Safe aftermarket LED headlight bulb info, finds and discussion

[danbfree]

Well...you are in the minority here I'd say as Danbfree has done significant trials with all kinds of bulbs to find the best value for the dollar. I have the Techmax and came from a higher boutique bulb and will say they are an improvement over the one it replaced. Good luck finding another bulb that will meet your standards....you remind me of my Ex- girlfriend....always looking for the white knight in shining armor....she always thought by having a child with me it would solve her depression issues when she can't even take care of herself. Good luck out there....keep your head up and stick on the ice!

hehe, I agree man, but to each their own, and maybe the H9 he mentioned in his followup post could work better, that's an interesting idea we may need to explore further!

 

[danbfree]

Yea i think i am going to pull out the LEDs and put in H9 bulbs. The pattern using the H9s are perfect and they are much brighter than stock. you just do not get that white light. i am not happy with the TechMax at all.

I never thought that maybe H9 in the same housing might work better, are you referring to using halogen H9's? I'd love to see a road shot with the TechMax and then with the H9's to compare!

 

[danbfree]

I finally tried to fit a set of these guys.

CNSUNNYLIGHT Lumiled:
View attachment 20061
.

Thanks for sharing, those indeed look like they have a good clean cutoff, I'd love to see a wall and down the road shot... and as far as aiming, put one stock in and put one LED on the other side and see if you need to bring the LED side down slightly then pop the LED in the other side and adjust down to the level of the first one.

 

[vixenlotus]

So i wanted to report back on the H9 Mod. I have to say i love it!!! its much brighter than the stock bulbs and has the same cut off and very even distribution of light. I find it much better than the LED TechMax. The only thing it does not have is the white light. It is also a very inexpensive mod as the H9 bulbs go for about $7-15 each. However, have been told that they will burn out sooner - time will tell. The TechMax's actually look a bit better in my wife's Forester. The reflector may be a bit more forgiving.
Note you do have to mod the bulb a bit to get it to work (lots of sources on line to tell you how). It took me about 10 min to do both.

 

[danbfree]

So i wanted to report back on the H9 Mod. I have to say i love it!!! its much brighter than the stock bulbs and has the same cut off and very even distribution of light. I find it much better than the LED TechMax. The only thing it does not have is the white light. It is also a very inexpensive mod as the H9 bulbs go for about $7-15 each. However, have been told that they will burn out sooner - time will tell. The TechMax's actually look a bit better in my wife's Forester. The reflector may be a bit more forgiving.
Note you do have to mod the bulb a bit to get it to work (lots of sources on line to tell you how). It took me about 10 min to do both.

So an H9 high watt halogen? Which one did you go with? It's obviously because they are dimmer than the LED is why they don't show the reflector limitations so much, just not sure why an H9 would be brighter than an H11 both in halogen?

 

[danbfree]

So i wanted to report back on the H9 Mod. I have to say i love it!!! its much brighter than the stock bulbs and has the same cut off and very even distribution of light. I find it much better than the LED TechMax. The only thing it does not have is the white light. It is also a very inexpensive mod as the H9 bulbs go for about $7-15 each. However, have been told that they will burn out sooner - time will tell. The TechMax's actually look a bit better in my wife's Forester. The reflector may be a bit more forgiving.
Note you do have to mod the bulb a bit to get it to work (lots of sources on line to tell you how). It took me about 10 min to do both.

Also, if you like LED color, you might want to try the Katana, they have the best light spread according to BulbFacts... not as bright overall as the TechMax but maybe that's because it matches the the light limits of our housings better.

 

[vixenlotus]

So an H9 high watt halogen? Which one did you go with? It's obviously because they are dimmer than the LED is why they don't show the reflector limitations so much, just not sure why an H9 would be brighter than an H11 both in halogen?

The h9 and h11 are very different bulbs. The h9 represents a significant upgrade in true lumens and is higher wattage.

 

[danbfree]

The h9 and h11 are very different bulbs. The h9 represents a significant upgrade in true lumens and is higher wattage.

