Truck-lite's new LED headlight for XJ's

[stumpXJ]

I was enlisted to help a friend who was doing some beta testing of the new Truck-lite LED 5x7 headlamp. These are plug and play, drop in replacements. NHTSA/DOT legal.

We took some LUX readings at various distances, compared to stock units.

Most of this is copied from my buddy who posted the info on another forum.

Now, the XJ. Stump had Wagner sealed beams installed, already an upgrade from bone-stock but close enough to still call it "stock".

With the new eyes:

Stock Lowbeams:

Stock Highbeams:

Trucklite 5x7 Lowbeams:

Trucklite 5x7 Highbeams:

I'll put up numbers later.
We had trouble with aiming, both stock and new eyes. The XJs are old and have problems that old vehicles tend to have...
But we were impressed by the numbers (to say the least).

Numbers for the 5x7 lights:

Numbers make Hilldweller's head hurt...

Markers are at 25yards L/R, 50 yards L/R, 75 yards L/R
Jeep is on the right side of a 2-lane road; camera on hood in front of driver. Reading are taken at 12" height from road surface --- this is an important stat since the LUX number could be higher at different heights. But, for consistency, the 12" number should be used to compare to other lights previously tested.

Ambient illumination from stars less than 1 LUX
Lights are aimed with about a 2" drop at 25 feet --- the lowbeams need to be aimed higher than many other types of lights due to the sharp cut-off and lack of ECE "uptick" for road signs.

Lux readings Lowbeam/Highbeam:

Stock Wagner Lights

25Right-17/ 16 * 25Left-2/ 4

50Right-1/ 8 * 50Left-0/ 5

75Right-0/ 4 * 75Left-0/ 4

25 feet, center of road, raw lumen test: 509/612

1 LUX at 125 yards center.

*

TruckLite 5x7 LED units:


25Right-32/ 65 * 25Left-6/ 6

50Right-3/ 36 * 50Left-0/ 7

75Right-0/ 17 * 75Left-0/ 8

25 feet, center of road, raw lumen test: 465/1608

7 LUX at 125 yards center; enough to read by.

This was my take on the whole thing:

I gotta be honest here.... driving home last night was the only/first time I have ever enjoyed driving a Jeep Cherokee at night. In real world driving, both on the interstate and smaller roads to my house, the lights are phenomenal. Truly.

I'm not adjusting anything, the way we aimed them was PERFECT. I was on I-85 and had several vehicles pass me with obvious HID crap 'upgrades' (a lifted Dodge Ram specifically), and I made it a point to drive beside them and compare light output. The TL's have beautiful cutoff lines, especially directly in front of the vehicle, and the left and right spread is amazing....not so much with the HID retrofits. You don't really even see that 'box' that we noticed in your subdivision. The cutoff line in front of the vehicle lines up perfectly with the squared off front of the Cherokee. It basically follows the hood line (from my driving perspective) and all the way out to the extreme shoulders of the road. I was riding beside a white SUV that was two lanes over, and I noticed the side throw of the lights cut off pretty low as well, almost like a fog light output. The cutoff line was maybe 2 feet up the side of their vehicle. Pulling up behind folks at a stop light or riding behind them I could see that I was not blinding anyone, I was a little worried about that, but its a non-issue. My opinions may be skewed because of the poor aiming I had on the Halogen lights, but these things are AWESOME. It's obvious (even to me) that a lot of design and testing went into the development of the housing/reflector for light patterns to be optimal for all aspects of night driving. Truly an amazing upgrade for this old Jeep! And that's just the LOW BEAM. The high beams are plain stupid.

Thanks again for the help Bill! I will cross post the info once you get the numbers listed on my forums.

Cant WAIT to get a set of these for the Teal B*tch.

~ Stump[/quote]

Another picture I just took this morning. In the process of building a front bumper for my DD. They fit perfectly, literally plug and play. All it took was a phillips screwdriver, and about 8 screws per side. 5 minutes tops.

