Uprating my headlights

[JimmyP]

Just returned home from a brief and bloody cold night-time ride on my S10 and here's the lowdown on the new LED headlight bulbs.

They're really nice and bright with a surprisingly consistent and wide spread of light across the whole width of the road. No discernible dark patches or drop outs were seen and the distance penetration on dip beam is superb. The dip beam cut off is really sharp too and with no light bleeding over it either. On main beam, the light doesn't seem to penetrate along the tarmac quite as far as the high performance halogen bulbs that I had in before but the difference looks to be negligible. A minor downer is that any light reflected back from large road signs can be a little glaring but given the bulbs 5000K (2500K each) output, I expected it to be much worse. I'd previously had both Osram Night Breakers and Philips X-treme Vision bulbs in my S10 and both brands lit things up really well but for only 8 to 12 months, before conking out. I'd rate these LED's as equal to any high output halogens in all respects, apart from being very slightly poorer in lighting up the far distance.

All they have to do now is to last the 30,000 hours that the manufacturers believe they will and i'll be well pleased. ::008::

Would like to know if they are still working well for you? Any issues with overheating?

Thanks.

 

[Lubelhu]

Would like to know if they are still working well for you? Any issues with overheating?

Mine gave up in the heath in Death Valley last month. must be overeating. Cant see anything else. :-[

 

[SilverBullet]

Mine gave up in the heath in Death Valley last month. must be overeating. Cant see anything else. :-[

Drats was just considering these. Put in an Ebay "best offer" for $30 free shipping. Figured I wouldn't get them for that price but now not sure if I even want them at that price. Anybody else? Anyonje compare the light output of these to the Cyclops?

_

 

[Jeff Milleman]

You get what you pay for , love my Cyclops lighting system and It has not let me down. For more light, I am going with the Rigid Ind E mark SR series spot 6 ' All the other Bulbs just don't last !

 

[Mikeybikey57]

Would like to know if they are still working well for you? Any issues with overheating?

Mine gave up in the heath in Death Valley last month. must be overeating. Cant see anything else. :-[

No issues so far, as they're still working really nicely. It would seem that any longevity problems are usually to do with build/component quality and the bulbs ability to dissipate excess heat. With ours being sealed up behind those covers, there would be no meaningful airflow to dissipate the heat, which can't help much. I reckon that the temperatures over here in the UK and those commonly found in Death Valley, may well make a lot of difference too.

 

[SilverBullet]

You get what you pay for , love my Cyclops lighting system and It has not let me down. For more light, I am going with the Rigid Ind E mark SR series spot 6 ' All the other Bulbs just don't last !

Quite often you can pay more for what you get though. Just look at the Touratech catalog, lol. The Ebay bulbs have the same Cree LED chips as the Cyclops so light output should be comparable. Reliability another issue though as without fans they will run hotter. But I'm hesitate to buy the Cyclops as really dislike fans spinning 100% of the time. Plus for the cost of a Cyclops kit I can buy 5 sets of Ebay bulbs. Also an updated 2016 version is available now that supposedly run cooler while using increased 3200LM output same as the updated Cyclops.

I have a Rigid light bar to install also so if the Ebay bulbs take a crap I will still have dependable light. Why does Cyclops only have a one year warranty? Rigid is a lifetime warranty, if Cyclops had the same I would probably be tempted to spend the extra money on them.

At the Ebay price I'm tempted to give them a shot but will definitely keep my stock bulbs on hand to swap out in case they fail.

 

[Davelivs2hunt]

When I first got my Tenere, I thought the stock headlights weren't bad. After installing my 6" Rigid LED bar, I couldn't stand how terrible the stock headlights were. I looked into HID and LED. Those both had drawbacks. I wanted to try something cheap, but somewhat of an improvement. Researching the Osram Night Racer 110, I thought they might be OK. I think in the US, they were about $50 for a set. I found the Philips X-treme 130 on Amazon for about $25 shipped for the set. Some improvement, but not huge. The Rigid LED bar will definitely spoil you.

 

[Davelivs2hunt]

Here is the stock one