Another headlight thread from a lighting NOOB

[Atcer2018]

Ok but any led or hid in a halogen housing is not “good” or “awesome”. Your friend is blinding incoming traffic and his lights are not good, they are bad. Don’t put led or hid in non projector housings.


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This is not true. I have the basic quad reflectors on my 2018 BigHorn and installed LED MaxTech lows and Aukee highs almost two years ago. Properly oriented bulbs in OEM quads that are then aimed correctly are an enormous upgrade to the standard halogen bulbs and they do not affect other drivers. Being conscious of how vehicle lighting can be dangerous I experimented with how my setup actually looked to other drivers by having my daughter drive my truck at night with me in my wife’s Escape and on the daughters Civic. Properly aimed and adjusted the LED bulbs did not adversely effect either test vehicle in both following and oncoming scenarios.

 

[hunterdan]

This is not true. I have the basic quad reflectors on my 2018 BigHorn and installed LED MaxTech lows and Aukee highs almost two years ago. Properly oriented bulbs in OEM quads that are then aimed correctly are an enormous upgrade to the standard halogen bulbs and they do not affect other drivers. Being conscious of how vehicle lighting can be dangerous I experimented with how my setup actually looked to other drivers by having my daughter drive my truck at night with me in my wife’s Escape and on the daughters Civic. Properly aimed and adjusted the LED bulbs did not adversely effect either test vehicle in both following and oncoming scenarios.

What gets me is that people still disregard any bulb other than a halogen in a reflector... its pretty clear that decent leds can provide damn near the same pattern as the halogens, but with a cleaner, brighter light. Don't forget that there are oem led and hids in reflector housings. Toyota used hids in reflectors, and now they are using led in reflectors on tundras (which produce a pretty lousy beam pattern compared to ram quads with leds). If you take the time to aim the lights (which you pretty much have to do every time you pull them on a ram because of the way they mount, you won't have issues. My lights work amazing, they light up the streets extremely well and I don't bother other cars. Actually, I feel I need to raise my high beams a bit, as they look like they are hitting a little too low, and not reaching out far enough. Now, when I do that, I will have to lower the low beams accordingly. Maybe if I have time on my way to work tomorrow, I'll park in front of a wall and show the beam pattern at various distances. Only problem is its hard to find a flat parking lot close to a building.

 

[OnSale]

What gets me is that people still disregard any bulb other than a halogen in a reflector... its pretty clear that decent leds can provide damn near the same pattern as the halogens, but with a cleaner, brighter light. Don't forget that there are oem led and hids in reflector housings. Toyota used hids in reflectors, and now they are using led in reflectors on tundras (which produce a pretty lousy beam pattern compared to ram quads with leds). If you take the time to aim the lights (which you pretty much have to do every time you pull them on a ram because of the way they mount, you won't have issues. My lights work amazing, they light up the streets extremely well and I don't bother other cars. Actually, I feel I need to raise my high beams a bit, as they look like they are hitting a little too low, and not reaching out far enough. Now, when I do that, I will have to lower the low beams accordingly. Maybe if I have time on my way to work tomorrow, I'll park in front of a wall and show the beam pattern at various distances. Only problem is its hard to find a flat parking lot close to a building.

Right. I guess company’s that specialize in lighting, for over a decade, plus OEM manufacturers, all have done extensive tests and it’s been proven over and over with evidence that led bulbs and hid bulbs in reflector housings not only scatter light up into trees, off the side of the road, and into drivers eyes. But I’m sure these amateurs throwing $30 amazon bulbs into their trucks know more then people who have been in the industry for 10, 15 even 20+ years.


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[Matt Franklin]

What’s confusing to me when it comes to LED’s in reflector housings is that I see people upgrade the ModifyStreet projectors with HID lows and LED highs. Aren’t those highs just going into a reflector?

 

[Atcer2018]

Right. I guess company’s that specialize in lighting, for over a decade, plus OEM manufacturers, all have done extensive tests and it’s been proven over and over with evidence that led bulbs and hid bulbs in reflector housings not only scatter light up into trees, off the side of the road, and into drivers eyes. But I’m sure these amateurs throwing $30 amazon bulbs into their trucks know more then people who have been in the industry for 10, 15 even 20+ years.


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It’s a bulb. If it replicates the halogen light pattern it was designed to replace it can cost $30 or $3000. By your logic there are manufacturers that have been in the LED business for close to 20 years now so they have credibility. Again it’s a bulb. GE doesn’t R&D a 9006 to come up with a superior design over Sylvania because it’s old technology and LED bulbs have been around for a while now. $30 LED bulbs are pretty commonplace these days. It’s a bulb.

