Amazing 1st Gen Headlamp Upgrade

Nice option. I'll try these out when my LED stop working. The ones I've been using for 2 years seen atleast 500 hours, and survived two WI winters. They were soo much better than the Phillips Vision Plush which are suppose to be 60% more light than the oem. None of these LED mean anything if your lens are all yellow and not clear anymore.

 

This is what I ordered, except no DRL for my 01. Just make sure you click the drop down where it says regular inventory and change it to CAPA certified. Only a few bucks more and are certified to last longer (at least it says so anyway)

 

Welp, somewhere along the line I stripped the vertical adjuster on my driver's side headlight. My guess is when I had LED bulbs in the standard lens and tried to adjust the beam down too far.

Went to adjust them tonight. Was 10' away from a wall on a level surface. Measured 41" to the top of the hotspot with tape touching bumper. On the wall was measuring 46" at the top of the hot spot. So, def pointing skyward. Spin the screw.... spin spin spin. Nothin'. Adjusted my passenger side down just fine, it seems to be the driver's side.

Got home and managed to put a rubber isolator in behind the bottom of the bulb to angle it down some. Against my garage door, which is maybe 18" from my front bumper, I measured hot spot at ~40.5". So it's pointing down now. Matched my passenger side to the same measurement.

Time to order new lense(s). I don't want to be one of those assholes I loath with piss poor or non-adjusted LEDs. Seems to always be the damn Wrangler drivers with the blinding LEDs around here...

 

So I did some mathmagicianals and took some measurements. Outer headlight lens is 20" from garage door, beam drops 0.5" in that distance.

1" of beam drop for every 40 inches. About 2.5" beam drop for 10 feet. So my beam will end in about 164 feet. I'll let it ride for now. Should be sufficient.

According to the chart above that's more than double what it should be, though. Less than an inch in nearly 10 feet.

 

Does anyone know the difference between the bulbs with fans versus the bulbs without? Which are best for our application?

 

Difference is the fan. Helps keep the bulbs cooler, last longer. Perhaps. Depends on build quality. Maybe noisy, could create interference. Meh.

 

Downsides and upsides to each.

Fan bulbs have a crutch: The fan. If that fan dies, your bulb dies. They also have two drawbacks: Noise, and radio interference, especially inside garages and other enclosed spaces. Modern heatsinks are actually pretty awesome. I don't like crutches and I don't like potential interference, so I went fanless - one less thing to die on the bulb. A ball bearing fan is going to die before that LED does.

Downside to a fanless is it'll run a little hotter. But as of yet, with a couple of months of constant usage, I'm showing no signs of rubber melting, wires melting, anything being impacted by the absence of a fan, only an enlarged heatsink. Upside is less moving parts to break. As long as I get 1-2 years out of the bulb, I'm happy.

Dunno. Your call. I prefer less moving parts; less stuff to fail. YMMV. I suspect I'll be getting rid of this bulb for whatever the next generation is before either a fan or fanless dies.

 

When we first did this upgrade, we experienced several of the known issues (e.g. fog lamps with LED bulbs didn't work, high beam indicator didn't work). We tried going back to halogen bulbs in the fog lamps, but that did not work. So, I contacted customer service (support@led-colight.com) and they suggested I try the extra in-line resistors (Amazon product number B07SGCHF5B...link below). So, I ordered and installed the resistors and, sure enough, that cleared things up! The halogen fog lamps now function normally and the high beam indicator works. When I reported my success to the company, they offered to refund the cost of the extra in-line resistors. I can't guarantee they'll do that for everyone, but they did it for me. My dad loves this headlight setup.

$23 Xprite H4/9003 LED Canbus Decoder Anti Ficker Harness Error Free Resistor Capacitor for LED Headlight Bulbs, Pack of 2

https://www.amazon.com/Xprite-Headlight-Anti-Flicker-Resistor-Conversion/dp/B07SGCHF5B?crid=1PUPQDY7NR2AW&keywords=B07SGCHF5B&qid=1691585943&sprefix=b07sgchf5b+%2Caps%2C262&sr=8-1

 

You may consider trying just one resistor on one side. That works for some. Would just eliminate some clutter.

 

Do the gen 1 Tundras have DRLs? I’d like to do this for my Son’s 03 Sequoia, but it has DRLs that seem to either fully or partially illuminate the incandescent low beam bulb.
Just wondering how this might work with the mini projectors if the DRL is partially trying to illuminate the bulb.

