LED headlight bulbs - Supernova V.4 test

JaxLax · Jan 4, 2019

I’ll update with my previous headlight issue links, but let’s plow forwards.

I ended up winning a raffle on HeadlightRevolution for some new Supernova V.4 LED bulbs. So I’m going to post up some shots and impressions for the rest of y’all.

I’ll try and get them in tomorrow afternoon as aimed early tomorrow evening.

I’ll be going from TBP H4 Kit with new lenses and upgraded wiring harness for a baseline. I’ll take some current shots and then one of each H4/LED side by side.

If anyone has specific shot requests or questions or helpful ideas; post up.

DirtDonk · Jan 4, 2019

That's great, thanks! Always love a good headlight shootout with pics!

Can't wait to see what's what and get your impressions.
If you happen to have any other brand H4 housings at your disposal too, along with the time to do it, be great to see how they work in different housings.

Paul

Heus33 · Jan 5, 2019

What's your intent with these?

Generally speaking, if you want ''more light'' and you overpower the housing's engineered output, you'll end up with a glaring mess for other drivers, similar to driving around with your high beams on. LED and HID bulbs are both notorious for this.

What you are showing here is a newer Chinese design that attempts to provide more controlled output. I'd be curious to see your results.

I have done a lot of research and haven't found a ''plug in'' bulb that increases output without increasing glare. That's why good quality LED headlight housings are optically designed to handle the extra brightness, keeping the light where you need it. This is why we developed our projector based headlights. Proper optics are necessary to keep the light on the road (where you need it) and not scattered everywhere (which blinds other drivers).

JaxLax · Jan 5, 2019

Heus33 said:
What's your intent with these?

To see what happens?
In the end, the bulbs were free; so let’s at least see where we end up.

And to your point, I understand that the bulb and reflector need to work in tandem (making output seem greater than the sum of the parts).

I’ll have a full write up on Monday when I can get to a computer and edit easier, but I’ve thrown a few shots in here in the vein of yours.

The first is the pattern of my 13 Lexus RX.
The second is the LED bulbs in the Bronco. Yes, I see the flare on the drivers.
The third is facing the Lexus and seeing how/where the cutoff is IRL.

But I drove it around tonight and, oh man, it was day and night from the H4s (pun intended).

JaxLax · Jan 7, 2019

Gonna break this up into a few different posts.
1. Install
2. Aiming and Pattern
3. Driving and overall thoughts

1. Install.
Well, 90% of the work was done by a 5 yr old, so it was pretty easy (slow, but easy). The boy wanted to get them in and we ended up having some free time in the morning so we dove in without taking the preferred baseline shots, but if you'd like to see some HERE'S A LINK to my previous post on installing the H4s.

But I did snap one against the door with the boy (picture 1) and you can see the H4 pattern.

The bulbs have a rear fan to cool them which makes a barely audible sound when installed, but obviously nothing that can be heard when the engine was on. Due to the fan and the ability to move air; I made the decision to not run the rubber boot that was on with the H4s. I installed it and it all but covered the air channels. Since I don't take this offroad, I'm taking the chance that there isn't a reason to worry about water intrusion from the rear. There is also a circuit board that need to be mounted for each. The board has pre-built ziptie slots so it was simple on how, just needed to figure out where. I ended up cutting a piece of the shipping foam to put behind the board for both locations so that it was held a little tighter and nothing is flat, so it filled in and made it more secure.

After getting them in I snapped a shot of both sides and you can see how far the fan sticks out the back housing. Just a visual in case you have other things back there and are worried about clearances.

JaxLax · Jan 7, 2019

2. Aiming and Pattern

So Photo 1 is the H4s and 2/3 are the new LEDs.
Shows more light and a larger pattern while maintaining a good cutoff at the top. Yes, I see the flare on the drivers side. We removed it and the bulb and reinstalled a second time and the flare remained. Perhaps we'll throw it over to the passenger side if it becomes an issue (so that the flare it thrown in the ditch).

