BamaDrewski
New member
Great pics Greyhome. These things are white and bright......love em!
Real Hi/Lo Beam LED bulb! AWESOME!
- Thread starter BamaDrewski
- Start date
Great pics Greyhome. These things are white and bright......love em!
trackntrail
New member
Mine are still going strong as well!
springer01
Junior Member
Looks good, definitely on my future mod list!
LittleCaesar
New member
Finally got mine installed. Extremely bright, probably due to the two day immersion in Ceratec.
Considering I do go through water from time to time I will probably fabricate some sort of cover from PVC with a vent that I can attach to the headlight housing with silicone.
Considering I do go through water from time to time I will probably fabricate some sort of cover from PVC with a vent that I can attach to the headlight housing with silicone.
BamaDrewski
New member
Rumor has it if you soak your clothes in ceratec or LiquiMoly, you will be bullet proof, smell better, look better and be more attractive to the opposite sex. You better stock up now LittleCaesar and let us know how it works out...LOL (I love this "banter-back-and-forth" we have going on here). Beer would make it more entertaining though....
FWIW: Glad you like the LED's man!
Ordered a set for my truck today - was going to have to replace the old, dim halogens I got with the vehicle, so might as well throw these in. Like others, I am concerned a bit about the 6000K color temp as prior experience I've had with 6000K bulbs in HIDs have been pretty bad - when pavement was wet or it was raining, I could see ahead but I could not make out road markings or surface conditions. I went back to 4300-5000K as a result. Will see how these work out as the local rainy season is coming.
BamaDrewski
New member
Congrats on making the switch. I have been struck by the difference in the whiter light. I put in an old halogen bulb next to one of these and there is a BIG difference.
With respect to wet pavement and raining, we have had a lot of late evening/early morning "haze" here. I think these actually make visibility better in those conditions. I live in "the sticks" (Redneck Riviera of Alabama) and I have noticed I can pick up the eyes of deer, possums and raccoons much sooner than the yellowish halogens.......having hit a deer years ago...I am grateful for this feature....LOL
I converted my motorcycles to HID long ago and yes, they make H4 Halogens look pathetic. It was on the motorcycles that the 6000K light sources were outright scary and 4300-5000K were absolutely stellar. We'll see how these 6000K LEDs work; they can't be worse than the ancient halogens in my truck now and with that code they're only a little more than the retail price of some decent halogen H4s.
Last edited:
My set arrived today and I quickly installed them. Some notes:
IMG_6128
Installation was easy. As the mount ring does rotate around the 'bulb', they should be installed with the cord down and the two sides with the longer LED arrays up. The shorter ones go down - and the fact that there is a shorter side is somewhat of a problem. More of that in a moment. I installed them without boots for now. I've got an idea on how to protect them but I'll wait until I see if it works or not to speak up on that.
Cosmetics - the 6000K lights definitely helped knock years off the apparent age of the truck. The aged sickly yellowing halogen bulbs weren't helping with that and the new light color gave the truck a more modern air.
IMG_6129
Performance - it was a significant improvement over the original Koito bulbs still in the headlights. What it was not was anything to challenge a proper projector conversion. Big improvement in reflected light from signs, road reflectors, etc.; there was a reasonable improvement in usable light on low beam in the foreground and down the road - most likely due to the change in the color temperature to something more eye catching more than a massive improvement in actual lumens, because there really isn't one. Cutoff and general pattern are as advertised - they are as they were with the original halogens and therefore at least generally acceptable. It rained here today and I was pleased to note that there wasn't the apparent lack of on-road light (for picking out potholes and the like) with wet pavement that I'd seen with prior 6000K installations of HIDs (with and without proper projectors). The beam was a bit dimmer on the wet road surface but the usable beam pattern was wider. And any deficiency in the close on-road lighting was easily made up for with the stock fog lights, which is what I'd be using in inclement weather anyway.
However, that's just on low beam. The high beam is bleah at best, and probably worse than what decent, better-than-stock halogens would produce - the shorter segments of LED being illuminated on high just can't produce as much light as the longer sides. The high beam is not appreciably brighter than the low and it is nowhere near as broad. If you plan on doing driving where you're going to seriously *need* the high beams (high speed driving through ill lit rural highways at night, for example), I'd look elsewhere.
This is not a problem for me as anything other than flashing or signalling someone with the high beams will be taken care of by the KC HID spread beams mounted to the front of my truck.
IMG_5924
I could see this being a problem if you don't have such lights or don't want to use them while, say, rocketing along a nearly empty rural highway in the middle of nowhere, Texas, miles from the nearest streetlight and you're relying on your high beams to help light up the road a long way downrange so you don't outdrive your lights. Again, not a problem for me with my current config but if I didn't have those KC HIDs and I had to do rural Texas night driving where I needed the high beams to avoid the Texas Surprise Tree or the Texas Surprise Road Animal, I would probably rip these things out and send them back. Or at least remove them prior to making the trip and put really good halogen bulbs back in - they're easy enough to remove and install.
So, bottom line time.
Are they worth the money? If you can live with reduced high beam effectiveness, I believe they're worth the $29 (with coupon) that I paid for them, certainly.
Are they anywhere near projector capability in any sense? No. Despite claims otherwise, they aren't. TRS recently did a comparison of projectors that they sell or are familiar with. As one element of the lighting performance, note the actual cutoffs. The stock headlight assembly isn't going to produce anything that good, LED or no LED.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvOsikwRGcs
Are they worth the $60 full price? Probably not, that's about a third to a half of the way to a budget HID projector conversion and honestly they really aren't halfway between the capabilities of halogens and a projector conversion.