 

Disconnect the gray plug next to the battery tray. This will disable DRLs.

Can't comment on how these operate with DRL as mine is disabled.

 

My 06 has DRLs. It has no effect on them whatsoever and I've got the BraveWAY bulb which appears to be the exact same as the CO bulb, in a different box (typical scAmazon M.O.)

DRL itself uses the headlights in our trucks, I can only faintly notice a flicker when switching headlights on/off.

I personally didn't want to disable my DRLs. I found my truck is invisible if I don't have lights on. I had that plug unplugged for, like, two weeks. After years of driving the truck with headlights on during the day and not having anyone pull out in front of me, I plugged it back in after the 4th one in ~15 days. It was getting old. My truck didn't live this long just to get totaled from some asshat pulling out on me, and I hafta pull dashcam footage to prove I'm not at fault for rear-ending someone...

 

Agreeed. While I don't use the DRL, I do always drive with headlights on. I take full advantage of them automatically turning off when the driver's side door is opened.

 

Somehow I have a feeling MOST people putting on these aftermarket LED lights don't bother to do. Hell, I'm getting blinded by new car/SUV lights nowadays. Something isn't right or nobody bothers to enforce it around here.

 

Had I not done it, my lights would've been pointed about a foot too low, and I would've been really disappointed with the results.

 

Most people would probably aim a foot too high and say screw it, good enough.

Probably some of the same group of people around here who put the clear mask on their plates so you can only see it close up from angle of 85-95 degrees. Anything outside of that distorts the view.

 

@shifty` I hear you on the DRL's! We had a Land Cruiser for 17 years, that I babied, it didn't have DRL's and about 2 years ago an 18 kid pulled out right in front us totaling both vehicles. Thankfully everyone was unhurt, but to this day I swear if it had DRL's the kid would have seen us and my son would be driving it instead of the Sequoia. I'll never not have DRL's again!

The kids around here like to run "squatted" trucks, i.e. reverse rake. Its ridiculous and they all put led bulbs in the stock housings. Not only can they not see the road in front of them but they blind every on coming driver.

@Riverdale21 Thanks for that plug info. I might try to power another DRL setup with it instead of the headlight bulb. I've seen guys run the small LED strips underneath their housings or grill lights, so that would be an easy mod with that plug

 

Did this yesterday and it turned out great.

Disconnected the plug for daytime running lights and fogs still didnt work. Need to figure out if its just bad bulbs.

 

You need a an inline resistor. This is pretty common knowledge, and I think is covered in this very thread (reply # 38)

 

Sometimes you do, sometimes you dont. The bulbs come with resistors and the guy from the video says his fogs worked fine with nothing else.

I noticed that turning fogs on turned on my high beams before I disconnected the daytime running lights plug. Afterward turning fogs on no longer turned on high beams but fog lights still dont work. I believe this means its just the bulbs are out (since I havent used them in over 5 years) but I could be wrong.

 

Got at least three people in this thread who didn't, got at least three people in here who did

Weird yours came with resistors. Most of the reviews I was reading for both popular brands said they had to pick up separately. Good to see they're actually doing it.

Try slapping one just on the passenger side circuit. You may find it just works with one. Others have.

 

Thought I would jump in this thread with related question I haven’t found an answer to with some quick lurking..

There are some popular names LEDs mentioned in the site such as Morimotos, katana, auxbeam, etc.

What I wanna know is does “all” of these require removing the reflector stroud thing like in OP’s video or are they intended to use the existing hardware of the OEM housings without removing/cutting/rewiring stuff.

Or am I stuck with halogens while I’m rocking the original headlights, unless using the methods the OP posted.


* nvm found the proper thread lol

 

If you want to move to a projector, you need to remove that reflector cup.

That pretty much goes for any projector. Think about it this way: A projector itself needs to be mounted in the middle of the housing. How is it going to get light out if there's a reflective cup blocking light egress hovering over the center bucket?

Edit to add:

Therein lie the dilemma. We're talking about 20 year old tech in our trucks for lighting, which revolves around an omnidirectional halogen light source. Back when our trucks rolled off the floor, HID lighting was king of the hill, and LED was virtually unheard of in automotive applications (c. 1999, initial 1GT design).

