So since they're the same-looking bulb and since that Virgil guy didn't go into too much detail about what comes stock in the premium projectors instead of just further explaining the name past the acronym, What's the difference between a 9005 Long Life and a 9005 superluminous plus that was in the lowbeams?
The SL (superlumin
ance) bulb has optimizations to the filament to give it a higher luminance (expressed in cd/m
2, or "candela per square meter"); higher luminance means more light being emitted for the surface area. As a result of these optimizations, you get more beam 'punch' and a better-focused beam (the total light output being more constrained to a smaller emission surface)-- but you also get reduced lifespan.
With a "long life" bulb you get... a long bulb lifetime. You also get a poorly-focused beam with less punch, and, despite "long life" being in the name it's not a long *useful* life. The bulb will blacken over time, and the filament will degrade, and the bulb will continue lighting up long after it stopped producing even the minimum required light for its spec.
You sound like you're a lot more knowledgeable when it comes to automotive lighting than I am
I've been doing this a long time.
but other than the fact the lights didn't last for crap compared to what I paid for them, I thought they were awesome and I loved them.
As before, poor lighting is often more impressive and comfortable to drive with based on the nature of its poorness. Oversaturation of the foreground, or too much glare in glare zones, can appear to the driver that they are "seeing better".
Half the time I didn't even have to use my highbeams because those low beam HIDs put such a perfect focused area of light all in the right place
Impossible, because the arc-discharge light source has two hotspots equidistant from the light center length rather than *at* the light center length. A lamp designed for a halogen bulb is focused at the light center length rather than being designed around the twin hotspots.
and with my fog lights on to further illuminate the sides of the road, I could see just fine even without my highbeams.
Fog lamps are for lighting up the road markings and some of the edge of the road beyond the markings, they aren't for lighting up very far into the shoulder or the other lane. They are not auxiliary low beams and are not meant for use in clear weather. This is not their design.
Further, by having that extra foreground light, you're reducing your ability to see way off in the distance. Once you're going over 45mph, the reality is you need to be using high beams (where other traffic, both approaching or leading, permits). It's bad enough when having to remain on low beams in those conditions but you make it worse by putting just that much more light in the near field.
But really the only time anybody ever highbeamed me was if I had the fog lights on but those were just a little bit on the bright side so I just tried to avoid using those for the most part when there was a lot of oncoming traffic.
Probably because they had bulb-shaped LED toys in them. A similar problem with HID kits exists with LED "drop-ins": The lamp assembly is designed for a hotspot of a particular size in a particular location; the LED hotspot(s) are generally close to the light center length or axial center of the filament bulb it attempts to emulate. This throws off the focus badly. (Not that getting flashed or not getting flashed is a reliable indicator that you are or aren't generating excessive levels of glare.)
You're right, I'm not gonna argue with this but the only reason why I do use them even if it's not foggy out is because I like to be able to see the side of the road and so far, I've never had a headlight or headlight/light bulb combination that does that well with just the lowbeams enough without the use of fog lights.
You're misusing them. Fog lamps are fog lamps-- if your low beams aren't providing adequate width there may be something wrong (or you're expecting way too much from low beams). And then you installed "LED bulbs" which ruined the performance of the lamps. Again, the human optical system is such that we're fooled by a poor headlamp beam into thinking we have a good one.
Like I said in my first post, before the HIDs and the LEDs, I was quite pleased with the ZXEs But after running the other bulbs for so long, those same bulbs I had before seemed to be all the sudden no better than the really junk bulbs that came in my headlights when I bought the truck brand new.
It's still impossible for a headlamp designed for a filament bulb to perform better with an arc-discharge capsule. It's physics. You may well remember "angle of incidence equals angle of reflection"; replacing a single central hotspot with two hotspots means two hotspots whose light hits the optics with different angles of incidence from what it was designed for. (Similarly, a halogen bulb in an HID projector will result in a malformed beam. It's not a question of the amount of light, it's a question of the light emission pattern of the source.)
Increased glare, I guess you're right but how is all that other stuff you said correct win the only difference I saw in the sockets was the one had the one center alignment tab right in the middle and the other bulb had two alignment tabs that were off to each side from where the tab was in the other bulb? After shaving that tab off in the new 9005's, the wiring harness fit just as tightly in the 9005 as it did in the 9006.
All those tabs are to prevent accidental installation of the wrong bulb. The wiring harness will fit tightly on the bulb, the bulb will not fit tightly in the light housing. The bulb can jiggle and pivot around. It's not safe.
So what are some good options for those 9011 headlight bulbs?
The Eikos only last 150 hours, are 12.8 volts, 5.1 amp, 2300 lumen and 3125k color temperature
Sylvanias are only 12 volt, last 500 hours, 5.4 amp, 2300 lumen and only 2800k color temperature.
Between those two, I'd take the Sylvanias (although you could end up with a Philips PFR (purchase for resale) in the package); Eiko is really not all that great.
The ratings on both of them should from the nominal/legal description of an HIR2, and as voltage increases the life changes to the power of -13, the output changes to the power of 3.4, and the power consumption changes to the power of 1.6 (all of these 'in general'; different metallurgy and fill gases can result in slight changes to the exponents). The math for those up there seem to be someone taking the nominal wattage and dividing by the voltage, not applying the real formula with the exponent. For example, 65W/12.8A=5.07A; 65W/5.41A. The reality is that as the bulb voltage increases, the current also increases.
But instead of either of those, the Toshiba HIR1 from Daniel Stern would be the yet better (rather, best) choice but they may cost a bit more.