Thanks, I thought I may have heard of that before but just a quick glance shows 65w and 100w options, a 65w option would obviously be better than stock at least, there is a set of Putco for $34 so maybe I'll have to look into the mod for H9 to H11. Thanks for all the feedback!

 

[vixenlotus]

I would not go for anything wacky. I just picked up the standard h9 from the local auto parts store. They were like $10 each. Look on line for the needed mods. I used a Dremel tool to cut the metal tab but a file or clipper could also work. I used a box cutter to cut the plastic tab. It was very easy. The outcome was much better than the techmax LED. But just not white.

 

[KKaWing]

H11 is designed to be 55w @ 1350 lumen, H9 is designed to be 65w @ 2100 lumen. The H9 is pretty much the most efficient halogen bulb to date save for the stuff still being finalized in the lab, but those as far as I know are designed for smaller reflector housings rather than outright brightness. The H11 is basically the long life version of H9's designed for cars with DRLs in mind. Note that the car's wiring can affect brightness as it determines how much power / current / amps / voltage *the correct term??* the bulb gets and might not necessarily reach the rated lumen. The H9's are no joke, the reflective signs absolutely shines with the H9 while the H11 just "lights up". The beam width is also much wider and light is thrown much further down the road. I pretty much throw on my Philips (original/normal/baisc) H9 bulbs whenever I need to drive out into rural areas with deer and such at night.

Not quite direct comparison but here's a picture of H9's at the same spot but lighting is different.



Here is the H11 NBUs again



and LEDs as previously mentioned



Note, the headlights weren't adjusted.

 

[danbfree]

H11 is designed to be 55w @ 1350 lumen, H9 is designed to be 65w @ 2100 lumen. The H9 is pretty much the most efficient halogen bulb to date save for the stuff still being finalized in the lab, but those as far as I know are designed for smaller reflector housings rather than outright brightness. The H11 is basically the long life version of H9's designed for cars with DRLs in mind. Note that the car's wiring can affect brightness as it determines how much power / current / amps / voltage *the correct term??* the bulb gets and might not necessarily reach the rated lumen. The H9's are no joke, the reflective signs absolutely shines with the H9 while the H11 just "lights up". The beam width is also much wider and light is thrown much further down the road. I pretty much throw on my Philips (original/normal/baisc) H9 bulbs whenever I need to drive out into rural areas with deer and such at night.

Thanks for all the feedback, especially on the how to modify part, I figured it was just slightly different tabs... And indeed, 65w is the standard on those, I would be concerned about the heat and it seems like any type of bulb that is "white" at all takes away from the brightness while I was hoping to at least get close to 4000k for not quite so crappy yellow-brownish output... So that has me curious about the Katana LED's I posted a bit ago, slightly dimmer than the TechMax to prevent overwhelming of the reflectors and also rated the best light spread there is.

 

[danbfree]

So for those who don't know yet, I have finally gave up on being content with reflectors and bought replica Euro headlights and an HID kit for it. Less than $400 for all of it... Every time I see a stupid non-ST Focus with the LED DRL's it just pisses me off that Ford screwed us over without even an option on better headlights, to save money, while the base model Focus got them to try to compete better in that market... Anyway, I'm not going to be updating the first post as much any more as I simply won't be in the position in running LED's any longer, and not in reflectors for sure... Yes, the projectors will take LED's of course, but to match the output of $60 HID's it would take $90 Hikari premium and I'm not interested in running 6500k while the HID's are 5500k. But yes, when something new comes up that Blaise has tested that performs well, I'll keep you guys posted and update this thread, you just won't see me quite as active.