I think they're worth the discounted price especially for someone like me who mostly runs around in a city environment and doesn't go out into the countryside nightly. Just my two cents.
IMG_6128
Installation was easy. As the mount ring does rotate around the 'bulb', they should be installed with the cord down and the two sides with the longer LED arrays up. The shorter ones go down - and the fact that there is a shorter side is somewhat of a problem. More of that in a moment. I installed them without boots for now. I've got an idea on how to protect them but I'll wait until I see if it works or not to speak up on that.
Cosmetics - the 6000K lights definitely helped knock years off the apparent age of the truck. The aged sickly yellowing halogen bulbs weren't helping with that and the new light color gave the truck a more modern air.
IMG_6129
Performance - it was a significant improvement over the original Koito bulbs still in the headlights. What it was not was anything to challenge a proper projector conversion. Big improvement in reflected light from signs, road reflectors, etc.; there was a reasonable improvement in usable light on low beam in the foreground and down the road - most likely due to the change in the color temperature to something more eye catching more than a massive improvement in actual lumens, because there really isn't one. Cutoff and general pattern are as advertised - they are as they were with the original halogens and therefore at least generally acceptable. It rained here today and I was pleased to note that there wasn't the apparent lack of on-road light (for picking out potholes and the like) with wet pavement that I'd seen with prior 6000K installations of HIDs (with and without proper projectors). The beam was a bit dimmer on the wet road surface but the usable beam pattern was wider. And any deficiency in the close on-road lighting was easily made up for with the stock fog lights, which is what I'd be using in inclement weather anyway.
However, that's just on low beam. The high beam is bleah at best, and probably worse than what decent, better-than-stock halogens would produce - the shorter segments of LED being illuminated on high just can't produce as much light as the longer sides. The high beam is not appreciably brighter than the low and it is nowhere near as broad. If you plan on doing driving where you're going to seriously *need* the high beams (high speed driving through ill lit rural highways at night, for example), I'd look elsewhere.
This is not a problem for me as anything other than flashing or signalling someone with the high beams will be taken care of by the KC HID spread beams mounted to the front of my truck.
IMG_5924
I could see this being a problem if you don't have such lights or don't want to use them while, say, rocketing along a nearly empty rural highway in the middle of nowhere, Texas, miles from the nearest streetlight and you're relying on your high beams to help light up the road a long way downrange so you don't outdrive your lights. Again, not a problem for me with my current config but if I didn't have those KC HIDs and I had to do rural Texas night driving where I needed the high beams to avoid the Texas Surprise Tree or the Texas Surprise Road Animal, I would probably rip these things out and send them back. Or at least remove them prior to making the trip and put really good halogen bulbs back in - they're easy enough to remove and install.
So, bottom line time.
Are they worth the money? If you can live with reduced high beam effectiveness, I believe they're worth the $29 (with coupon) that I paid for them, certainly.
Are they anywhere near projector capability in any sense? No. Despite claims otherwise, they aren't. TRS recently did a comparison of projectors that they sell or are familiar with. As one element of the lighting performance, note the actual cutoffs. The stock headlight assembly isn't going to produce anything that good, LED or no LED.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvOsikwRGcs
Are they worth the $60 full price? Probably not, that's about a third to a half of the way to a budget HID projector conversion and honestly they really aren't halfway between the capabilities of halogens and a projector conversion.
I think they're worth the discounted price especially for someone like me who mostly runs around in a city environment and doesn't go out into the countryside nightly. Just my two cents.
Last edited:
BamaDrewski
New member
Good looking rig man. What brand of bar you have on the front?
It's a Manik bar with the headlight grilles removed.
jgue467
Senior Member
Otherwise known as a 'DM', damage multiplier - ask me how my friends with trucks know......:cowboy:
stever1000
New member
I'm using it as a light bar mostly. Also, anything that hits the truck hard enough to make it a damage multiplier is likely to financially total it anyway, so it's not like it will matter. Remember, this is a 2WD and it won't be going rock crawling or bashing its fenders against rocks.
4Runner4Leon
Senior Member
Couldn't agree more. Anyone who thinks that these will be in the same league as HID projectors will be sadly disappointed.
I look at these bulbs as a reasonable gapfiller between the halogens I had before, and a possible future HID conversion. I am not yet ready to spend the $$ on an HID conversion, plus I'm not sure I like how HIDs look on our trucks. So these will do for now. But they're not even close performance wise, and since one of my bulbs burned out after 2 hours, I am a bit skeptical about longevity. But at least for now they match my 5000K HID foglights, so I'm happy enough or $30.
Pretty much my feelings, more or less. I already had 5000K KC HID spread beams and 6000K LED corner lights, so these match right up.
Here's my truck from tonight with everything but the fog lights on.
IMG_6149 (Blue glints on side of truck are lens artifacts, not underglow or other crap like that.)
IMG_6147a
IMG_6146
BamaDrewski
New member
All the lights look awesome. Nice and bright. How many bones did the LED off road lights set you back?
jgue467
Senior Member
Mudding with oEdRos
Did some central texas mudding past weekend, what fun slipping and sliding, found a pond 1-2 feet deep, went thru that with ease, didn't think twice about the oEdRos, they have no rubber shields, just naked and they survived, still working. I don't submarine my vehicles but they definetly got splashed check out the pics. :cowboy:
Did some central texas mudding past weekend, what fun slipping and sliding, found a pond 1-2 feet deep, went thru that with ease, didn't think twice about the oEdRos, they have no rubber shields, just naked and they survived, still working. I don't submarine my vehicles but they definetly got splashed check out the pics. :cowboy:
