Wrong how? This current setup works fine I just don't like the somewhat inconsistent beam pattern. It is not unsafe, it doesn't blind anyone and is better than the HIDs they replaced. Which are not that great honestly especially once you're used to LED bulbs.
I appreciate it.

For the wiring I don't want to de-pin anything at least not yet. With some luck I'll find some headlights at a salvage yard where I can harvest the parts I need. I might buy some different bulbs not sure I'm thinking about it.

 

I wasn't off to a good start with LED headlights, it may be different now that manufacturers gained more experience, but back in the day, especially with all the craze for aftermarket HID or LED headlights just starting to take off, it was such a disaster that I can't seem to get over it even today.

I trust your judgement, I am pretty sure you understand how the headlight is supposed to work, where my trust ends is in the idea that other people will follow your advice to a tee, most will just see what they want to see and claim that this is how it's supposed to be, I've seen it all too often, and this is the part where I would like to be proven wrong, if you know and understand what you are doing, doesn't mean that everybody does.

It would be interesting to see if it's possible to build something around an OEM HID headlight with the factory Auto Aim and a different housing design, which I do prefer a bit more. I still have my old beat up HID headlights that I can experiment with, maybe one day..



Pretty much all Lexus HID headlights, at least of that era, came with this connector, but a 2nd-gen GS did come with a standalone male housing, here are a few pictures of its ballast, unless you can find a Diesel Toyota casually sitting at the junkyard to take it off of its fuel filter it would likely be the best bet. Otherwise, it won't take but a minute to re-pin the old housing back in its place with no consequences, just sayin'.

Hope this helps and best of luck!

 

5 years ago LED bulbs were a joke maybe there were exceptions but I never found any. They tried all kinds of crazy designs, 4 sided emitters, 3 sided COB panels etc. none of them worked properly. Now there are many good ones they learned to put the emitters such that the output is as close to the original filament as possible. It works, and why it works is the LEDs fire left/right and have about 120 degree field which is enough to flood the bowl and produce about the same beam pattern. For projector there is less of an issue but single lens projectors by their nature reduce light output which is why most auto makers don't use them anymore.
People are stuck in the past, and once a narrative takes hold it sticks. I see over and over again people saying don't use LED bulbs you'll blind everyone. They've never tried themselves but are convinced it is true. I have shown people flat out that the output is good, they don't care.

What's crazy to me is people are willing to sacrifice safety, halogen bulbs are straight up a joke on a country road.
Best way IMO is graft for example an H7 bulb panel/socket onto the HID unit this will work. You can buy LED bulbs that replace HIDs but selection is limited otherwise I would have tried a set. I personally don't find the auto leveling useful it does the self check and ends up in the same place all the time. I've even had several people in the car and the difference in height doesn't justify the complexity.

I'm sure at some point I'll come across the proper connectors that's about the least of my challenges for this project.

 

I put the ES330 housings in my cart but still waiting on a offer. My plan will be to ceramic coat them as soon as I get them and add LED's.

 

Okay, being a man of my word, I decided to give LED bulbs another chance, but with some ground rules. Since I like the look of the HID housing more than Halogen, and I am not quite ready to part ways with the Auto-Leveling system, regardless of how redundant it may seem, for my first attempt in a very long time I decided to go with the simplest option - getting replacement Bulbs for my existing HID headlights, and was that an adventure.

As mentioned above, the selection for HID replacements really is quite limited, there aren't too many unique bulbs, most of them being the same exact model sold under different names, the usual, where the real problem sets in is that most of them are made to be a Plug-and-Play, with the New LED Bulb plugging directly into the old HID Ballast, a subtle 20,000V power supply. Those were crossed off immediately, leaving aside the fact that I didn't want those bulbs anywhere near my still working Ballasts as there was a feeling that it won't last that way, all they do is convert the Ballast Voltage back to 12V before feeding the LED itself, making the entire extremely bulky, with no a chance of it fitting into the factory headlight, and adding a ton of complexity, at least another Two potential points of failure, as we could never know what kind of quality those convertors are.

With how easy it is to get rid of the factory Ballast, and with the fact that most will start reaching for them when their Factory Ballast kicks the bucket, I am not sure why they are so popular, my only guess being the simplicity of an upgrade, and may have even been worth it if not for the events below. Either way, I would really suggest avoiding those options regardless of their light output, going as far as cutting out the entire Adapter part and plugging them in directly into the 12V supply as an absolute last resort.



After some digging I ended up settling on Lasfit LA Plus D2, the sole reason for those being the fact that they were the only Standalone D2R LED replacement bulbs I could find, the only bulbs that Bypass the factory Ballast completely, no questionable adapters required, as from the beginning the plan was to remove the Ballast out of the headlight, leaving the void of space inside of the headlight for the management of the new Wiring, then use my old Caps with wiring to power a new bulb.