 

[averyislost]

So for those who don't know yet, I have finally gave up on being content with reflectors and bought replica Euro headlights and an HID kit for it. Less than $400 for all of it... Every time I see a stupid non-ST Focus with the LED DRL's it just pisses me off that Ford screwed us over without even an option on better headlights, to save money, while the base model Focus got them to try to compete better in that market... Anyway, I'm not going to be updating the first post as much any more as I simply won't be in the position in running LED's any longer, and not in reflectors for sure... Yes, the projectors will take LED's of course, but to match the output of $60 HID's it would take $90 Hikari premium and I'm not interested in running 6500k while the HID's are 5500k. But yes, when something new comes up that Blaise has tested that performs well, I'll keep you guys posted and update this thread, you just won't see me quite as active.

Just want to give a thank you for making this thread and keeping all of us informed on the best LED's to run for our cars! I ended up with a sweet set of TechMax's thanks to this thread and I couldn't be happier compared to the crappy stock halogens that came in the car. That's sweet you went with the projectors, I'd like to get a set for myself in the future just for that clean projector cutoff and the LED DRL strip

 

[danbfree]

Just want to give a thank you for making this thread and keeping all of us informed on the best LED's to run for our cars! I ended up with a sweet set of TechMax's thanks to this thread and I couldn't be happier compared to the crappy stock halogens that came in the car. That's sweet you went with the projectors, I'd like to get a set for myself in the future just for that clean projector cutoff and the LED DRL strip

Thanks for the kind words and especially happy you found some great LED's to use for now! I'll be updating my other thread on those projectors once they arrive and will of course provide pics of the results.

 

[TyphoonFiST]

Thanks for the kind words and especially happy you found some great LED's to use for now! I'll be updating my other thread on those projectors once they arrive and will of course provide pics of the results.

What is the ETA on those anyways?

Sent from my SM-N950U1 using Tapatalk

 

[danbfree]

What is the ETA on those anyways?

Sent from my SM-N950U1 using Tapatalk

Couple of weeks.. 5-7 day handling then 5-7 day shipping. HID's will be here much sooner, non-Prime order off Amazon... Still deciding if I'm going to do LED turns or switchbacks...

 

[mindmaster]

I ordered the Nineo Gen II. Hopefully will improve my visibility over stock halogen. ¿Any tips for installation process?

 

[TyphoonFiST]

I ordered the Nineo Gen II. Hopefully will improve my visibility over stock halogen. ¿Any tips for installation process?

Yeap....Take the headlights out of the Vehicle when you do it.....20 X easier than trying to fumble fu*k it while in the FiST.....IMO. Good choice in lighting.....anything is better than STOCK!

 

[danbfree]

I ordered the Nineo Gen II. Hopefully will improve my visibility over stock halogen. ¿Any tips for installation process?

From what I understand, they should fit easily. Turn the original bulb about a third of a turn to free and press and turn in reverse to lock the new ones in. Passenger side may be a bit of a tight squeeze, if you aren't yet familiar, you should learn how to remove the headlight assemblies, they are only held on by three total screws on each side, one in the back two in front and they pop out, you may have to wiggle a bit. Once out, replacing the bulbs is super easy. Stock end caps may not fit back on, they aren't very important but if you want end caps then the domed ones mentioned on the first page are an option... But, please, share pics of the output, at least one like 20 feet from a garage door or wall and one of the output in the road, please disable the camera filters/extra settings. We've been trying to get some pics of those for a while!

 

[TyphoonFiST]

From what I understand, they should fit easily. Turn the original bulb about a third of a turn to free and press and turn in reverse to lock the new ones in. Passenger side may be a bit of a tight squeeze, if you aren't yet familiar, you should learn how to remove the headlight assemblies, they are only held on by three total screws on each side, one in the back two in front and they pop out, you may have to wiggle a bit. Once out, replacing the bulbs is super easy. Stock end caps may not fit back on, they aren't very important but if you want end caps then the domed ones mentioned on the first page are an option... But, please, share pics of the output, at least one like 20 feet from a garage door or wall and one of the output in the road, please disable the camera filters/extra settings. We've been trying to get some pics of those for a while!

Danbfree its two screws and one HORSESHIT screw in clip at the upper bumper/Radiator shroud! You know better Dan! I'm disappointed......Lighting Demi-god status revoked! Kidding...just giving you some Fecal!