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Cutoff doesn't look too bad. I'd be curious to know the actual light output in a numerical value in comparison to a properly functioning HID system. I don't remember if you mentioned it in this thread or not yet but may I ask why you made the switch? I can understand to a degree if you needed to replace one or both ballasts or something of the like and this was more cost effective. In terms of color output a simple bulb switch would've sufficed. Not really attacking your decision to do what you did, just curious why. Proper projector HID systems still trump LED in terms of range and output, but obviously dedicated LED headlight technology is quickly catching up. Until they can come up with a 360* emitter LED "bulbs" will always suffer from hot-spotting and glare in reflector-based systems, it's just how the game goes. In terms of LED bulb design I think the best one I've seen is the Nokya LED bulb. It uses one big forward facing chip pointing at a metalized cone that bounces the light back towards the reflector; I'm no engineer or mathematician but typically you want an even dispersion of light over the entire area of the reflector; this achieves that.
The cutoff line is controlled by the projector housing, not the bulb. Even with the stock HIDs, the cutoff wasn't all that sharp. The reason I switched to LED is because I wanted to. I did some other headlight mods and new lenses at the same time, with the goal of making them look more modern and perform better. I don't really care about all the theories behind the comparisons, especially after having these bulbs in the car. To my eyes, the LEDs look better, are brighter, and outperform the stock HIDs.
Here are some more pics I took yesterday for comparison's sake (should have turned the lights off in the shop, oops). A customer brought me his Jeep (already had another shop install LEDs in the stock projector housings), to upgrade his lights to something he can actually use to see. These pics are exactly why most typical LED headlight bulbs are getting a bad name. I don't know what brand he had in there, but you can see the light output is terrible, not aimed correctly, and the closeups of the bulbs show how small the LED chips are. The DDM Saber Pro 50 watt bulbs have much larger LED chips.
Hopefully these LED bulb manufacturers will at least make a 4 sided bulb so there are LEDs on 4 sides instead of just 2.
Charger732: looks like its might be a water leak that has shorted my ballast so have had a closer look at the Morimoto ballasts at the retrofit source. As far as I can tell the DS2 Morimoto XB35 (35W) aftermarket HID is the most suitable. But the unit is smaller so I would need so put add some sort of diy bracket to the existing mounting. Also from the picture I can't see the connector pins on the socket for the bulb - as its DS2 I assume this might be okay. However the connector to the lead from the battery looks different to the one my AP1 it looks more rectangular and I can't see the pins. So am really looking for someone who has installed one of these aftermarket ballasts on an AP1 to be certain its going to work ok.
Re: your link to the Saber LED's the picture shows the bulbs with two bare wires but the link above has a CANbus box and plug. Does the product come with this extra box and plug? With the CANbox/plug does it just then connect to the socket on the lead from the battery?
Re: your link to the Saber LED's the picture shows the bulbs with two bare wires but the link above has a CANbus box and plug. Does the product come with this extra box and plug? With the CANbox/plug does it just then connect to the socket on the lead from the battery?
The CAN bus adapters are extra, and not required for all vehicles. That was a Jeep install I did, which requires the CAN bus adapters to eliminate headlight flickering, bulb warnings, etc. Our S2000's don't need them at all. Most vehicles won't need them with the Saber Pro LEDs, but I use them in some cases just for peace of mind and reliability. Worth it for the extra $20.
The previous pics were mostly to show the difference in the bulbs between something that works very well versus some cheap bulbs.
I replaced my OEM bulbs with Philips CrystalVision 5000k bulbs and I love them. they are a pure white and the output is similar to oem. I know 4300K is usually your best light output, but these seem very similar just in a pure white color instead of warm white. Just a suggestion if people were more interested in changing the color to a pure white, which is the reason I didn't stick with OEM bulbs and didn't have to mess/worry about an LED conversion. It's also the same manufacturer as the OEM bulbs so it basically is OEM quality, it is kinda pricey, but worth it imo.
Charger732: looks like its might be a water leak that has shorted my ballast so have had a closer look at the Morimoto ballasts at the retrofit source. As far as I can tell the DS2 Morimoto XB35 (35W) aftermarket HID is the most suitable. But the unit is smaller so I would need so put add some sort of diy bracket to the existing mounting. Also from the picture I can't see the connector pins on the socket for the bulb - as its DS2 I assume this might be okay. However the connector to the lead from the battery looks different to the one my AP1 it looks more rectangular and I can't see the pins. So am really looking for someone who has installed one of these aftermarket ballasts on an AP1 to be certain its going to work ok.
You will have to wire the blub to the ballast as its a Honda conector or just get a set of bulbs from morimoto as those will be plug n play.
If you want the 100% easiest way to fix your issue, just buy a re manufactured OEM ballast off ebay. They are $40 and work just fine, I have one on my car right now.
thanks for the info treimche - one further question is on the 2 pin plug from the ballast. presumably you must have cut this off, or bought a new one, and attached the two bare DDM Saber wires to this so that you can plug into the socket from the battery. was this easy as looking at mine the plug looks to be a sealed unit?
10-20-2018, 11:44 AM