The first hints of trouble began when I decided to power the bulb on the table with no lens around it, giving it as much cooling as it would ever get, and still, those do heat up, a Lot, and the heat spreader on the bottom with that tiny fan didn't help things a whole lot, though it did kick up a lot of dust, which may be a concern in the headlight. While the temperature won't be a concern in the Halogen Headlight, I am a little concerned about it causing the Delamination of the Lens over time in the HID headlight, as those bulbs don't get nearly as hot, but it may be me just overreacting. It did only draw about 25.7W of power compared to promised 30W though.

After that, I installed the bulb into my old headlight and powered it inside, the light output was not nearly as drastic as I expected, with the bigger issue being the fact that the light was present only in a pretty narrow strip directly up front, both top and bottom left pretty dark.



Thinking it's the old and beat-up headlight, I actually went and installed it in the car, powering the bulb directly from the battery for the time being. That was a disappointment, not only no noticeable improvement was made, the light output became muffled and distorted, with the bottom part being quite dark. But the worst part of all was that the Light Cut-Off section was now much higher, even after I cycled the Auto-Leveling, which is high enough to start causing issues.


Identical conditions, about 10 minutes between pictures, same camera settings. Did the Auto-Aim before taking both pictures, both the camera and the car are in the same exact position. The change is limited only to the bulb itself.

The bulb does offer free 360° adjustment, the Collar that positions the bulb is not glued to the Housing, allowing the Bulb itself to rotate even after being clamped, giving the flexibility of adjusting to the specific lens. No matter how I turned it, things only got worse.



The moral of the story, OEM: 1 / LED: 0.

That is exactly why I am still wary of some LED combinations out there, it takes time and understanding of the process to match the proper Bulb with a given Headlight, there are people out there who I would trust with being thorough enough, like LeX2K, but there is also a ton of other "monkey see, monkey do" characters that will read the title of the miracle of LED and just go throw the first available Bulb into any headlight, without any regard for the consequences, such cases are still out there, though at least not as many as some years ago.

With that, I haven't given up on the idea, there is still a solid chance that a good replacement LED set is out there somewhere, it's just that my first gamble didn't pay off quite as I was hoping for. Part of the reason for this post is to get ideas from others, as it's been a solid while since I've looked at LED bulbs at all, I have neither the knowledge nor the experience with it, so it could be that I am missing something. I will be returning those bulbs, even my lackluster experience is enough to see that there won't be any benefit keeping them around, but if someone has better options, I am all ears.

The list of requirements is pretty simple and is outlined below, anything else if a fair game, and since I still have my Old headlight set, options like replacing the Main Lens or even retrofitting Projectors in there may be viable, though not as lucrative and heavily dependent on the total cost, as I am quite satisfied with the output I have already, anything extra will be purely for sports.

1. Keep the HID Housing, or its semblance, it's a purely esthetic choice.
2. I would still like to keep the Auto-Aim, even if it requires alterations.
3. The light cut-off has to stay at the same height, I am not here to be hated on every road.

The more I look at it, the more it seems like we look at two different pictures, though it could be my lack of experience setting in. It would be really helpful to get at least some kind of picture of your current setup at night to have at least a general idea of its performance and differences compared to HID. There is a slight chance that I will get a light meter in the future to set a baseline for factory HID lights, unless I will get dragged into some other project to work on before that.

Hope this helps and best of luck!

 

Did you clock them so the LEDs are firing at 9 and 3? I'll try and take some pictures of my setup but I can assure you they are significantly brighter than my HIDs. Kinda tired of buying LED bulbs but guess I'll buy a set of Auxbeam's for the Lexus my experience with the brand has been excellent. I have these in my Camry they are incredible
https://auxbeam.com/collections/led-...-9006-gd002122

 

Yes, I ensured that the LEDs were facing to the Sides of the Headlight, the last picture of the previous post shows how the bulb was situated when I took the light output pictures. I did try to flip it upside down for the sheer fun of it, but didn't observe any difference, I also tried turning it sideways, for the same reason, and it only made things a lot worse, as not the output was all over the place.

Huh, I've seen those around before, but that bulky adapter on the wire made me think that it's another Plug-and-Play bulb. They do look a lot fancier I will give them that, but their power demand sure is alarming, especially for an LED, I thought it was a typo at first and then realized that they suggest installing a more powerful Fuse to run them, kinda concerned about ending up with a hole in my garage door from all the pure, unadulterated light output.

 

120 watt rating is for both bulbs they draw about the same power as the original halogen.

 

Am I .. missing anything..?

[EDIT]: Turns out I am, it's not the Rated Power Consumption, it's the Efficacy value with a .. dubious idea of sharing the same units, as if it could never create a confusion. The Spec List says that they really draw only about 2.5A, aka a pretty normal 30W, though I do have to wonder why they are so insistent on replacing the factory fuse due to high power demand, another unit I don't understand..?

 

I posted the wrong link sorry about that, this is what I am using
https://auxbeam.com/collections/led-...ducts/gd001959

There is no way each 9006 bulb is 120 watts that is far beyond what can be cooled in that form factor without it melting and quickly failing. Best you could do is 120 watts for a short time then the circuit would quicly scale back power. Marketing at it's worst, or best depending on perspective.

Still, I bet they are excellent bulbs.