Philips Ultinon 6000k vs McCulloch 6000k

[D'Ecosse]

Re: is it all about the HID bulbs then?!?

D'Ecosse --

The item described in extreme specificity in the thread is nowhere to be found on the page.

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?product=CAR

WLED 6-LED bulb
12 VDC 6-LED Wedge Base bulb (194/168 type)
Our brightest bulb of this type
Non Polarized

Select LED Color

Red
Amber
Blue
Green

You are correct Mike - my sincere apologies. I was surprised since I literally just received them a couple of days ago - guess helped clean them out!

I am somewhat impressed they remove that option from their drop-down list when they are out of stock

STOCK [SIZE=+1][/SIZE][SIZE=+1]
[/SIZE]Out of stock items are removed from the online store and cannot be ordered until we we have stock again, we do not accept orders for out of stock items. Please see our "out of stock" page to seen when items are expected back in. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]http://www.nsxprime.com/forums/

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According to their out of stock page they are expecting those to be available on 12-20.

I do stand behind that the correct information was available on the thread & that a little deeper research into the SuperBrightLeds site would have given the information I just found. My point was that you chose to disregard the 168/194 information supplied & appeared to be more intent on following the Sylvania recommendation.

Yes, I edited my initial comment re 3652 being applicable designation - I realized that I had speculated & didn't know for fact, so followed up with additional research. To be honest I had to search "google" to come across the 3652 - 194/168 is a much more common term for that item, especially since they are primarily used in Import vehicles. E-Bay search for example on "LED & 3652" in auto parts & accessories yields zero returns; same search on "LED & 194" has 197 items; "LED & 168" has 135 items.
You can take a look at those also & see if any take your fancy - LED & 194 E-Bay Search. or refer to the other site I linked previously.

It is your personal preference whether they have 1, 2 or 5 or 6 or ? LEDs, as long as the base is the same. I would speculate that all are going to be generally quite white (relative to incandescents) but may have a touch of blue depending on the quality of the device. That will also come down to personal assessment & taste - for example, I have a picture of the WLED6 (which I find white) posted & some users find them too blue. Generally (again dependent on device type & quality) more leds will produce a more intense light. LED's are generally very directional so you will find some multi-LED items have physically oriented them to compensate. Again, your personal preference as to whether you want focused or wide-angle.

Hope this is helpful - none of it meant to be argumentative.

 

[Malibu Rapper]

Re: is it all about the HID bulbs then?!?

I have a picture of the WLED6 (which I find white) posted & some users find them too blue.

In the history of the LED, blue was the most important color achieve. Without the true blue (gallium arsenide), they could not get a good white. I think the white is achieved by putting phosphor on the blue. But a true white is supposed to be difficult/impossible to achieve because white doesn't appear in the color spectrum so they had to blend colors, in the case of the white LED, blue and yellow. Yellow and blue make white. For those white looking incandescents, that's why they coat the bulb with blue.

The WLED6 bulb is still the brightest wedge bulb I've seen for its size. If you go incandescent white (those blue coated bulbs), be aware that some of these step up the wattage and they tend to burn out faster. In addition, some of these start to go yellow over time as that blue coating can get burned off. If someone figures out a way to put the Luxeon Stars in the 194/168 wedges, that would be the way to go but sometimes you have to win the Luxeon lottery to get matching colors even.

 

[D'Ecosse]

The 5 Led lamp here may be worth a look & at least by design, suggests a good combination of intensity & angle of view - it actually has what appears to be a SuperFlux style single item in the centre which in itself would be better than a single 5mm item.

 

[Malibu Rapper]

The 5 Led lamp here may be worth a look & at least by design, suggests a good combination of intensity & angle of view - it actually has what appears to be a SuperFlux style single item in the centre which in itself would be better than a single 5mm item.

Looks like the WLED5 on superbrightleds.com. A little cheaper on there as well. They say the WLED6 is their brightest bulb head on intensity wise the WLED6 will probably give you better results but from the side this would appear to be better.

WLED 5-LED Wide Angle LED bulb
12 VDC 5-LED Wedge Base bulb (194/168 type)
Super Wide Viewing Angle bulb uses 4 radially mounted LEDs aiming out the sides and one High Flux LED on top
Non Polarized

 

[Osiris_x11]

timing...

According to their out of stock page they are expecting those to be available on 12-20.

Yes, I edited my initial comment re 3652 being applicable designation - I realized that I had speculated & didn't know for fact, so followed up with additional research. To be honest I had to search "google" to come across the 3652 - 194/168 is a much more common term for that item, especially since they are primarily used in Import vehicles. E-Bay search for example on "LED & 3652" in auto parts & accessories yields zero returns; same search on "LED & 194" has 197 items; "LED & 168" has 135 items. You can take a look at those also & see if any take your fancy - LED & 194 E-Bay Search.

Grrr... these are for the front bumper combo-lights for '91-'01 NSX's, correct?!? (ie. 168/194)

I was just about to place an order for a set of these, as per Malibu's recommendation awhile back (I have whitensx's 6000K HID kit). I guess I'll just have to wait... these particular LED's appear to be the best match for my setup. . . :redface:

 

[Malibu Rapper]

Re: timing...

Grrr... these are for the front bumper combo-lights for '91-'01 NSX's, correct?!? (ie. 168/194)

I was just about to place an order for a set of these, as per Malibu's recommendation awhile back (I have whitensx's 6000K HID kit). I guess I'll just have to wait... these particular LED's appear to be the best match for my setup. . . :redface:

I have a confession to make. I ordered 6 of these by partial mistake last week. I forgot to order festoons. I actually only need 2. :tongue:

 

[D'Ecosse]

Re: timing...

.....I ordered 6 of these by partial mistake last week....

Aha! That's what we call a Market Maker - it's all about supply & demand - the price is what the market will bear from the (only) available supply (at least through 12-20).
It seems like the "bid" is $4.29 - what say the "ask"? <!--StartFragment -->

Just jesting of course - I know Malibu well enough for what he will likely do.

Remember too that these fit the license plate illumination I believe. That's why I got 5 for Martin - 4 to use & one spare (only since they're cheap & he's a long way away!), however they rarely fail relative to lifetime of incandescents.

p.s. 12/20 is less than 2 weeks away guys - hardly life or death!

 

[Malibu Rapper]

Re: timing...

Just jesting of course - I know Malibu well enough for what he will likely do.

Remember too that these fit the license plate illumination I believe. That's why I got 5 for Martin - 4 to use & one spare (only since they're cheap & he's a long way away!), however they rarely fail relative to lifetime of incandescents.

Yes, they do work on the license plate. Only thing is you will need some needle nose pliers to put them in there because the socket is recessed into the housing in such a way that you cannot stick your fingers in far enough. I use the 921 wedge bulb for my license plate. $3.70 ea for white bulbs, the have a longer base so are easier to put in and remove plus they have 9 LEDs. The 921 uses LEDs that are not as bright as the WLED 6, 7850 mcd vs 9300 mcd. The WLED6 also has a wider angle 35 degrees vs 22 degrees for the 921. I'll try to compare these two in the license plate application to get a definitive answer as to which one lights it best. One last thing, the 921s are polarized so you have to get the + - orientation right or else it will not light up whereas the WLED6 is non-polarized so it doesn't matter (just something to keep in mind before you put everything back together).

*EDIT* Bulbs all sold

 

[Osiris_x11]

Re: timing...

Yes, I don't need the 4 bulbs and I'll sell them at my cost + shipping. Ok 2 of them just got spoken for, so now I have one extra set. They are $3.64 each so I'll sell them $9 shipped to whoever wants it. PM me if anyone wants the 2, there is a flat $5 shipping if you order from superbrightleds.com so you will save a bit if all you wanted was these 2 bulbs.

Psst! Word on the street is you got some stuff... pm sent!

 

[D'Ecosse]

Re: timing...

,,,,, One last thing, the 921s are polarized so you have to get the + - orientation right or else it will not light up whereas the WLED6 is non-polarized so it doesn't matter (just something to keep in mind before you put everything back together)....

OK - I hadn't really thought about this until now, but how can LED lamps be non-polarized?
(edit - typo - had meant non-polarized - diodes are naturally poalrized!)

I think it must be something like this:

(the two colours show the different current paths when connected up one way or reversed)
,

 

[Malibu Rapper]

Re: timing...

OK - I hadn't really thought about this until now, but how can LED lamps be polarized?

