PTL's LED Projector Headlight Kit......

I received them as a gift....please don't pummel me....I will run them long enough to show appreciation for this thoughtfulness no reason to go wrecking anyone's feelings...they do look kinda cool....

Now that we have that out of the way, I took some pictures after installing and while attempting to adjust for optimum output. (See Attached)



With my nose on the wall there is a hot spot down and to the right, from a driving position it feels like I should be driving on the left side of the road.



I think something is not right here, but I followed the directions for achieving the the correct height etc. offered in these forums, they just feel "off" appreciate any thoughts on the matter.


I kinda feel like throwing away the book and just tweaking them till I feel they are right, but that's a great way to go chasing bunny rabbits in the dark too.....

 

On some of the retrofit forums, Ive seen where people had odd hotspots, so they play with shimming the bulb in the projector, moving it in or out, and sometimes it gives a better pattern. Only costs a little bit of time, and some material to make shims.

 

Thanks RacecarGuy, If you happen to remember where any of those posts are, I'd be happy to take a look....

 

Attempting to adjust for optimum output? Beam output is not adjustable. Headlights should have zero adjustability other than tilt/angle of the entire lens assembly which does not affect beam pattern as the headlight is moved with the light source.

To me this looks like one of those complete hack "freely rotate the directional LED in the precision engineered omidirectional halogen housing to make the beam less bad" lights. If that is true, the hot spot is because the beam is rotated when it should not be. The 'weird shadow' is because LED light is directional, it is only pointing 2 directions which means above and below those directions will be shadows, halogen points in all directions.

I've seen it too, in person. Usually it the practice goes by the user not being happy with the light output so they shim the bulb base upward, to tilt the bulb tip downward in the projector to uncover more of the bulb from behind the projector cut off shield to attempt a brighter beam. This is a complete hack and not a practice I would recommended. Not to mention, shims tend to fall out, melt or otherwise go wrong. Also this practice is more often around getting more out of omidirectional halogen/HID sources than trying to fix hot spots by LED.

 

Before you go making shims, try just unhooking the things that hold the bulb down and see if you can get better light output by moving the bulb around. If you can find a place that gives you better light, then you can make shims to hold the bulb there. I highly doubt you're going to improve the light output to a reasonable level, though.

 

OK, basically what Im hearing here is ditch these suckers and buy something decent.....
I do find myself in very dark, middle of the desert situations, routinely, One of my sponsors gave me a small 20" LED light bar that I will need to have mounts fabricated for and will go in the grill area, and 2 7" LED fog lights that I will have mounted someplace else once I talk to my fabricator....Probably in the bumper opening slots on either side of the license plate, Might as well replace the stock fogs while 'm at it too.....I would prefer LED's standard and hi-beam and fog, cause I'm a fan of the technology....a couple more photons here or there arent really going to change my mind (they are better than stock)....so I will open the discussion to suggestions thoughts and experiences......anyone....?