 

[kmanxj5050]

WOW!! those look and seem to work REALLY well. How much does a set run?

 

[XJLI]

these lights are sick.

too bad they're $240 each and not worth the risk of breaking a lens offroad. i like my H4s.

 

[MoparManiac]

x2. They look awesome and well engineered.

Perfect for the DD/WW.

 

[kmanxj5050]

these lights are sick.

too bad they're $240 each and not worth the risk of breaking a lens offroad. i like my H4s.

That's CRAZYYYYY!!!!!!

I'll stick to my H4's too.

 

[stumpXJ]

Not cheap, but a great light. Nice aluminum housing....the lens is polycarbonate, not glass. Its a great alternative for those who dont want to (or dont have the skill) to mess with retrofitting HID projectors into a housing. Halogens dont even compare honestly. These are on my daily driver. I will get a set for my rig too though.

Here is the info on the back of the box.

 

[Hilldweller]

these lights are sick.

too bad they're $240 each and not worth the risk of breaking a lens offroad. i like my H4s.

The polycarb should be able to bounce birdshot from a 20-gauge and take a .22 without breaking. Tests I've done before showed that the .22 will penetrate a bit and melt the polycarb but not go all the way through.

Trucklite makes some tough stuff.

Thanks for the help, Stump. I was really impressed by the pattern of light and the raw output, especially the flame-thrower highbeams.
Like I was saying, the SPD on these lights is very good, better than HID.
I like them lots.

Here's too much info to ponder aobut light:

Three main characteristics of any light are its spectral power distribution (SPD, the absolute presence and relative prevalence of the different wavelengths that humans can see), its colour rendering index (CRI, the fidelity with which the light reveals colours, compared to standardised sunlight conditions), and its correlated colour temperature (CCT, applicable only to white light, basically whether the light is "cool" or "warm" in appearance).


SPD:

The visible portion of sunlight is a continuous spectrum from red to violet, with no gaps. The visible portion of a glowing filament (which is a blackbody radiator) is likewise a continuous spectrum from red to violet, with no gaps. The spectrum of an HID lamp is a series of peaks and valleys. The light is superabundant in certain wavelengths (colours), relatively deficient in others, and absolutely deficient in still others. So from the standpoint of SPD, halogen headlamps actually are much closer to sunlight than HIDs. Which is better? Well..."better" is tricky to define here, because it really depends on what exactly we're trying to do with the light we're creating. In general, a continuous spectrum (rather than a peaks-and-valleys spectrum) is better, because it makes it easier to get a higher CRI, which I'll get to in a moment. But that's definitely not an inviolable rule! Sometimes (as for example when driving through fog or snow) we want to filter out a portion (blue to violet, in this case) of the spectrum. And for general illumination, there are many excellent discontinuous-spectrum lights (fluorescents, HIDs, LEDs, etc.), though this is not an either/or situation. The old fluorescent lights and mercury vapour street lamps produced yucky-looking light because of gross excesses and deficiencies (peaks and valleys) in the spectrum, but today's phosphor and halide technologies are giving us fluoro, HID, and LED lights that may have a peaky spectrum, but contain enough of the various wavelengths to produce a good-quality light. It is worth noting here that there is no such a thing as "full-spectrum" light. The term is used by marketers of everything from headlight bulbs to seasonal affective disorder lights to reading lamps to new fluoro tubes for your kitchen, but it means whatever any particular marketeer wants it to mean. There is no standard definition — not even close.



CRI:

Obviously, not all sunlight is the same, so a set of conditions has been standardised. In greatly simplified terms, the conditions can be understood as "noonday sun on a clear day". This is considered to be a CRI of 1.00 (sometimes stated as "100"). There is no light of CRI higher than 100, and a higher CRI is always better than a lower one except in certain very specialised lighting tasks (as for example in photographic darkrooms or in situations where ordinarily-tangential factors such as preservation of night vision, rather than ordinary factors like effective illumination, are the priority). A properly-fed tungsten-halogen filament lamp with a colourless glass or quartz envelope has a CRI of between 0.9 and 0.99 ("90" and "99"). Current-production automotive HIDs have CRI of between 0.7 and 0.74 ("70" and "74"). So, again, from the standpoint of CRI, halogen headlamps are closer to natural sunlight than HIDs.