I think it must be something like this:

(the two colours show the different current paths when connected up one way or reversed)
,

Eh? I got lost in the diagram. I just think of it in it's simplest form, single LED with a resistor for 12v application. That's the polarized and easy way of hooking it up. On the 921 bulb, you can see the resistors in the base, I didn't look at it too close but just looked like a real simple LED and resistor job. Sure enough I put the bulb in the wrong way and it didn't work. That's all the explanation I needed.

 

[D'Ecosse]

I mis-stated - I meant how can a LED be NON-polarized, since it naturally can only conduct current in only one direction like a conventional diode?

So my thought process was in creating an equivelant circuit for the non-polarized (like the WLED6) that can be plugged in either way round & still work. To enable it work with either polarity of source connected to either terminal of the lamp, it needs the 4 regular diodes to route the +ve voltage to the anodes of the LED and -ve to the cathodes, tegardless of how it's connected.

Too much time on my hands!

 

[Malibu Rapper]

I mis-stated - I meant how can a LED be NON-polarized

Yes, that was the question I was thinking of asking in my response.

While we are way off topic, I bought these LEDs from PepBoys for $10 that I used to light the cupholders and vents in my xB. The LEDs have no resistors on them, just a wire to + and -. The instructions don't make mention of using any resistors. I wired it straight to 12v and they don't burn out. Why? Are there 12v LEDs out there? The 3mm LEDs I hooked up to my power supply and set it to 5v and those burned out w/o resistors. That I can understand by pulling too much current but my 12v LEDs are a mystery to me still.

 

[D'Ecosse]

- mea culpa!

Sorry, I'm the one responsible for getting us way off track! (this is going to bore the pants off some people, so skip ahead folks! )

The 12 V units MUST have a resistor already incorporated in them - it's just not possible to have it operate directly at 12V (which is why your 3mm LEDs burnt out) without the resistor to drop the voltage & limit the current. The voltage & current will vary between devices so it is not always the same - you really require the specific design info (forward voltage & current specification) for the device to determine what value of resistor (if using a bare LED with no built-in, like your 3mm's) is required.

Here is a typical 3mm LED with spec of 2V and 20ma forward current, probably similar to yours.

Here are some with integrated resistor - you just can't see the resistor because it's manufactured into the device - like a very simplistic silicon chip (still simpler than a single transistor even)

Here is a calculator - there is also a link to a multi-led calculator & circuit designer - note that when you connect leds in series, you will still have the same current flowing through all of them but the voltages will stack up; i.e. 4 x LEDs with say 2V & 20mA rating, when connected in series will be equivalent circuit as if one led of 8V and 20mA.

You can also follow that the current has to change if the supply voltage changes (unless the resistor was changed to compensate) - supplied voltage will be different depending on whether motor/alternator is running or not. Hence many will use a voltage regulator, at say 10V to ensure it is always constant. Note you could also connect 5 of the leds with 2V spec directly across the 10V regulator output with no resistor. So when designing a tail light for example, it is common to connect them in multiple parallel circuits of 4 or 5 leds each.

I was also prattling on in another post about PWM's (Pulse Width Modulator) to vary the intensity i.e. if you want to use same LED for a Brake & Tail application - by same design criteria, you can't just give it less volts to make it dimmer - you can to a Small degree but once below the forward voltage it simply won't illuminate. So the PWM will apply full voltage (via the full spec current resistor) either constantly, or by pulsing completely on & off at a given frequency (beyond eye comprehension) to give an effective reduction in average illumination, determined by the ratio of "on" to "off" pulse times.

Fun stuff eh? <!--StartFragment -->

 

[Bilulan]

Re: Philips bulb/ballast-igniter 4300K & 6000K HID kits...

Philips 6000K: $444.99-$449.99
"Ultinon"
http://www.xenondepot.com/category.php?category_id=3
http://www.xenonking.com/philips_6000.htm

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Thanks for the link Osiris. One of my HID ballasts went out this week. I bought my last 6000k kit during a group buy 2 years ago. I truly never thought I was getting the 3x's amount of light, as advertised with the old HID's

I received my Ultinon's today. I replaced the bad ballast side first, so I could get a side by side comparison w/ the Phillips Osram ballast/6000k bulb. The amount of light difference was DRAMATIC! Just like the first pictures posted in this thread, they are much whiter/brighter. I wouldn't say it has a real blueish tint to it, however, I didn't notice any yellow hues.

These look very sharp!

I would definatily recommend the folks at xenon king.

