Edge Factory HID's

[Blown F-150]

Hey all,

Open to suggestions here. My Edge has factory HID's and they are very, very poor. I mean, you can't even see the road in front of you in the evening when there is on-coming traffic.

I have ordered a different set of bulbs and some LED Fog lights to get mounted before a very long road trip home next weekend.

I have tried messing with the alignment as they seem high, but after dropping them, I really don't get much for distance. the light is pretty much a horizontal line.

I am open to any ideas, I liked the lights RR added to the back of the truck, but they don't ship to Canada and I'm trying to make this happen in 7 days.

[Kitzy]

Those lights RR has can be bought from many places.  Amazon is one of them.  I would Google the part number and see why other places come up.  I think you might find they're entirely too bright for oncoming traffic though.  Anyway  I don't know how difficult it is to get things in to Canada from the states or how fast it is.  My 2011 Mustang had factory HIDs and they weren't very good either.  I always assume they were just aimed too low but you said you even tried adjusting them.  They had a very clean cut off line but just didn't really illuminate. 

[Blown F-150]

Thanks Kitzy, I found a local dealer that I am going to check out tomorrow. I agree the 2x2's might be a bit much. I see that Rigid has a nice set of flush mount 3 LED lights. shouldn't be as bright.

I really just need to light up the first 15 feet or so right in front of the car. I really don't want to blind on-coming traffic and would like to find a pretty focused light.

[Kitzy]

Rigid is awesome.  They make many different style lights.  From flood patterns to driving patterns and even combo patterns of both.  Their website even lists the lumens and gives projected light output in width and distance.  You'd be hard pressed to find a better quality light.  One of my fenix flashlights is 860 lumens and is said to be comparable to a headlight if that helps in the search. 

I'm actually going to be getting two 2 6" or 10" SR model rigid lights for the back of the truck.  At 3k and 5k lumen each, are they overkill?  You bet, but that's my style.  Haha.  Just would be more careful up front though.

[Too Stroked]

I?ve been experimenting with lighting improvements on cars since my first new car back in 1976. So I?ve got more than a few years of experience on this topic.

One of the most important lessons I?ve learned is that if the factory lights have a poor beam pattern, there?s almost nothing you can do with brighter bulbs or re-aiming to significantly improve things. On a side note, it absolutely astounds me that any manufacturer can come out with a new vehicle these days that doesn?t have decent lighting. It?s not rocket science. But on to your problem.

If you?re only looking to improve the lighting just 15 feet out in front of you, I?d suggest a ?fog pattern? light. That generally means a wide (135 degree) flat beam. (Think horizontal line when you?re facing a wall.) The theory with fog beams is that they project out and under a layer of fog and that the focused beam eliminates most reflected light. But, they don?t illuminate out very far because of this. You can generally run these all the time and not tick off oncoming drivers.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are ?pencil beams.? As the name implies, these provide a fairly narrow shaft of light that reaches out great distances. I had a set of these (Hella 500?s with 130 watt bulbs) on my Scion until recently and they were astounding. But, there?re so focused that they didn?t light up much on either side of the shaft(s) of light. You won?t be able to run these with anybody coming the other way.

So I changed over to a set of ?driving beam? lenses with the same bulbs. These have a slightly wider / flatter beam pattern and fill in much better. Overall, I think they?re a much better compromise. The one shortcoming is that when you flip them on ? and I have them wired through a relay to trigger with the high beams ? is that if you?re around a lot of road signs, the reflections are just short of blinding. And of course, you can?t run these with oncoming vehicles.

As Kitzy said, there?s also something called a ?mid beam? light. These are more of a combination driving / fog / headlight beam. I added a set of these to my ex?s Mazda 626 many years ago because the OEM headlights were so poor. They more than made up for the poor headlights. And you can run them all the time. These are getting pretty hard to find though. Hella used to make a good one in their 550 series, but I think it?s discontinued.

With all lighting, you can play with bulbs to increase (or inadvertently decrease) the amount of light that comes through. HIDs are a big bump up from Halogens, but simply plugging in an HID light source in a housing / reflector designed for an incandescent bulb is generally a recipe for ticking oncoming drivers off. (That?s why most HIDs use projector lenses ? to tightly focus the beam.) LEDs are the latest and greatest light source and they draw very little power for the amount of light they put out. Recon makes some great LED lighting, but pick your beam pattern based on what I mentioned above and aim carefully.

Hope that helps.

Tom

[Blown F-150]

Thank you very much for the info Tom! I went to a truck accessories dealer close by and they had had great selection of lights as well as most of them set up on a rack so you could turn them on and check out the beam.

I ended up going with these:
http://www.rigidindustries.com/product-p/90221.htm

They seemed to have a nice beam that was flatter than I expected for a "Spot" light.

I pick them up on Monday as they had to bring them in from the warehouse.

Now I just have to figure out how to mount them...

I also ordered some different bulbs that have a higher Luemen??? rating.

I'll post up results!

[Too Stroked]

Thank you very much for the info Tom! I went to a truck accessories dealer close by and they had had great selection of lights as well as most of them set up on a rack so you could turn them on and check out the beam.

I ended up going with these:
http://www.rigidindustries.com/product-p/90221.htm

They seemed to have a nice beam that was flatter than I expected for a "Spot" light.

I pick them up on Monday as they had to bring them in from the warehouse.

Now I just have to figure out how to mount them...

I also ordered some different bulbs that have a higher Luemen??? rating.

I'll post up results!

Looks like a real nice choice to me. Tell us how you like them because I'm looking for something to bump up the pathetic power of my high beams on the F-150.

[sscully]

Tom,

Check behind the 2 plastic "warts" on the bumper, to see what you have for mounting room.