 

[Atcer2018]

What’s confusing to me when it comes to LED’s in reflector housings is that I see people upgrade the ModifyStreet projectors with HID lows and LED highs. Aren’t those highs just going into a reflector?

The ones I see are reflector highs. If you have the Quads they are pretty good reflector type lenses. Try out some different LED bulbs from Amazon. You’d be surprised how good your plain old quads can work with better bulbs.

 

[kurek]

What gets me is that people still disregard any bulb other than a halogen in a reflector... its pretty clear that decent leds can provide damn near the same pattern as the halogens, but with a cleaner, brighter light.

What gets me is that people seem to fall into a weird obsessive cult behavior over photon chuckers. I need to add LED Fanatics to the same category of weird devotees as those people with the red hats, people with every Apple product ever made and the people who think Elon Musk can do no wrong..

As for the "cleaner, brighter" .. what even does "cleaner" mean? We're not talking about T-shirts. Brighter? Not really. As I've posted several times before when you take away personal color bias the actual output is more similar than it is different.



That's LED on the right, inexpensive "reduced glare" (as in, not even the brightest) halogen on the left. Manual camera settings so it's the same exposure for both shots.

It is true that some latest generation LED retrofits can produce a decent lighting pattern, that doesn't mean they all do or that the ones people actually buy are the ones which do. But it does appear that some LED headlight retrofits are decent at this point.

Pity they're all a dumb 6000k and disappear on wet roads and wet vehicles.

 

[Atcer2018]

What gets me is that people seem to fall into a weird obsessive cult behavior over photon chuckers. I need to add LED Fanatics to the same category of weird devotees as those people with the red hats, people with every Apple product ever made and the people who think Elon Musk can do no wrong..

As for the "cleaner, brighter" .. what even does "cleaner" mean? We're not talking about T-shirts. Brighter? Not really. As I've posted several times before when you take away personal color bias the actual output is more similar than it is different.

View attachment 235471

That's LED on the right, inexpensive "reduced glare" (as in, not even the brightest) halogen on the left. Manual camera settings so it's the same exposure for both shots.

It is true that some latest generation LED retrofits can produce a decent lighting pattern, that doesn't mean they all do or that the ones people actually buy are the ones which do. But it does appear that some LED headlight retrofits are decent at this point.

Pity they're all a dumb 6000k and disappear on wet roads and wet vehicles.

While you do bring up valid points not all retrofits are for the sake of vanity. Everyone has personal preferences. Personally I appreciate a whiter daylight bulb indoors. My wife prefers soft white. The standard halogen bulb is below 4000k and for me that’s too yellow. Yes I know they are better than a 6000k bulb in conditions where glare from road moisture and precipitation are present but in dry conditions I appreciate the 5700k of the LEDs I currently use. Not all LED bulbs are good as with incandescent. I tried several LED bulbs that produced significantly less desirable lighting than the stock halogens. Most were on par or better than halogens and a few were in my humble opinion superior. I regularly drive a well maintained divided four lane secondary road at night. I know the road like the back of my hand and the stock halogen bulbs left me wanting better perceived visibility ahead of the vehicle at 60mph. The LEDs I chose do in fact give me much greater forward visibility and it is not merely perception. They were $40 and were rated highly by two independent websites not just Amazon reviews. They are properly clocked and the lenses properly aligned by me using Ram directed procedures. They are probably the single best thing I’ve done to my vehicle, are almost two years old and at the cost of $40. While I may not have fancy measuring equipment or a drone to see from above my eyes see better at night with them and for me that works.

 

[Matt Franklin]

While you do bring up valid points not all retrofits are for the sake of vanity. Everyone has personal preferences. Personally I appreciate a whiter daylight bulb indoors. My wife prefers soft white. The standard halogen bulb is below 4000k and for me that’s too yellow. Yes I know they are better than a 6000k bulb in conditions where glare from road moisture and precipitation are present but in dry conditions I appreciate the 5700k of the LEDs I currently use. Not all LED bulbs are good as with incandescent. I tried several LED bulbs that produced significantly less desirable lighting than the stock halogens. Most were on par or better than halogens and a few were in my humble opinion superior. I regularly drive a well maintained divided four lane secondary road at night. I know the road like the back of my hand and the stock halogen bulbs left me wanting better perceived visibility ahead of the vehicle at 60mph. The LEDs I chose do in fact give me much greater forward visibility and it is not merely perception. They were $40 and were rated highly by two independent websites not just Amazon reviews. They are properly clocked and the lenses properly aligned by me using Ram directed procedures. They are probably the single best thing I’ve done to my vehicle, are almost two years old and at the cost of $40. While I may not have fancy measuring equipment or a drone to see from above my eyes see better at night with them and for me that works.