 

[Mike Hughes]

whiteNSXs,

Any chance you can sell your modified OEM parts separately? I want to use the Philips 4300K kit with your parts.

Thanks.

Mike

 

[Malibu Rapper]

Any chance you can sell your modified OEM parts separately? I want to use the Philips 4300K kit with your parts.

If you want to use the Philips 4300k kit on the NSX, all you need to do is drill a 3/4" hole in the dustcap, high in the dustcap. Then run the 9006 power cable through the grommet by way of poking a hole in the grommet. I cut the power wire and soldered the connection because it has big connectors on both ends of it. The pictures below show the hole in the cap and the wire being run. The NSX has the headlight wires reversed so the picture of the wire below is actually the wrong wire going to the 9006 connector. The connector and bulb will fit behind the weathercap provided that you drill the hole in the correct location (no extra parts needed). Much easier to do if you remove the headlight assembly and that's a piece of cake.

 

[MJK]

FYI, you don't have to drill the weather cap to make it work. I routed all my wiring through the stock acura grommet. Its a tight fit for all the wires, but is reversible and gave me a little more flexibility in how I crammed the relay and ballast into the headlight basket. (Malibu has a great DIY on that by the way, *see here*).

FWIW, I used the 4100K Phillips kit from HIDOnline and could not possibly be happier.

 

[Mike Hughes]

Thanks guys.

 

[dcrandon]

Some of you will find this useful.

I had a chance to take a picture of my car side by side with a McCulloch 6000k kit. Both are rated 6000k. I run the Philips kit from HID-Online.com although there are cheaper places to buy it from but beware, there are a lot of fakes. This gives you an idea of the variation between the different brands HID bulbs. The Philips kit has a slight UV tint to it while the McCulloch has a blue/green look to it. I'd say the Philips bulb puts out a whiter more intense light and has a look to it that you know it's HID and not a halogen bulb. Standing in front of them and even in the pictures there is a clear difference. There's a lot of difference between the color temperatures of what different manufacturers will rate their bulbs at and this just gives you an idea. All of these links are clickable for a full sized photo.

Ok guys, I'm going to resurrect this thread...I've got a few things to say that some may find interesting, informative or even boring, but...

As an optometrist, I know a lot about light and the human eye. And I've learned a lot about auto headlamps in my 20 years of owning cars and being real anal about headlights. So, that's my expert :wink: qualifications.

The three main things to consider in how good a lighting system is are brightness, beam pattern and color temperature.

Both brightness and beam pattern are very important. It doesn't do much good to increase brightness with an HID kit if the beam pattern sucks. Color temp is secondary to these.

Unfortunately, color temp is a thing that can fool the human eye into thinking that one light is better than another. At first glance, and for someone who really hasn't been educated on what to look for, a high color temp light (one that appears "blue") will seem "better" and brighter. In fact, if the light appears to have "blue" in it, rather than being "white" in color, it will in fact produce inferior lighting, all other factors being equal, which of course they never are. Light that appears "blue" scatters and produces much more glare in the atmosphere as well as the human eye. Unfortunately, manufactures don't always know/understand this, and there is also a market out there for "blue" lighting which drives their decisions.

By far most important is beam pattern, with brightness a very close second. To make it clear, brightness has nothing to do with color temp, except that increasing color temp will increase the "perceived" brightness of a bulb and make you think it's brighter.

The beam pattern produced is a combo of bulb optics (least important, but still important), lens and reflector design in the housing (very important), and physical relationship between the mounting of the bulb and the housing (very important, and frequently overlooked in design of aftermarket bulbs and housings).

Here is good link for info about beam pattern and color differences produced by the bulbs themselves.

http://faqlight.carpassion.info/hl-hid-bulbs.htm

You'd think that since light optics is a very well known science, that manufactures of OEM and aftermarket kits would always design lens/reflectors to produce good beam patterns. And indeed, it is easy to do this, but unfortunately in practice it doesn't happen. This is why everyone notices that some HID lighting systems cause huge amounts of glare to you from oncoming traffic as well as when coming up behind you, and some don't.

As an aside, one of the very best systems I've seen is in the S2000. Excellent brightness, white (not blue) light, and an awesome beam pattern (very even lighting both to the sides and well as in distance with almost no hot spots). One of the worst is a newer American truck/SUV (can't remember which one) that produces a very blue, very bright light with a terrible beam pattern that produces a hugh amount of glare. Made much worse when owners increase the ride height, but don't reaim the lights.

