4th Gen SW PIAA H3 Bulb Length of Life?

[BlackWorksInc]

So for some strange reason my Driver's side PIAA lamp in my SW bumper decided to give up the ghost. I just installed the SW last year in October. Seems a little soon for the bulb to give up the ghost, I don't drive at night all that much, maybe since Oct we're talking 20~24hrs of operating time on the lights. I was just wondering how long they've lasted for you guys? Hate to find out the bulbs go out every 6 months, they're not exactly cheap. LoL

 

[BlackWorksInc]

Well the driver's side PIAA lamp has gone out again, gonna have to order bulbs...

Anyone else seem to be replacing their bumper lights yearly?

 

[jdkilroy]

Are yours set up as fogs or do they come on anytime your lights are on?

I find mine are not even as effective as the OEM lights that were in the stock bumper but I rarely use the PIAA's. Both PIAA's still work after a year.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

Mine are set-up as fog lights but I run them when I run the headlamps out of habit. They don't get much nighttime driving done so they're not on all time.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

For anyone who cares;

I went ahead and tore open my fusebox and ran the thicker PIAA cables directly from the foglamp relay to the lights, replacing the factory harness (if you haven't figured out by now, I like making things look factory and found no reason to run a second relay and switch.) My thinking is the thinner factory wires maybe cause enough resistance to prematurely burn the bulbs out (its a stretch I know...) not entirely convinced since the factory bulbs use a 15amp fuse and the PIAA use a 20amp and the bulbs are roughly the same power requirement, but what the hell it was slow at work!


So I got a new set of Xtreme White bulbs and went and checked the Driver's side bulb and its the weirdest thing...

The bulb looks good! No smokey glass, the filiment looks perfect, only slightly gold colored housing (expected from heat cycling) and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why the bulb went bad. So I busted out the DMM (Digital Multi-Meter) and started testing all the wiring, thinking I cut/damaged a wire somewhere. Found nothing, everything was good, so I ohm'd the bulb and it came back with a whopping 8MILLION OHMS, so the bulb was done, how and why I can't tell, it looks almost indestinguishable from the new bulb. (New bulb is like 1.4ohms-ish)

 

[having fun]

For anyone who cares;

I went ahead and tore open my fusebox and ran the thicker PIAA cables directly from the foglamp relay to the lights, replacing the factory harness (if you haven't figured out by now, I like making things look factory and found no reason to run a second relay and switch.) My thinking is the thinner factory wires maybe cause enough resistance to prematurely burn the bulbs out (its a stretch I know...) not entirely convinced since the factory bulbs use a 15amp fuse and the PIAA use a 20amp and the bulbs are roughly the same power requirement, but what the hell it was slow at work!


So I got a new set of Xtreme White bulbs and went and checked the Driver's side bulb and its the weirdest thing...

The bulb looks good! No smokey glass, the filiment looks perfect, only slightly gold colored housing (expected from heat cycling) and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why the bulb went bad. So I busted out the DMM (Digital Multi-Meter) and started testing all the wiring, thinking I cut/damaged a wire somewhere. Found nothing, everything was good, so I ohm'd the bulb and it came back with a whopping 8MILLION OHMS, so the bulb was done, how and why I can't tell, it looks almost indestinguishable from the new bulb. (New bulb is like 1.4ohms-ish)

So, in your opinion, using the factory wiring is not a problem with current loss with the piaa set up.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

I don't have a mini-amp clamp to get definitive numbers, but the original bulbs for the factory foglights are 12v 55w 9006 bulbs and they run a 18 gauge wire from the factory to the bulbs. The PIAA lights I am using have a 12v 55w H3 bulb with a whopping 16 gauge wire from PIAA (They do have a thicker insulation though.)

So honestly? I really don't see that bump in gauge being a SUPER big difference, hell the bulbs are the same brightness as before with the thicker wiring; so I really wouldn't worry about it if you're just splicing two H3 equipped PIAA's in place of the factory lights. The only reason I decided to use the PIAA wiring harness was because I hadn't touched it in over a year or two since I installed the PIAA's and I wanted to redo the butt-connectors I used because I thought they might have become corroded (I didn't use shrink wrap when I first installed them) and had extra time and work and was like, "**** it, I'm bored....)