If you have 4.75", take a look at the Hella 120mm modules.



I tried the 90 mm fog lamp module in the place of my stock fog lamp, and they are not much of an increase over the plastic fog lamp from Ford ( at least for the cost and work they are not )


I am starting on the 120mm low beam fitting now in the factory fog lamp mount.

If you have the room, you would add these ( in high beam ) to the black warts on the bumper and have them be flush mount from behind.

I don't think it has the room, but if you can mount ~ 8.75", you could go with the integrated Rallye 4000 mount.


Rallylights.com still has some of these in stock.

I have the 4000 in my hella grille and they work great, but as you posted, with road signs they can actually blind you back ( have H1 Silverstar bulbs in there ).  Figure a low beam 120mm module replacing the stock fog lamp position might do some good ??
- That is an opinion, thus why I am adjusting the mod.  Might find out it is for not..

[Too Stroked]

Steve,

Yea, that looks like it might work, but I'm not quite ready to mess with the fog light openings on my 2010 just yet. What I want to replace is what's behind my grill. And unfortunately, the grill on my 2010 doesn't have a lot of openings to shoot something out of. Here's what's in there right now:

http://www.f150online.com/forums/illumination-lighting/450642-lights-behind-grill-2009-2011-trucks.html

What I'd like to try to do first is replace those Hellas with something equally compact, but with a lot more fire power. Those little Recon LEDs - probably in the spot beam pattern - might just do the trick. Dimensionally, they look like a perfect fit too. What do you think?

[sscully]

Sorry on your application, leave the factory fog lamps alone.

The Black plastic warts ( end cover ) on the bumper, how much room if behind that ?

Item #22


This is what I was thinking with a set of the 120mm high beam modules ( don't laugh, it was done in mspaint ) not really to scale, 120mm is ~ 4.75". 



These are made to be mounted, and have adjusters on them to aim.

The end cover is 31.20 from Tasca if it does not work out.

If the 120 mm module is too deep at ~ 7-7/8", you could always go with the Hella Free form H4 hi/lo beam unit, which is ~ 5.75" wide and ~ 3-3/8" deep.

- This gives you high and low beam operation which you can wire the low to a switch and the high beams to a relay operated by the truck's high beams ( and switch the ground on the relay if you want to be able to shut them off ).

Don't like the lamp sticking out, go with one of the Hella flush mount lamps


This is ~ 2.5" deep.

bunch of Hella flush mount in black plastic options
http://www.rallylights.com/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=1076


I have never been a fan of trying to get useful light from behind a grille.  Unless mounted at least flush with the grille, there is always going to be something blocking the illumination pattern, and decreasing the usefulness of them.

[Blown F-150]

I like what you did you with yours behind the grill TS. I was originally looking at a traditional light vs. LED's but decided to go with LED's mostly for aesthetic purposes. Obviously the operation is very important here, but I don't want to chop up too much plastic or have some truck like lights on a Crossover. There seems to be a bit more "freedom" with choosing truck lights as there are more mounting options. With the edge, looks like I don't have much more than plastic to mount to. The lights I picked out are pretty light (ha, I mean weight wise) so hopefully there won't be much shake...

[Too Stroked]

Sorry on your application, leave the factory fog lamps alone.

The Black plastic warts ( end cover ) on the bumper, how much room if behind that ?

Item #22


This is what I was thinking with a set of the 120mm high beam modules ( don't laugh, it was done in mspaint ) not really to scale, 120mm is ~ 4.75". 



These are made to be mounted, and have adjusters on them to aim.

The end cover is 31.20 from Tasca if it does not work out.

If the 120 mm module is too deep at ~ 7-7/8", you could always go with the Hella Free form H4 hi/lo beam unit, which is ~ 5.75" wide and ~ 3-3/8" deep.

- This gives you high and low beam operation which you can wire the low to a switch and the high beams to a relay operated by the truck's high beams ( and switch the ground on the relay if you want to be able to shut them off ).

Don't like the lamp sticking out, go with one of the Hella flush mount lamps


This is ~ 2.5" deep.

bunch of Hella flush mount in black plastic options
http://www.rallylights.com/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=1076


I have never been a fan of trying to get useful light from behind a grille.  Unless mounted at least flush with the grille, there is always going to be something blocking the illumination pattern, and decreasing the usefulness of them.

Steve,

Good thoughts and suggestions - as always. The only problem with mounting anything on those "warts" is that they're the first think to run into anything on the front of the truck. I could just see somebody smashing them in a parking lot and not even know they did it to me.

Truth be told, it's much harder to find a place to effectively mount aftermarket lighting these days. In the good old days, one could just mount right to the bumper. Now, that's all plastic, not stiff enough or inaccessible. That's why I've gone behind the grill since my '97 F-150. Yes, you do lose some light, but the amount that I used to be able to sneak out was more than enough. In fact my son has my old Hella 550s behind the grill on his Grand Marquis and his buddies can't believe the amount of light he puts out with is high beams and those bad boys blazing.

I may order the Rigid lights, then again ...

[Too Stroked]

Well, I whimped out and decided to use some lights that I already had sitting around. Basically, I had a spare set of Hella 550 driving beams with 100 watt amber bulbs just sitting on the shelf. Some quick measurements showed that with some minor modifications to the existing bracket behind my grill, these bad boys would fit ? with some shrouding issues. So, a couple of hours of disassembly, trial and error fitting, modification and wiring later, here?s what I?ll try tonight:

[Kitzy]

You should get the 10" SR from Rigid, Tom.  Mount it up like this one.  This bad boy throws some light.  5k lumen.  I want two for the back bumper. 



I'll try to find a picture of one that a guy has mounted up on his quad.

[Kitzy]

http://www.grizzlycentral.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36459