LED Headlight Install, 2000lm each no external driver

[Hornd]

I was basing that comment off the lumens that they put off. I was thinking for low beams you wouldn't want more than 2,500 lumens per bulb. Sound right?

Secondly, the socket is the same for the 9005 and 9006 right? It's just the designation between high beam and low beam... that's what i'm guessing?

Sockets are a little different, but nothing a rat file or Dremel with burr bit can't fix.
Grind the bulb not the socket!
Takes about 30 seconds.

 

[Brentbba]

Has anyone had a problem with radio reception when switching to LED headlights? I've had a set of Lifetime LED, 9003 configuration bulb which has high beam and low beam integrated. I noticed that when ever I turned my headlights on my radio reception immediately went to sh!t. Nearby stations got some interference, and far away stations went to nothing but static. I e-mailed Southeast Overland, who originally sold me the Lifetime LED headlights, and they had the manufacture send me some kind of interference harness. It plugs in between the driver and the vehicles wiring harness if I remember. It cured my problem right away, no more static.

Anyone else encountered this?

YES!! Can't figure it out. I have Lifetime LED's - 9006 low beams on a "94 80 series. Set arrived and installed them. I love the light output. I did adjust down my lights a little as my first night trip out to the desert I got flashed several times. End of the trip I noticed a distinct issue with the PS. Short story, the ring with the tabs that seat the bulb tight was loose and spinning around so the bulb wouldn't seat properly in the housing. Lifetime LED sent a brand new box of two, so I have three of these now.

Problem is when I plug in the PS my radio reception is for sh!t. Lifetime recommended I check the ground. Looks fine. From both my research and their second recommendation I ordered and installed ferrite core/RFI chokes on the wire from the bulb. That's supposed to 'choke' off any interference that may be coming from the bulb assembly. Doesn't work. I've swapped in all three bulbs on the PS and still no luck with radio reception with the headlights on. I'm thinking first that I need to recheck the ground on the truck side of the PS wiring harness or perhaps splicing in a separate ground wire. Thoughts on that?

My only other thought would be the Slee harness upgrade to bypass the truck harness that 'seems' to be causing the RFI. I'd think that wouldn't be necessary and it seems that it's only the two of us that have run into this issue. I have an aftermarket radio installed by an extremely high end shop with a superb reputation. May call them for suggestions on the RFI as well as the radio install is over a decade old.

Lifetime has been awesome with their customer service and has even offered, at this point, to send me two more bulbs, but I can't believe it's the bulb at this point outside of the fact that I didn't have this issue with the original pair. One poster mentioned Southeast Overland fab'ing up a wire harness of some sort to put between the bulb and truck. I purchased all this from them, but haven't involved them to this point as Liftime's warranty/customer service has been very helpful and responsive.

HELP!!!

PS - I've got Lifetime LED light bars on my ARB bumper and roof rack and have no RFI with them at all. They are superb!! 3 20" bars facing front (one on bumper and two on rack) and 6" on each side with two 6" off the rear of the roof rack.

 

[george_tlc]

Good luck on the RFI/EMI. A snap on choke etc will do extremely little to solve your problem - as you have discovered.

Basically a LOT of these cheap LED lights have had very little or no design effort put into reducing RFI at the source. I have designed several commercial products for the aftermarket automotive lighting area (high power LEDs) and the driver needs to be designed to address RFI right from the get go. Trying to tack things on as an afterthought (chokes etc) will do little.

I've examined some commercial products (such as from Rigid lights) and they make a 'small' attempt at RFI suppression, but they still are little radio stations of noise Spectrum analyser and a LISN shows just what kind of nasty stuff ends up on the power wiring - and that radiates/conducts into everything (especially radio equipment).

The products I designed, you can wrap the power cord of the light around the vehicle AM/FM antenna and not notice any noise, even on weak stations. Takes time & effort to get right.

Some products (light bars) behave better - since their power wiring is short or direct to the battery and so less chance of it coupling onto everything. Headlights are more of an issue since they couple into a lot of the vehicle wiring - with wiring going back into the cabin for the light switches.

cheers,
george.

 

[concretejungle]

I still wish... hint hint @NLXTACY that someone would take some headlights and offer a bolt on solution. Either do some leg work and find the right LED bulbs and sell them, or offer an entire headlight system.

I HATE the 80 headlights. If i turn on the brights, they work, but the low beams just suck. I also don't want to add a bunch of extra wiring and external lights. My 200 has excellent headlights.

 

[NLXTACY]

I still wish... hint hint @NLXTACY that someone would take some headlights and offer a bolt on solution. Either do some leg work and find the right LED bulbs and sell them, or offer an entire headlight system.

I HATE the 80 headlights. If i turn on the brights, they work, but the low beams just suck. I also don't want to add a bunch of extra wiring and external lights. My 200 has excellent headlights.

The solution is out there but I don’t have the stomach to sit thru and find it right now

 

[scottryana]

3+ years on my LED's and I haven't had any issues or problems with the radio....

 

[Brentbba]

3+ years on my LED's and I haven't had any issues or problems with the radio....

Seems to be true for most of you!

Going to try a direct to ground per Lifetime LED's original suggestion and see if that helps. Aftermarket radio perhaps?

George - you are the best with electronics on this board - any other suggestions?

 

[george_tlc]

Seems to be true for most of you!

Going to try a direct to ground per Lifetime LED's original suggestion and see if that helps. Aftermarket radio perhaps?

George - you are the best with electronics on this board - any other suggestions?