I think I've just gotten unlucky with the bulbs from what little responses I've had in regards to this thread LoL.

 

[having fun]

Thx for your professional input there electrical isn't my strong point. All I know is when in doubt other than research, make it bigger on the safe side.

 

[eddiebx]

Is it just the drivers side bulb that keeps burning out? If so, have you looked around to see if maybe one side is getting better ventilation than the other? Not enough cooling could explain why only one goes and not the other.

 

[having fun]

Both sides look to have the same equal amount of area for cooling and ventilation.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

Is it just the drivers side bulb that keeps burning out? If so, have you looked around to see if maybe one side is getting better ventilation than the other? Not enough cooling could explain why only one goes and not the other.

There's more room on the driver's side and ventilation is roughly equal, hell I'd expect the passenger side to get a bit warmer since there's less open air due to the washer bottle.

I really have no explanation for it... :wow:

 

[gaterose]

Wish I'd see this sooner, I know it's a little late but I just thought I'd say that I had the piaa 510s in my bumper for of my old truck for 3 years, then on the 4runner for about 2 years and only replaced the bulb once at 4 years old because I wanted to upgrade to the Xtreme white ones. The old ones were still working.

The old bumper didn't have the light 'cans' as I call them around the inside though, so I dunno if that makes a difference. My bumper came with no holes so I cut some and just flush mounted em.

Btw if you ever need any in the future hit me up, I have a ton of PIAA H3 bulbs laying around from random swaps.

 

[eddiebx]

There's more room on the driver's side and ventilation is roughly equal, hell I'd expect the passenger side to get a bit warmer since there's less open air due to the washer bottle.

I really have no explanation for it... :wow:

Sorry couldn't resist!

 

[BlackWorksInc]

Damn aliens! They mess up my Foglight but they can't superpower my 4.7!? :O

 

[BlackWorksInc]

Just bumping this thread again... Still replacing these damn things yearly... Switching to some ZXE bulbs, tired of the hassle with these PIAA ones...

 

[bhest]

Just bumping this thread again... Still replacing these damn things yearly... Switching to some ZXE bulbs, tired of the hassle with these PIAA ones...

I was planning on doing a full swap and putting the Piaa extreme whites in Highs, lows, and fogs your suggesting not to? Do you have any pictures of your rig with those fogs I don't think I've seen the color difference.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

I was planning on doing a full swap and putting the Piaa extreme whites in Highs, lows, and fogs your suggesting not to? Do you have any pictures of your rig with those fogs I don't think I've seen the color difference.

Honestly, I can't say they are bad lights at all. They were good light output and were a very nice white light. I just seem to have them go out on me like clockwork every year. Though not many other people seem to have that issue.

The ZXEs are a hair whiter (but that was comparing a fresh bulb to my year old PIAA one that still worked) and I have been running them as headlamp bulbs for a while with good results.

 

[Wingman707]

PIAA blow out

I won't start this conversation with "oil on the bulb" but that is a precaution to anyone installing any kind of lights. I will however start this with a conversation that I had with the PIAA techs. I had continual failures in my Les-baru. They seemed to fail under load. PIAA sent me a power regulator (looks like a box with heat sinks on it. I haven't had a failure in 3 years. It definitely doesn't look factory, but it seems to work.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

I won't start this conversation with "oil on the bulb" but that is a precaution to anyone installing any kind of lights. I will however start this with a conversation that I had with the PIAA techs. I had continual failures in my Les-baru. They seemed to fail under load. PIAA sent me a power regulator (looks like a box with heat sinks on it. I haven't had a failure in 3 years. It definitely doesn't look factory, but it seems to work.

Interesting about the power regulator.

I always install bulbs with a fresh set of gloves to avoid imparting oils on the lens, I haven't had an issue with oil on a bulb with any of my customer's vehicles when I do it.

 

[bhest]

Honestly, I can't say they are bad lights at all. They were good light output and were a very nice white light. I just seem to have them go out on me like clockwork every year. Though not many other people seem to have that issue.

The ZKEs are a hair whiter (but that was comparing a fresh bulb to my year old PIAA one that still worked) and I have been running them as headlamp bulbs for a while with good results.

I googled ZKE and could find any thing what kind of lights are these?