A good beam pattern will produce even lighting from left to right and at a distance in front of you with no hot spots. Also, a minimal amount of light above the horizontal cutoff, except perhaps to your right to light up street signs. The best way to judge this, like both put it, is against dark backgrounds. Use a dark asphalt street to judge for hot spots, and use a dark colored (not a white painted garage door) to judge hot spots and the horizontal cutoff.

Looking at the pictures that Malibu Rapper put up, the McCulloch, on the left, appears to have a much better beam pattern.Click on the pic to view it larger and look at the following:

Looking at the horizontal cutoff, you'll see that the car on the right has two "columns" of light that extend upward that are brighter than the car on the left. This will cause increased glare to drivers in front of you without producing anymore usable light.

Also, the car on the right produces several horizontal flares of light that are at about a 10-15 degree angle to the horizontal. This will also produce glare for drivers in front of you while producing minimal more usable light.

The car on the right also produces a very bright hot spot directly in front of it. It is easily visible as a semi-circle pattern. This light would be better distributed lower and to the sides. And this is indeed what the car on the left does. You don't see the hot spot anywhere near as much, and you can notice that at the bottom of the garage door it's much more evenly and brightly illuminated.

This dramatic difference in beam pattern could be due to the reflector/lenses in the housing. If this is identical between the two cars, then the difference is due to the physical relationship between the bulb and the housing. Usually this is the distance the bulb extends into the housing. Even though a bulb fits properly, there can be several millimeters of difference in how far the "filiment" of the bulb extends into the housing. A difference of only 1-2mm can make a dramatic difference in beam pattern.

Please note that my comments have no bearing on quality of construction, reliabiltiy or specific manufactures. Also, all these factors can vary dramatically withing the same manufacturers. I have seen BMW's, Mercedes, Lexus, and Acura's with great HID beam patterns and color temps. I've also seen poor examples from each of them as well.

Bottom line is, don't pay attention to color temp much except don't go for "blue" lighting. Don't mistake blue for brighter. The ratings are variable from one manufacture to the next because they are not using the same test methods, so you can't really trust that. Beam pattern is what you need to pay attention to.

For a good education about auto headlights, go to http://www.danielsternlighting.com. It's one of the best sites I've come across.

I hope this was interesting and helpful to some of you.

David

 

[Malibu Rapper]

David, thanks for the thesis.

Both my car and the car on the left use the same stock lenses/reflectors. Agreed with your point about the color temps, both manufacturers claim the same temp but you can see that the color difference in this case very noticeable.

 

[dcrandon]

David, thanks for the thesis.

.

yeah, I get a little verbose sometimes...

 

[nis350]

This dramatic difference in beam pattern could be due to the reflector/lenses in the housing. If this is identical between the two cars, then the difference is due to the physical relationship between the bulb and the housing. Usually this is the distance the bulb extends into the housing. Even though a bulb fits properly, there can be several millimeters of difference in how far the "filiment" of the bulb extends into the housing. A difference of only 1-2mm can make a dramatic difference in beam pattern.


David

Is it true that the bulb can install only one way in the NSX housing?

If that is the case, then we can really do much about it.

 

[dcrandon]

Is it true that the bulb can install only one way in the NSX housing?

If that is the case, then we can really do much about it.

Well, this is pretty much true. You are at the mercy of the manufacture. I suppose though that if you could figure out that the bulb was too "short" you could shave the base a little to get it in further....

Perhaps Malibu can shed some light on this. Why do you think there is a difference in beam pattern between the two cars?

David

 

[Acura NsX Pilot]

Well, this is pretty much true. You are at the mercy of the manufacture. I suppose though that if you could figure out that the bulb was too "short" you could shave the base a little to get it in further....

Perhaps Malibu can shed some light on this. Why do you think there is a difference in beam pattern between the two cars?

David

Were both set ups swaped to find out if the beam pattern followed the bulb or did the beam pattern remain the same?

Also if you set the two bulbs side by side and line up where the base sits so that both are the same you could then see if the internals of the lamp are situated the same exactly. I know when the first came out with HIDs they used to glue a base onto the lamp and how they determined the depth that it should sit at was to match up where the two lamps arc was in relationship to the base because that is where the light will come from.