With the bulbs you chose for your 2018, was there programming required to get them to work properly?
I think my ideal color would be somewhere very close to 5000k, i believe yours are the closest I’ve seen to that.


Also, do you have part numbers or links?

 

[hunterdan]

Figured I'd post some pics from this evening. No idea what the distances are, exposure is turned down a bit to try and give a real world view of the headlight brightness. Also, the parking is on a slight incline, so the lights are higher than where they would normally be.
First, close up with no fogs. Yes, this is going to be extremely bright because I'm literally about 5 feet from the wall. The orange/amber light is from my turn signals.
Next is the same shot, but with high beams on. There is a lot more glare here, and honestly, I never noticed it before. But, these are high beams. Also, as I said before, I believe the highs are aimed a little too low and they appear to be hitting in the same spot as the low beams. There is a good bit of bleed off above the lights, but keep in mind I'm parked in front of a white wall that is going to reflect light back towards the truck and off the chrome grille and back towards the wall.

Next up, is a further away shot. I tried to take every picture with the exposure set so that the camera sees what I see. Cameras tend to make things brighter than what they really are. So, keep in mind this next picture should actually be a little bit brighter.
All pictures are with the headlights only, no fog lights.
As you can see, the patterns are pretty even, nice hot spots, a nice short fade above the hot spot, and the sides taper off nicely. Is it a sharp, crisp cutoff that you'd see in a projector, absolutely not. Personally, I don't like the sharp contrast of a projector. I'd like to see someone with halogen bulbs try to recreate the same images I posted for comparison. I'd do it myself, but its cold and I really don't feel like pulling my grille off 2 more times. I've already got a few clips that are getting loose and need replaced.

 

[Atcer2018]

With the bulbs you chose for your 2018, was there programming required to get them to work properly?
I think my ideal color would be somewhere very close to 5000k, i believe yours are the closest I’ve seen to that.


Also, do you have part numbers or links?

Yes there was programming involved. My LEDs will be two years old in May and at the time CANBUS ready bulbs were just coming into their own. On our Rams with reflector lenses the high beam dust cap is a tight squeeze. The only LED bulb available at the time that fit inside the dust cap was the Aukee 9005. The bulb was not CANBUS ready but I have AlfaOBD and turned PWM off to make it work. The same bulb is still sold on Amazon and still not CANBUS ready. The lows are Techmax H11 and were CANBUS ready. The lows worked perfect without programming. Unfortunately it looks like I’ve been out of the game for some time now and all the bulbs have been changed or improved upon so I don’t see the same models on Amazon. Not surprisingly the Fahren bulbs that some have recommended look suspiciously like the Techmax bulbs and I don’t doubt they are the same bulb marketed by a different company.

When I experimented with various LED bulbs I personally found the Cougar, Techmax, Nineo and Hakari bulbs were the standouts. I chose the Techmax because the color was the closest to the Aukee that I was forced to use for fitment in the high beams. I have not regretted my decision once and I am happy AF with how good the stock quads are with LEDs.

 

[Mpgrimm2]

Just a heads up for the folks that used the Hikari Ultras (& likely other high output LED bulbs soon). There's now an NHTSA recall campaign forcing Hikari to send out halogen replacements. Not that anyone would.
(Probably due to people installing them in Standard halogen Reflector housings).



M² Mods.

 

[KPMH]

Just a heads up for the folks that used the Hikari Ultras (& likely other high output LED bulbs soon). There's now an NHTSA recall campaign forcing Hikari to send out halogen replacements. Not that anyone would.
(Probably due to people installing them in Standard halogen Reflector housings).


M² Mods.

Yup, I put in Diode Dynamics LEDs about 18 months ago and got a similar letter a couple of months ago. I just ignored it but did notice that on their web site they no longer show LEDs for the low and high beams. I did notice however that my LEDs are no worse than the stock ones that they put in new cars and trucks nowadays....so WTF..

 

[ahole4sure]

This thread looked pretty newly active so I thought I'd try here.

I had some Morimotos that I sent back - didn't like them - they just weren't bright enough for the money.

Going a different route. Already received GTR S-V.4 LEDs for my highs and I'm supposed to get some DDM HIDs for the lows on Monday. Also just go my MX+ and the security cable for alphaobd (on my 2018 Ram 2500 with OEM projectors).
The LEDs came with 2 separate Smart PWM canbus decoder wiring harnesses to make them "plug and play".