Then we did the standard 25' pull off and tape lines for aiming. The results are again below.
Shot 4 is my baseline comparison to my 13 Lexus RX. Wide, level pattern. Sharp cutoff, etc.
Shot 5 are the LEDs. Still have the darn flare, but the cutoff on the passenger is good and they throw a good pattern that is far wider and brighter than the H4s, but is not as clean as the RX.
The next three are my first test drive. 6 is down a well lit street. 7 is a dark street (I'm on the left side of the road since there were people parked on the right; if you thought I was aiming to the left) and 8 is the same spot with high beams on.

DirtDonk · Jan 7, 2019

What brand housings are they and what do the lenses look like?

I would probably attempt to put some sort of material in the void left by leaving the boot off. It's going to come down to aerodynamics and geography as to whether water and/or other stuff gets in there.
I left the rear boots off of my Buick's headlamps to let some moisture evaporate, and a couple of days later when I put them back on, I had to pull the lights to dump out some leaves!
Funny how that tight little pocket still gets crap in there from the road.

Granted, my lamp housings literally have full openings, rather than the small area semi-protected by the ring on the bulb. But if leaves can blow into mine, water can find it's way in yours I would think.

Just some food for thought.

Paul

JaxLax · Jan 7, 2019

3. Driving and Overall Thoughts

So I went and drove around on the main road (3 lanes each way) then around the neighborhood for a few minutes.

I'm happy. Very happy.
I've got more light on the road and finally some thrown into ditches/sidewalks. Signs are illuminated about 5 houses out and go dark as I roll onto them.
No one changed their mirrors or flipped me off in traffic (still worried about the flare); so that's a positive! I've thrown the photo below of RX when facing the lights (the flare would be on the passenger seat), but looks to not be causing a huge issue.

I am still have slight worries about water intrusion, so I kept the H4 bulbs and rubber covers.

I've never driven a Bronco with true LED headlights, so I have no baseline for direct comparisons. But these allowed me to forget about the headlights while driving at night (compared to worrying that I'm missing something).

Feel free to yell at me or ask questions or whatever.

In the end, I love them.
Yes, mine were free. So my value math is skewed, but I'm not gonna be removing them anytime soon or going back unless there is an issue with failures.

JaxLax · Jan 7, 2019

DirtDonk said:
What brand housings are they and what do the lenses look like?

I would probably attempt to put some sort of material in the void left by leaving the boot off. It's going to come down to aerodynamics and geography as to whether water and/or other stuff gets in there.
I left the rear boots off of my Buick's headlamps to let some moisture evaporate, and a couple of days later when I put them back on, I had to pull the lights to dump out some leaves!
Funny how that tight little pocket still gets crap in there from the road.

Paul,
not sure how to answer the first question, but in the original post I went back and added hyperlinks to the TBP kit I have and the LED bulbs I'm using. If there's something more specific you want, let me know and I'll walk out to the parking lot.

I looked at the boots a few times and tried to figure out a way to cut/alter/etc the boots, but I was unable to figure out something that would:
1. fill the void while not covering the heat sinks
2. remain a press fit/not just fall out

Since she's a road queen, I'll go back and add the old rubber splash guards on the grille?

But adding anything around there is just going to ruin the airflow. (shrugs)

DirtDonk · Jan 7, 2019

One more pic might be helpful. That would be of the camera facing the Bronco with the lights on from say, fifty feet away or so.
The shot of them on the other car is telling, but it's still interesting to see what your eyes see.

Oddly enough, just in the past few weeks I've been getting flashed in my stock-ish passenger car several times a week around town. No change that I'm aware of, and not much extra weight in the trunk and that varies anyway.
I'm thinking that the increased fogging of my plastic lenses is creating some sort of flare up.
It must be quite notable by other drivers though, because around here there is no end to the super annoying overly bright headlights. Not to mention people driving around with their high-beams on way more than you would expect to (I see it almost every night now) and yet seemingly I'm the one getting flashed.

I'll have to dig into that. Never been the annoying one before that I know of (headlight-wise that is), and don't want to start now.