All I can suggest is to run short wires and take them to the battery if possible (relay near battery). This will at least only inject conducted noise back to the battery (which can act as a pretty big capacitor) and then hope that the wiring back to the radio etc will attenuate conducted noise enough.

The issue is with LEDs that have DC : DC switching regulators to create the constant drive current for the LEDs. The switching noise that runs at a few hundred kHz is what the radio etc picks up. The switching that occurs has very fast and high current edges and the harmonics is what then becomes bad news for AM/FM frequencies.

Here's an example of a Rigid LED (4x LED) rectangular light. The purple trace is the conducted noise on the power leads of the Rigid light. This is a scan from essentially DC to 300MHz. The yellow trace is with the power turned off - the wires are just acting like an antenna and you can see a peak where a strong FM radio station is being 'received' (near 100MHz). Pretty clear that if the Rigid power wiring was near where the radio antenna lives that the FM station (well all of them...) would be wiped out.

The blue scan is of one of my 60W LED drivers being tested. Significantly quieter...

Date as can be seen is back in 2014. I've had to resolve these kind of issues at design time to provide a quality product. The Rigid is considerably better than some no-brand units I checked. Unfortunately this kind of information is not provided to potential customers so it becomes a total luck of the draw what you end up with. Then add in differences in how the LED lights are wired up and located and it's not surprising that some folk have (or perceive) no issues and vice versa

Many/most of the LED light resellers have no idea of these issues or how to address them. So, suggestions of ground wires or replacement units are thrown out in the hope that the customer just learns to live with the issue. Or maybe the replacement unit comes from another batch and the driver design is different (the made in china stuff changes daily...) and the noise spectrum is different. Also depends on how strong your am/fm radio stations are and which ones you listen to (different frequency) etc etc...

cheers,
george.

 

[Tapage]

there are other sources besides radio stations .? ( I don't listen radio )

 

[Brentbba]

Thanks for the detailed response George. Any coincidence that it's the PS headlamp causing the issue as it's closer to the antenna? Radio signals are pretty strong where I live. Assume a simple tin foil Faraday Cage would just be another snake oil remedy?

 

[george_tlc]

Yeah, tin foil hat wouldn't do much

The problem is that the noise is mostly conducted - so it's in the wiring and that then conducts into sensitive inputs or can act as a transmitting antenna and radiates out until your radio antenna receives it.

You could experiment by running a power cable 'extension from the lights and laying it near the radio antenna, moving it away and see if you can minimize the noise. Bit of black magic involved...

Of course it's not just your fm radio that will cop the noise - it will affect ham radio equipment too - though most folk will be stationary/camped and LED lights off during that kind of use.

On motorbikes the issue is am/fm radio reception of music etc and also fm transceivers for bike/bike/passenger communication...

cheers,
george.

 

[Brentbba]

Interesting. Haven't had the HAM on yet. Will have to see tomorrow evening.

 

[cme4lyt]

I still wish... hint hint @NLXTACY that someone would take some headlights and offer a bolt on solution. Either do some leg work and find the right LED bulbs and sell them, or offer an entire headlight system.

I HATE the 80 headlights. If i turn on the brights, they work, but the low beams just suck. I also don't want to add a bunch of extra wiring and external lights. My 200 has excellent headlights.

This is no easy feat ! Our headlight housings are designed around the incandescent/halogen lamp envelope that has totally different optical characteristics to a LED source. There is no easy fix so we’re stuck with mediocre headlights.

I think a better strategy is to supplement our mediocre headlights with good quality aftermarket LED spot/flood lights that add to the lighting experience.

 

[lumbee1]

Yeah, tin foil hat wouldn't do much

The problem is that the noise is mostly conducted - so it's in the wiring and that then conducts into sensitive inputs or can act as a transmitting antenna and radiates out until your radio antenna receives it.

You could experiment by running a power cable 'extension from the lights and laying it near the radio antenna, moving it away and see if you can minimize the noise. Bit of black magic involved...

Of course it's not just your fm radio that will cop the noise - it will affect ham radio equipment too - though most folk will be stationary/camped and LED lights off during that kind of use.

On motorbikes the issue is am/fm radio reception of music etc and also fm transceivers for bike/bike/passenger communication...

cheers,
george.

I built two mountain bike lights out of your Fatman converters. I love them and still use them on a regular basis but just with camping and less with biking.

 

[george_tlc]

I built two mountain bike lights out of your Fatman converters. I love them and still use them on a regular basis but just with camping and less with biking.

Now that's a blast from the past. Stopped selling fatman drivers about 6 years ago. The original design was somewhere in 2004. Been doing this led driver stuff for way too long

Great to read they are still doing good service for you.

cheers,
george.

 

[concretejungle]

I have not had any issues with the LED bulbs i purchased in regards to iPod playing and some radio. But in honestly i never listen to the radio and i have a hand held radio for communications while on teh trail and i have not had issues with interference on it.

With that said, i think the LED bulbs suck. The light is really scattered and not focused so in essence it's not a very usable output. IMHO

 

[concretejungle]

This is no easy feat ! Our headlight housings are designed around the incandescent/halogen lamp envelope that has totally different optical characteristics to a LED source. There is no easy fix so we’re stuck with mediocre headlights.

I think a better strategy is to supplement our mediocre headlights with good quality aftermarket LED spot/flood lights that add to the lighting experience.

It is starting to feel more and more that you are correct. I guess to retrofit these old housings with good lights is just not cost effective..