but not all). Compare beam fullness below the cut off line, compare lumen output numbers, compare visual output. In no way other than cosmetic color (which is worse for night vision) is LED any better than stock. It is actually more difficult to see with the LEDs.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/why-leds-should-not-be-run-in-halogen-reflectors.454371/

 

As Crash says, the "Glare Guard Mod" shouldn't be seen as excuse to buy poorly designed LEDs and then "fix" them.

That being said, after this mod I still really like my OPT7 headlights (over three years old now). They are still outlasting, outperforming the stock Sylvania Sliverstar Ultra halogens I used to have to replace every year ($50-60 a pair). If I had to do it again and because I prefer the cooler color temp over tungsten, I'd go with LEDs more designed for a reflector type enclosure like the Sylvania.

 

Did you read the linked thread? It was written with Opt7s. These are absolutely terrible lights. Even if you control the glare you will end up with poor light distribution, and lack of distance throw. Unfortunately many will see increased whiter foreground light thinking the whiter light is brighter not realizing they have lost the distance throw and beam saturation of their headlights, resulting in a significant performance downgrade over stock.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/why-leds-should-not-be-run-in-halogen-reflectors.454371/

 

Yes , I read it. I have light meters as well. With my respect and not to take away from your through write up, but my results differed.

 

Note that you were comparing against Silverstars. Silverstars produce lower output than stock which will be readily noticeable on a lux meter with lower lux numbers. A common misconception is because they are whiter they are brighter, which is not true. Comparing Silverstars to stock bulbs with your lux meter will make that readily apparent. Also in the thread I linked I was using upgraded halogens.

You should notice the led lux readings had more variation across the beam than the halogens which produce a very traceable pattern. It is easy to find the hot spot in the halogen pattern by adjusting the meter reader vertically then horizontally with predictably increasing and decreasing results to home in on the hotspot compared to the LED which was less predictable when tracing and tended to jump around a lot. Now granted I didn’t have a glare guard mod on mine.

But light meters are only one tool and one measurement of a very complex thing to quantity. Which is why I combine wall pattern comparison shots, glare comparison shots, output comparison shots in addition to the lux readings. IMO even that is insufficient to understand LED lighting dynamics. That thread is due for an update with some more professional grade equipment in addition to other ideas I have to illustrate the replacement LED issues.

 

I just put the mostplus LED in and the color is much better which I like ( ITS AN OPINION AND PREFERENCE). The high beams do not have the same reach as stock lights as stated. For 50$ it's not hard to beat for a more soothing light to look at while driving. Given I did just sand, polish and re-coat my lenses. So far I enjoy them. As of now I don't have a high demand for high beams and don't see such need for them before I put my ditch lights and light bars in.

Moral: it's your truck do whatever the #$+& you want with it.