Paul

DirtDonk · Jan 7, 2019

Thanks. Sorry I forgot about the link to the TBP lamps. I remembered the link to the bulbs themselves, but not the housings.
No pics needed now, since I can see them on their site.

Paul

JaxLax · Jan 7, 2019

DirtDonk said:
One more pic might be helpful. That would be of the camera facing the Bronco with the lights on from say, fifty feet away or so.
The shot of them on the other car is telling, but it's still interesting to see what your eyes see.

Can do. Might be a few days. I've got a 150' tape somewhere in the garage...
And the shot facing is from ~4-5' when parking them in the driveway. It was the only way I could think of to simulate stop/go traffic spacing easily.

Seth Wilson · Jan 7, 2019

great job. thank you

73azbronco · Jan 8, 2019

When going LED HID, don't go cheap. The reason these options cost thousands more is because they cost thousands more to get it right, mainly auto leveling.

Don't be the guy driving around with lights so bright that when you go over every little bump you blind oncoming traffic.

I put Speaker lights on my Harley roadglide, love them, but they have auto leveling tech, and auto lighting into turns. How, I have no clue. Not cheap at $850, but work great. The $500 version was just plain poorly designed, light everywhere.

JaxLax · Jan 30, 2019

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND since I'm linking back to here, I have an update!

I fixed the flare!
The bulbs have a click system to allow them to rotate:

Supernova_V4_dual_beam_LED_Headlight_Bulbs__28968.1547592185.jpg

Apparently the bulb must have rotated one click when installing/moving the wiring around. I noticed when I walked up to them with the lights off and the stem was slightly askew. Clicked it one over to vertical and BAM NO MORE FLARE!

I can snag some shots if anyone wants them, but it now matches the passenger side from above.

DirtDonk · Jan 30, 2019

Wow, that's huge! Congrats on the fix.
Clever of them to make them adjustable I think. Might help with variations in housings, even though there are not supposed to be such things with an "industry standard" that's been around for 50 years or so.
Then again, seems like we run afoul of modern manufacturers taking license with the old rules and regs.

Enjoy the light.

Paul

JaxLax · Jan 30, 2019

DirtDonk said:
Clever of them to make them adjustable I think. Might help with variations in housings, even though there are not supposed to be such things with an "industry standard" that's been around for 50 years or so.

Oh yeah. Also they were straight when installed into the housings.
Just one of the double checking things that I didn't even think about until I just noticed it since I was no longer looking for it.

Forest for the trees, man.

Just throwing this out there in case someone else has a flaring issue (with any LED bulb) and perhaps needs a moment to make sure they didn't have the same issue.

Wylsacom · Apr 20, 2021

OMG what a light

no way dude, i think this is too much

but maybe I will show this to my boss

as we provide live streaming services in London, especially for the night events, this could be priceless

hehehe just kidding)) No idea how is it in your state, but we have strict restrictions relating the power of light. Some of the roads are poorly illuminated, so I guess if a car with such leds would drive in my direction at night, I would make a terrible accident(( maybe everything depends about the surroundings, as I see from your photos, with such great illuminated streets, it should not be a problem)

DirtDonk · Apr 20, 2021

Hey Wylsacom, welcome to classicbroncos!
I remember when I was in England (summer time) you were not even supposed to use your headlights until something like 10 or 11 pm. Just the running lights alone, then when it actually got dark later at night you could use the brighter illumination.
And I think at least in the old days (maybe still?) you were allowed to run around with your "main" beam I think, then your "dip" beam when there is other traffic.

For us, we call it "low" beam for normal use and "high" beam only when necessary, or when there are no other cars on the road ahead of you. Or as the "flash-to-pass" signal. Which is unfortunately illegal in some areas. Which is kind of stupid I think, even though there is a legitimate worry about night-blindness for some. Especially nowadays with super bright headlights. Still, I think we should be able to signal each other somehow.

Did I get those terms and uses correct? Dip is our low, and main is our high?

Paul

LED headlight bulbs - Supernova V.4 test

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