My question is this --- should I just try to install these high beam LEDs lights using the separate canbus decoder and not mess with changing Alphobd settings, use the separate canbus decoder and plan on programming also, or should I leave out the decoder and just do the programming?

Of course the same questions for the HIDs but I don't get the DDM equipment until Monday

Thanks

 

[hunterdan]

This thread looked pretty newly active so I thought I'd try here.

I had some Morimotos that I sent back - didn't like them - they just weren't bright enough for the money.

Going a different route. Already received GTR S-V.4 LEDs for my highs and I'm supposed to get some DDM HIDs for the lows on Monday. Also just go my MX+ and the security cable for alphaobd (on my 2018 Ram 2500 with OEM projectors).
The LEDs came with 2 separate Smart PWM canbus decoder wiring harnesses to make them "plug and play".

My question is this --- should I just try to install these high beam LEDs lights using the separate canbus decoder and not mess with changing Alphobd settings, use the separate canbus decoder and plan on programming also, or should I leave out the decoder and just do the programming?

Of course the same questions for the HIDs but I don't get the DDM equipment until Monday

Thanks

Personally, I'd use alfaobd and ditch all the extra wires and and modules. K.I.S.S.

 

[ahole4sure]

Worked like a charm. Thank you

 

[Matt Franklin]

So, I finally quit flip-flopping on what I was going to, and settled on a path forward:

• I bought Hikari Ultra LED's for both highs and lows. Plan was to install them in the stock reflector housing to see if, on my specific truck, they would work without programming and what the light pattern looked like.
• I was ok continuing to not have DRL's, and was hopeful that I could get them adjusted properly to keep from blinding oncoming traffic.
• Good news: They worked with no programming, totally plug and play in a 2019 1500 classic.
• Bad news: They threw light EVERYWHERE. There was really no discernible hotspot on the garage door from 25 ft. and nothing even approaching a cutoff. Went for a drive following my wife in her Buick Enclave. Blinded her from behind and REALLY blinded her head-on.

So, phase 2 of the plan, if LED's in reflector housings was as bad as others warned me it would be, was to order the ModifyStreet projector housings and install the Hikari's. UNFORTUNATELY, I just realized the second piece of bad news with the Hikari's: The stock housings use H11 lows and 9005 Highs. The ModifyStreet housings use H7's in both.

So, I've revised phase 2 of the plan:

• I'm going to return the Hikari's and replace them with 2 sets of H7's. I was ok with the color, was very happy they worked out of the box with no programming, and think I would be happy with them if I could focus, align, and adjust them properly. Hopefully the projector housings will help with that.
• I'm going to order the ModifyStreet projector housings on eBay.
• I'm going to rob a bank and sell a kidney on the black market to pay for it all. I wish none of this was needed, but the stock halogens were just so pathetic...

 

[Atcer2018]

Sorry to hear that. When you talk about the OEM reflectors are they the “quad” type? I ask because I have LEDs in my quads and there is a defined cutoff and noticeable hotspot. I never get flashed by oncoming drivers and have experimented with glare from being behind smaller vehicles. Overall I’m very pleased with the quads and LEDs. I guess it could be the Hikaris but I’ve always heard good things about them. Best of luck with your new endeavor.

 

[Matt Franklin]

Sorry to hear that. When you talk about the OEM reflectors are they the “quad” type? I ask because I have LEDs in my quads and there is a defined cutoff and noticeable hotspot. I never get flashed by oncoming drivers and have experimented with glare from being behind smaller vehicles. Overall I’m very pleased with the quads and LEDs. I guess it could be the Hikaris but I’ve always heard good things about them. Best of luck with your new endeavor.

Yeah, quads. Not sure what the difference is, but I didn’t fee like it could be overcome by adjusting or aiming.

The attached pics don’t look as bad as I remember it being.

I drove a round a little and never got flashed either, but I should have been. It was pretty horrific meeting my truck head on.

I took the LED’s back out today and have the stock halogens back in. I’ll order the projector housings in a bit and some H7 LED’s. Now I’m not sure if I want to stick with the Hikari’s or try the Fahren bulbs. Decisions...

 

[Sinistre1]

,

Yeah, quads. Not sure what the difference is, but I didn’t fee like it could be overcome by adjusting or aiming.

The attached pics don’t look as bad as I remember it being.

I drove a round a little and never got flashed either, but I should have been. It was pretty horrific meeting my truck head on.

I took the LED’s back out today and have the stock halogens back in. I’ll order the projector housings in a bit and some H7 LED’s. Now I’m not sure if I want to stick with the Hikari’s or try the Fahren bulbs. Decisions...

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