The OEM headlight housing's technical design revolves around that, the halogen bulb. It's why, when you take an LED non-projector bulb, which has non-omnidirectional (direct) lighting and is also plentiful on scAmazon, and stick it in this housing, they are bright but don't necessarily work (excess scatter, blinding oncoming drivers, etc.) all because the housing and reflector cup are designed for an omnidirectional, glowing light source versus the crisp, directional lighting LED provides. Some LED non-projector manufacturers have resorted to using mini-shields to cut off the light and help with the issues. But just like the mini-projectors discussed in this thread, it's not a perfect solution. Even with my mini-projectors, as you may find in pictures I linked to after my install, there are issues with aberration/anomalies at the cutoff, and also a tiny bit of scatter.

The more expensive projectors you named which require a tiny bit of knowledge and more effort (i.e. baking/resealing) to install alleviate those issues, but at the 2x or 3x the investment of getting a brand new CAPA certified housing and a pair of mini-projector bulbs. And as we've seen from other attempts with the more expensive projectors, the output results aren't always practical or great.

There's pros and cons to everything.

 

I think where I’m getting real confused is if leds and projectors are each their own seperate categories or a matter of correct labeling. I’m seeing some led products that say they work on halogen based housings which is what caused me to wonder if the reflective cup had to be removed. For example the morimotos are labeled as leds on various sites but are they really projectors?

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If I'm interpreting what you're asking right, I think you're asking a design question.

A couple of designs available, I think this covers an arching overview closely enough:

1. Stock housing and bulb: The stock housing accepts any bulb with a standard-sized H4/9006 base. You can install any halogen or LED bulb as long as it has no lens/projector to direct the light forward. Light from the bulb doesn't fire forward, it instead reflects sideways, into the chrome part of the headlight assembly, which then reflects the light forward. The reflective cup takes any errant forward-fired light and pushes it back to the reflector too, IIRC. LED bulbs tends to scatter light all over with this housing configuration, that's the major shortcoming of using standard-base LED bulbs in OEM housings, it can blind oncoming drivers, even if the bulb has provisions (screens) built-in to prevent light firing in the wrong direction.
2. "Integrated" projector (mini projector): The bulb has a standard H4/9006 base to allow it to fit into the stock housing, but it's built with a projector lens into the end of the bulb to shoot light straight forward, thus why you need to remove the reflector cup, else it'll eclipse the more-focused forward beam projectors make. With this design, the projector lens at the end of the bulb is what's focusing the light directly forward, and you shouldn't see any light firing towards the chrome reflector inside the housing. Output is light years better than #1, but is nowhere near as crisp as #3 when #3 is done properly by someone who understands what they're doing.
3. "Retrofit" projector (full-size projector): Same setup as #2 except it's a full projector assembly that you need to custom-fit into your housing after baking it open. Often bi-led or bi-xenon bulbs installed with a shroud, with ballasts or drivers to fire up the bulbs. Big differences here are (A) it's not plug-and-play because it's not a standardized H4/9006 bulb that slides into the OEM housing slots, instead it's a complete lens and housing you hafta find a way to mount properly on your own, (B) you've got to bake open the housings to install anything, test and line up to confirm operation, then re-bake to seal the housings and (C) if anything ever goes wrong, you need to repeat step "B" all over again to replace it. It also costs way more, but arguably gives you the best possible output

To give you some visual, examples of #1, note the standard base, and no way for light to fire forward out of the tip of the bulb:

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Examples of #2, note it also uses a standard base, but there's no light firing out the sides of the bulb, all light is focused at the projector lens in the tip, hence why the reflector cup must go bye-bye:

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Examples of #3, notice, the bases are whatever-the-hell the manuf'er decides, usually a center-post exists to route wires, but it's otherwise just a projector assembly, with integrated light, and you figure out how to mount and aim it once your housing is open, and there's a shroud involved to complete it ... it's 2 pieces though, the bulb itself (first pics) and the shroud it mounts into (last pics) to give it that classic OEM-like projector look - note the 4 holes in the half-rings around the bulb, IIRC those bolt into the holes in the shroud to complete assembly:

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Yes exactly what I was looking for. Let me know when you’re done making the new edition of the first gen tundra owners manual so I can get a signed copy.

thx

 

Feels that way sometimes

 

Installed the Co Lights in some new housing today….still dialing in the aiming, but huge difference!
I ordered the bulbs without fans and they didn’t need any additional resistors, everything worked as it should. Highly recommended

 

This is an interesting point. I wonder if it's the bulbs with fans that have the resistance issue? @Alltimehigh @Neo were your bulbs with-fan or fanless?

 

Curious to know how you’re tackling the aiming process, far from the point of going through it myself but not looking forward to spending hours dialing that shit in in the dark