CCT:

This is measured in Kelvins (not "degrees Kelvin" as is sometimes incorrectly stated), and is directly keyed to the kelvin temperature of a blackbody radiator. In this scale, there is no such thing as "better/worse", just different/same/similar. The standardised sunlight conditions described above are considered to have a CCT of 6500K. Automotive HIDs (real ones, not ones that have been jiggered to produce bluer-than-standard light) are between 4000K and 4500K. Properly-fed tungsten-halogens are between 3100K and 3450K. So, in this respect, automotive HID headlamps are closer to sunlight.

Now, what are the safety performance implications? Enough research has been done to show that the poorer CRI of HID headlamps is of no safety consequence. Stop signs still look sufficiently red, for example, and guide signs still look yellow enough. The SPD might be causing some glare-related problems. Automotive HIDs have a high spike in the blue-violet region, and there's pretty good evidence that just as some people are glare-sensitive and some are not, some people are blue-sensitive and some are not. This is not a medical condition or disability, it's just a human variance like nose size or eye colour. There's also prety good evidence that at any given intensity, headlamp light with a higher proportion of blue light causes more glare than headlamp light with a lower proportion of blue in it. There is competing evidence, however — yes, academic researchers do compete with one another, with theories and studies and data instead of long-jumping frogs or whatever — suggesting that a higher blue content improves certain aspects of drivers' night vision. Scientifically this one hasn't been shaken all the way out yet, and it's possible both effects might exist simultaneously to some degree. From a marketing perspective, the question is moot; the decision's been made to push more and more towards the direction of bluish-white car lights.

Up to now, most of the research has effectively conflated CCT and SPD, because of the limitations of the headlamp light sources available for study: Tungsten-halogen bulbs have a high CRI, a continuous SPD, and a relatively low CCT. HIDs have a low CRI, a discontinuous SPD, and a relatively high CCT. This is to some degree an implementational limitation, not a conceptual one, and in my opinion it is likely to be found, eventually, that a blue-rich SPD can cause glare problems but a high CCT can potentially improve seeing performance. That is going to be a tricky balance to optimise, for high CCT to a significant degree goes along with blue-rich SPD. But we're now seeing LEDs that have a higher CCT than HID headlamp bulbs, but without a proportionately higher blue spike. It will be interesting to see what shakes out of this. The marketeers may have to find another tactic, having already painted themselves into a corner using blue paint: up to now, the bogus claim of "whiter" headlamp light has been used to refer to light that is in fact bluer. When it becomes possible to provide headlamp light that is of higher CRI and higher CCT rather than just higher in blue content, that light will in a more real sense be "whiter" than HID headlamp light...but what are they going to call it...?

 

[The Hard Struggler]

I really want a pair of these for my rig.

I'm just afraid I'll break them.

 

[MoparManiac]

The polycarb should be able to bounce birdshot from a 20-gauge and take a .22 without breaking. Tests I've done before showed that the .22 will penetrate a bit and melt the polycarb but not go all the way through.

Are you going to be using your headlights for target practice? :laugh:

Bouncing off a rock and smashing your header panel into a tree by accident is different than shooting it with a gun.

 

[chedisme]

If I still dd my xj I would seriously consider these. They look awesome.

 

[XJLI]

Are you going to be using your headlights for target practice? :laugh:

Bouncing off a rock and smashing your header panel into a tree by accident is different than shooting it with a gun.

yup. thats fine if H4s dont compare... i get pretty damn good output from them. if i want more light, i'll get an LED light bar or HIDs that i can put somewhere thats more protected.

 

[Hilldweller]

Are you going to be using your headlights for target practice? :laugh:

Bouncing off a rock and smashing your header panel into a tree by accident is different than shooting it with a gun.

