Has anyone put an LED or HID kit in their headlight housing?
How does it perform?
How does it look on the road? Post a picture of the beam on a wall 20 feet away.
What kit did you use?
Please show me what you did. These halogen bulbs are constantly being replaced. Get a good 3 months of life out of them--and that's the longest I've had them last!
Calling all 5700XE owners/drivers--Need your help with headlamp bulb
Discussion in 'Western Star Forum' started by RocketyMan, May 4, 2017.
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Now taking the headlamp assembly apart(carefully)..you can see the housing is actually a projector. This is good stuff!
Here is the backside of the projector you can see:
This is the front side. You can actually see the filament of the H7 bulb in there AND the side plates making it DOT legal:
Here's a side-view of the projector. Note the side plates that only allow a certain part of the beam to pass through at a particular angle:
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Going through bulbs, are you touching any part of the glass with your skin? I always clean with rubbing alcohol before installing.
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I'm wanting people who drive 5700s to post any pictures with their headlight modifications. I'm thinking the HID setup would be the best. Something along these lines:
https://www.amazon.com/Kensun-HID-Xenon-Conversion-Kit/dp/B007CLM2JM?th=1
My concern with LED is that it'd be too directional, but maybe something like these:
https://www.amazon.com/Amak-Latest-...F8&qid=1493996517&sr=1-19&keywords=H7+LED+kit
A compare would be great...if any 5700 drivers would respond. Maybe nobody has done this yet or thought about it? -
I don't drive a Western Star but in my truck with "Normal bulbs" (even extra bright ones) I was wanting to install at least 1 set of auxiliary lights.
I had 3 problems with the factory bulbs. #1) Due to the type of housing the bulbs would get real hot and after a few months the connector was all "melted". Even with stock wattage bulbs.
#2) they never seemed bright enough, even with those "Extra wattage" bulbs (that would run even hotter and melt the plug that much faster).
#3) No matter what, even after just polishing the lenses to get the fog out of them, the lights always seems yellow looking at the light as sitting in the driver seat. Yellowish and not nearly enough light on the road.
While at the chrome shop looking for a decent light to use for a totally different application while paying I noticed behind the counter some LED lights. They had a set that fit my bulb type. The LEDs were on the side of a "metal shaft" that inserted into the housing, pretty much like the ones in the LED link you have. I was concerned about the placement of the LED chips on the "shaft" and how it would actually work.
1 thing I really did like is that the bulbs have a small fan that moves air across a small heatsink. Also the bulbs have about 4-6" of wire pigtail, moving the actual connection off the light removing the connector from the direct heat.
The shop gave me a 30 day no question refund period so I figured "What the he11, I'll give them a try".
Let me tell you this in no uncertain terms. That was without question the very best money I have ever spent on anything.!
Now I no longer even think about needing to install auxiliary lights. They are crystal clear, pure white and fill the road with perfect light everywhere I need it.
Before my lights were so poor I normally left my brights on almost all the time and (because they were so useless) only once every couple months would anybody flash me to dim the "brights".
Now, when on low I have never been flashed (which would tell me they are to bright) but if I inappropriately have my brights on almost everybody will flash me to dim.
All this tells me, yeah, these things work and work well on both low and high from both in the driver seat of my truck and the driver seat of oncoming traffic.
30 day refund? No way. In fact I would not give them back if they gave me 2x what I paid for them.
Hope this helps.RocketyMan Thanks this. -
@HaulinCars can you post a picture of your headlight housing? I'm wondering if you have a reflector type setup on your headlights.
That's some good info tho. I appreciate you telling me your experience. As far as the burning of the connector, the projector housing on the 5700 setup is metal. So it acts like a heatsink. Usually the connectors don't melt unless it wasn't fully seated into the housing. -
I would GUESS that a projector type housing would work as well or probably even better. -
Do the factory headlights on a 5700 suck that you are looking at modifications?
RocketyMan Thanks this.
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