NHTSA Targets Diode Dynamics LED Bulbs

Hall said:
The reality is, the light housings are carefully designed by the automakers (or their suppliers) to be used with a specific bulb design. Sometimes people get lucky in that their housing works "okay" with LEDs. All too often, people won't admit that they screwed up by swapping them....
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I have a tongue in cheek retort here, in a sporting spirit... Ford did Not perform a careful design for the housings in my ‘18 f150. Two incandescent 3D cell maglights would have been better, because at least they could be aimed at the road. headlight snobbery is more recent for me, meaning I’ve tolerated cars with mediocre headlamps, but these were literally confusing to turn on and wonder, “uh, what’s going on?”

the oem aim had them spotting squirrels. And there’s no LR adjustment, and the UD adjustment is more of a diagonal path... so it’s either on the road or on the curb but never at the right elevation. And the optics spew so much light outward randomly, there was less left to actually put where it’s needed.

perhaps it may have been carefully designed and then destroyed by cost cutting, or it was well designed and botched in manufacturing. Either way I’d say if you see amy 18-20 f150 running around with aftermarket lights, give them the benefit of the doubt that they are
trying.

I installed projectors in mine but the housings melt before the glue, so the job was pretty messy. i also didn’t get it quite right and because of that don’t really think I can redo it. So at some point i too might have to go with an aftermarket assembly, but I’m afraid they will be a step back from the projectors I have.

sigh.
 
I call the Ford Super Duty “Friday Night Lights” … great for lighting football fields and blinding others … but don’t project down the road. Bad enough to deal with aftermarket onslaught … but OEM ? Really ?
 
I’ve not seen the super duty lamps, from inside the truck, but the tall, two lamp assembly is curious to me. usually the upper is low beam and lower is high beam, but I often seem them both operating with no high beam glare. I’ve wondered if the lower unit is for fogs and the upper is a high/low? at least the lamps have larger reflectors to work with, and easier to get it right.

but yeah - the oem on the 150 is really, really bad, or at least mine was.
 
I had a set of SL1’s... they’re still kicking around the garage or house somewhere I think. I ended up going back to halogens, the SL1’s were “white” but a pretty terrible white, like they had low CRI which made it hard to see in inclement weather/washed out details. My pictures don’t show the color difference well enough. The glare reflected from road signs was almost painful, a problem I didn’t have with either 9005 or the upgraded 9011 halogens. Maybe I’m getting older... I’m on the wrong side of my 20’s, but I much prefer warmer light colors. On my Durango, which had factory HID low beams, I used 4800K Philips Xtreme Vision bulbs and I found those to be absolutely perfect.


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Nobody with the illegal bulbs will send them back in, they'll just laugh and shop for some even brighter the next time they need replacement. :LOL:
 
I have yet to try any LED headlight in any vehicle of mine. Not that it's any better, but I have used my share of cheap HID kits in my day. Results ranged from awful to massive upgrade. For obvious reasons, factory halogen projectors are much more receptive of retrofit kits than halogen reflectors. Reflectors are 50/50 with how they turn out, at best you have to aim them down and it's alright. At worst, they're unusable.

With projectors, I've found that PNP HID kits require little more than a slight re-aim. Is it perfect? No. But it does provide an upgrade, at least in my experience. LED tech just isn't there yet.
 
Skippy722 said:
I had a set of SL1’s... they’re still kicking around the garage or house somewhere I think. I ended up going back to halogens, the SL1’s were “white” but a pretty terrible white, like they had low CRI which made it hard to see in inclement weather/washed out details. My pictures don’t show the color difference well enough. The glare reflected from road signs was almost painful, a problem I didn’t have with either 9005 or the upgraded 9011 halogens. Maybe I’m getting older... I’m on the wrong side of my 20’s, but I much prefer warmer light colors. On my Durango, which had factory HID low beams, I used 4800K Philips Xtreme Vision bulbs and I found those to be absolutely perfect.


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You still have them SL1s? :geek:
 
gathermewool said:
To be fair, no one paid full price for DD LED’s. They offer 15% off coupons for just about every single holiday there is. I’m happily sporting just about every LED they make for my cars, except the Legacy. Interior and fog only there. The FXT already had reflector OEM HID, so no need there.

The admittedly expensive SLF fogs work very well in both applications during inclement weather, especially on roads without much lane marker shine.
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I have DD LED bulbs everywhere on my vehicle except headlights; turn signals, brake lights, back up lights, license plate bulbs, interior lights. I have factory OEM headlights. Quite frankly, I just got tired of replacing incandescents. I travel out of state frequently for work, carry spare bulbs with me, and I want no attention from "Barney" in small towns who have nothing better to do than scrutinize out of state plates. Off topic: Traffic violations are all about revenue generation, NOT "safety." Try riding around with an off duty cop in his own small jurisdiction, where they know each other's cars. Like my "across the street" neighbor. I want NO ATTENTION from these Bozos.
 
I admit I was looking at LED bulbs for my high beams... the most powerfull I can get. To repay the favour if someone blinds me with his highs, badlay aimed or modified lights... My projector (factory) HIDs flip away the cutoff when I turn on highs, and an extra 55W halogen bulb comes on aswell.

Sometimes when a car is following me, the LED headlights shine right through the rear window. I could read the newspaper at night without turning on the courtesy lights... It's not like you don't see that your lights are hitting the windows of other cars, or the mirrors if you're behind them. Unless you're an idiot who shouldn't be qualified to drive.
 
I can see it now ... two cars coming towards each other on a 2-lane road. One guy's lights are blinding, so the other guy flips his super highs one. Now both are blinded and crash head on into each other resulting in a big fireball. :D
 
DOT "compliance" is fairly misleading. From what I've read it's more or less a promissary note saying "We will comply with automotive regulations" which seems a little shortsighted.
 
SubLGT said:
NHTSA has taken enforcement action against Diode Dynamics for selling non-compliant LED headlight bulbs. At the same time NHTSA ignores the 2 largest sellers of illegal LED headlight bulbs: eBay and Amazon. And US Customs and Border Protection ignores all the illegal LED headlight bulbs entering the country from China.

www.nhtsa.gov

Equipment Search DIODE DYNAMICS SL1 LED HEADLAMP BULB a__4555731 | NHTSA

www.nhtsa.gov www.nhtsa.gov
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Looks like they didn't make the right political donations.
 
NHTSA is now going after other brands:

www.nhtsa.gov

Recalls | NHTSA

Use our VIN lookup tool to check for recalls on your car, or search by make and model. Also, get recall information on car seats, tires and equipment.
www.nhtsa.gov www.nhtsa.gov
 
The old halogen sealed beams were, in many ways, the best way to ensure a consistent, safe and compliant headlight. I’d like to see a return to a uniform headlight, with strict controls for color temperature, CRI, beam pattern, overall lumens, illumination criteria (candela) at specific road positions and easy cost effective replacement.

It should also have the ability to melt snow and ice in winter.

A modern, compact, universal headlight, so to speak.
 
Correct. There are a few people on a hid specific board that have measuring equipment,and regularly test various bulbs. 4100k to 5000k is a happy medium. Osram sells a 6500k hid bulb that is considerably dimmer than the 4100-5000k bulbs
 
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