Not mine...

But we did shoot a Lightfarce and a pair of Gargoyle sunglasses.

 

[sunburned]

Lights definitely look promising.


How many people here have actually broken a headlight offroad? In 4 years on the forums, I've never even heard of it happening. I've smashed in the front fender enough to push the hood 1/2" sideways and cracked the header panel, but nothing has ever come close to the headlights. Get a decent bumper and you'll be fine.

 

[Hilldweller]

yup. thats fine if H4s dont compare... i get pretty damn good output from them. if i want more light, i'll get an LED light bar or HIDs that i can put somewhere thats more protected.

H4s are great, especially if you're talking about a Cibie reflector.

But, lumen for lumen, the Trucklite wins. And lumen per amp? No comparison ---- the Trucklites only pull 1.8 amps on low and 3.8 amps on highbeam.

The other obvious benefit of LED is that you never ever have to change a bulb after installation. Put them in and they're done.

Legal, safe, cool-running, lots of light, low amperage draw. For running around town in places where you can't run supplemental lighting, you can't beat them.

I'm not on the Trucklite payroll, btw. :laugh: In fact, I thought they were going to disown me after I tested their previous generation of lights.
http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f96/headlight-shootout-1166827/

This is just a good product for what we do.

 

[MoparManiac]

You won't hear of it happening because the people who are breaking headlights are probably breaking stockers and don't mind replacing them for the sub $20 it costs.

My housing was cracked after this.

But like I said, great product for the DD/WW who won't put themselves in those kind of situations.

 

[stumpXJ]

^^Agreed, these arent headlights for that kind of vehicle, only because it wouldnt make sense, not because of durability issues. I wouldnt expect a glass lens/housing (or any type for that matter) to take that kind of abuse, but in the same breath most XJ owners arent doing that kind of wheeling. These are for the DD/mild wheeler folks, who are tired of driving blind at night. Bottom line.

Put simply, if you value being able to see well at night while driving on roads and arent a fan of halogen (hard to be both honestly), these are a great option. They aren't cheap, if they were they likely wouldnt be as good of a product. Hard to put a price tag on safety, I can think of hundreds of other 'worse' ways to spend the cash.

 

[MoparManiac]

^^Agreed, these arent headlights for that kind of vehicle, only because it wouldnt make sense, not because of durability issues. I wouldnt expect a glass lens/housing (or any type for that matter) to take that kind of abuse, but in the same breath most XJ owners arent doing that kind of wheeling. These are for the DD/mild wheeler folks, who are tired of driving blind at night. Bottom line.

Put simply, if you value being able to see well at night while driving on roads and arent a fan of halogen (hard to be both honestly), these are a great option. They aren't cheap, if they were they likely wouldnt be as good of a product. Hard to put a price tag on safety, I can think of hundreds of other 'worse' ways to spend the cash.

I would buy these in a heartbeat if they made them for my '01 Dodge 2500.

I had the HID retrofits and the cutoff was TERRIBLE. I blinded everyone. Ended up trashing the kit since it was poor quality.

 

[ChiXJeff]

I would buy these in a heartbeat if they made them for my '01 Dodge 2500.

I had the HID retrofits and the cutoff was TERRIBLE. I blinded everyone. Ended up trashing the kit since it was poor quality.

Just a tiny little highjack.... MM, sport or non-sport housings, and with or without a relay harness? I don't disagree that I'd just love high output LED lamps in my 99 Ram.

My XJ has 80/55 H4 bulbs & housing, but sees almost no nighttime use. If it was still a DD, I'd order a set right now.

 

[G.P_XJ]

I WANT A SET

i have some IPF's with fatboy2 bulbs and its great but these beat mine hands down

 

[MoparManiac]

[hijack]

Non-sport. 2500 Laramie so single bulb housings. I just converted back to stock everything. The HID setup sucked (from Bi-Xenon).

[/hijack]