LED 4x6 inch head lights H4656, H4651

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by GhostWolfGT

At 14.3v on 35w units my amp draw should be 2.44. If I'm calculating that correctly. 15LEDS at 3watts each is 45 watts. You would greatly refuse output to get to 15 watts per unit.

The 15 LED cree lamps only turn on 6 of the 15 LEDs for low beam.
Then for high beam all 15 LEDs are turned on.
The 3 prong plug to these old H4656 bulbs has a ground, plus 2 power wires, one wire for low beam and one wire for high beam.

Why they turn on 6 and not 5 I do not know. They would make better low beams if only 1 row turned on. But I am using these 15 cell cree LED head lights as high beam only so it wont matter. Putting power on the high beam light makes all the LEDs come on.

I am pretty sure with old halogen bulbs, when you switch to high beam, it turns off power to low beam.
Then if you "flash your lights" some older vehicles are wired to apply power to both low and high at the same time if you already have your low beams on, since its only for a second or 2 it shouldn't burn them out too fast.
I have seen a mod where people combine the low and high beams for when the high beam is on, then they undo it when they start having replace head lights every few weeks.

[GhostWolfGT]

A lot of cars come stock light that IF they are 4 bulbs. Hi/low bulbs will burn quick.

So could you have all 4 as low beam then all 4 as high beam with the LEDs?

[oil pan 4]

On low beam the 9th gen suburban is wired so only the top head lights are on.
Then in high beam all 4 lights come on and go high beam.
If I could aim and terminate the LEDs like I wanted to I could run all 4 as low beam easy but with these 15 LEDs head lights I have pretty much ruled out using them as low beams. The only other problem with running all 4 low beams on is I might get pulled over for "using high beams in town", if they see all 4 lights on they are going to automatically assume "high beam".
I want to take these 15 LED lights put them in the high beam spot and level them at the horizon, aim the passenger side high beam a little off to the side so I can see deer, cows, horses on the side of the road and aim the drivers side almost strait ahead, favoring the left just a little.

Then I think I will put a post on dieselplace about them.

[oil pan 4]

I pulled the halogen bulbs. Just as I suspected they are high beam only.
These LEDs units want to stick out about an 1/8 of an inch more than the original head light. Surprisingly the head light pocket needed no modification and when you tighten down the head light bracket everything goes right into place.
I did have to cut the low beam prong off, aka the redneck H4656 to H4651 conversion.

The factory halogen bulb draws 3.8 amps with just a 12 volt battery and with my little battery charger hooked up to my battery the halogen draws 4.1amps at 13.8 volts.
Which adds up to 57 watts on near charging voltage, could be right at 60 watts at 14.4 normal charging system voltage.
These should only be 50 watt head lights.
To be fair, note these are 35 watt LED versus what turned out to be nearly 60 watt halogens.

Not the huge savings I thought it was going to be, only 1.3 amp per high beam bulb.
That's 2.6 less amps to draw during EOC or with the alt disconnected.

Playing with the halogen high beam (H4651) they appear to throw a wider beam, but the LED high beams appear to be brighter over all.
The good H4651 high beam lamp is $22 at O'rielly auto parts.

I wont be able to road test it tonight, as soon as I touched the head bracket screws on the passenger's side the ancient plastic head light aimers just crumbled. As soon as I go over a bump the pass side high beam will go cross eyed.

[oil pan 4]

Here is tonights test. On the drivers side we have a standard top H4546 Lo/Hi beam and lower LED high beam. On the passengers side we have OE style halogens top and bottom.


I actually don't hate the way the LEDs look.

I think we have a winner...

Less amps, more light.
This test was only at 13 volts with my battery charger hooked up trying to power all the lights on high beam.
I could leave it like that and be happy, once the other LED is installed on the pass side.

Remember that picture of the LED light bar in the parking lot I posted that looked faked. I don't know if it was so much faked as the camera just freaked out when it picked up all that additional light. Just imagine 8 or 9 of these LED head lights on at the same time. That is what the 300 watt LED light bar puts off.

[oil pan 4]

I got the H4 LED replacements in today.
Installed them per instructions and it is very apparent they would be useless as low beams, blinding other drivers and getting me ticked by the police.
This seems to be a reoccurring theme with these LEDs.
But I think with some work, adjusting how the H4 LED sits in the housing and some blocking tape they can make good head lights with reasonable street manors.

I powered them up and checked them with my fluke325 amp clamp. They show 16 watts on the low beam and 26 watts on high.

The OE style halogen H4656 low beam by comparison is 58 watts, or 4.5 amps at 13 volts, versus the LEDs 1.25 amps at 12.5 volts.
That is a 6.5 amp savings, kind of nice if you have an alt delete.

[aardvarcus]

The problem with most of the less expensive LED headlights is that they don’t have any reflectors, thus the aim, cutoff, and optics of the light are limited to what can be achieved through only the output pattern of the individual LEDs, and as many have discovered that currently leaves much to be desired. There are better LED headlights out there that actually use fewer high powered leds with actual reflectors and optics, but be prepared to pay for them. Just as an example GE Nighthawk, Truck-Lite, JW Speaker, etc. LED replacement headlamps appear to have appropriate reflectors/optics to give a true low beam with an appropriate cutoff. (I have no experience with these bulbs, it just looks like it would actually work.) For those interested, there are a lot of good led headlight reviews and tests over on expedition portal, many of which have pictures of the beam patterns and show the cutoffs.

[oil pan 4]

Looks like if I turn the whole light assembly up side down, back the H4 LED out about 3mm and tilt the LED its self back slightly I get a pretty cut off pattern.
LOL

[oil pan 4]

I have been able to use these at night a little now and I have to say they don't have a spot lighting beam quite as good as old halogens but as a trade off they kind of just light up everything.
If there is any thing reflective on the road to include beady little eyes on or off to the road side I can see them quite well.
Now I can see road signs very clearly reflecting back at me from up to 2 miles away. I can tell what color they are and that's about it.

[oil pan 4]

Now moving on to attempt LED low beams again.



Here is the thermography to see how hot they get running high beam.
I am still adding an additional heat sink to the back.



Looks like I am going to set the beam pattern for each one. The passenger side will be fairly easy. Back it out 3 to 4 mm, rotate the H4 about 45 degrees to the left that will put almost all of the glare off to the side of the road. Which is great, use that glare to light up beady little eyes belonging to animals that like to dart out into my way just as I get up really close to them and idiots that insist on walking on the road as opposed to the side walk and wear dark neutral colors at night.
Passenger side is practically done.

The drivers side is going to backed off, tilted and rotated. I have it worked out as to what the orientation needs to look like now just need to lock it in the housing.