Spyder headlamps.....my take on 'em...and LIGHTING in general

[Chilledspode]

Just a useful note, went to my local GM dealer for the fun of it, and asked if I could still get factory headlamps with mounting assemblies. Was gobsmacked when he said yes and for only $110Cdn a side. I can't get decent plastic ones for that. Cheers

 

[df2x4]

Digging this awesome thread back up because I've got the itch to improve upon the lighting in my trucks once again. I'm still running Sylvania XtraVision 9005 and 9006 bulbs in both trucks, and some recent research has led me to believe that they may not be all that great. Armed with the great information that we've learned here together, I fired off an email to Daniel Stern Lighting. I asked him a bunch of questions about the headlights in these trucks and what bulbs he recommends these days. Here's the summary of what he told me.

As many of us know, the composite housings in these trucks are not a great design to begin with. The best option would be swapping to a W/T grille that uses the 5x7 rectangular sealed beam headlights, enabling the use of the TruckLite/GE/JW Speaker sealed LED lamps. I really don't want to swap grilles, so I asked him about swapping to the earlier quad beam setup that takes sealed H4703 and H4701 lamps. He told me that would be a step backwards from the composites, so I promptly abandoned that idea.

I asked about modifying HIR bulbs to fit the composite housings, and he confirmed my suspicions from earlier in the thread. Upgrading the high beams from 9005s to 9011 HIRs is a great idea, but the low beams should NOT be upgraded to 9012s in housings that do not have a glare cap as the 9012 bulbs lack the painted tips that the 9006s have. Doing so would cause glare issues to oncoming traffic. With that said, here are the bulbs he recommended me.

Low beams:
Philips X-TremeVision +100 9006
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U1OLM1Q

High Beams:
Philips 9011 HIR Standard
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00480J5CW

In the past I've been led to believe that any blue tint on the bulb glass would diminish brightness, so I tend to steer clear of it entirely. However doing some reading on the CandlePower Forums has led me to believe that in the specific case of the Philips X-TremeVision +100 9006s, the blue ring is outside of the main beam so not super invasive, and only there to actively diminish lumen output so that the bulbs still adhere to 9006 specifications. Basically they're almost too bright to be legal as 9006s so the blue cuts down on output a tiny bit. I have a follow up email out to Daniel Stern to confirm this, but I'm pretty sure that's what's going on. I'll update when he answers.

I'm going to get some of these bulbs ordered and see what happens. Especially excited to see what kind of difference the 9011 HIRs make in the high beams!

EDIT - Here's a link to the CandlePower page explaining the HIR bulb tab modification to fit them in 9005/9006 sockets for those who are curious. I know it's been linked in here a few times before but this might prevent someone having to dig for it.

https://store.candlepower.com/mohirbuba.html

 

[df2x4]

Just got a response from Daniel Stern about the blue tint on the glass of the Philips X-TremeVision 9006s. Looks like I was correct in my assumption that it's not a detriment to performance in this case. He did a much better job of explaining it than I did, so I'll just post his response below.

"Any of the blue-glass "extra white" bulbs is a nonstarter as
far as seeing better is concerned. Sylvania
Silverstar/Ultra, PIAA, Hoen,
BlueVision, CrystalVision, TruView, Nokya, Polarg, etc. --
all the same scam. They produce _less_ light than ordinary
bulbs and have a very short life due to the light blocked by
the blue glass. All it does is change the beam color, which
doesn't help anything (except arbitrary appearance
fashion/style).

Now, what about the blue ring just below the tip of ultra
high output +80/90/100 bulbs like the Philips Xtreme Power,
GE Night Hawk Platinum, Tungsram Megalicht +100, etc? That's
actually completely different. The marketers say this is
there to make a fashion statement with your headlamps, and
yes, from various off-axis angles as you observe the
headlamp, you might see some blue glint, but it doesn't tint
the light in the actual beam, and that's not the actual
reason it's there. It's really there to cut the mean
spherical output of the bulb down to legal levels as tested
in an integrating sphere (the machine used to measure light
output from a bulb to determine if it falls within the
legally required range). The blue ring filters a part of the
bulb that has nothing to do with beam formation because it's
not located between the filament and the reflector. Gives
the kids a blue flash they can point to from certain angles
without colouring the beam or filtering out any usable
light. Meanwhile, the filament is pumping mad lumens through
the uncoloured glass where the reflector is looking. Clever
trick. It works."

 

[BNielsen]

Doing the 9011/9012 bulbs was probably the best thing I've done for my headlights. Until I did my 4Hi of course; I think mine are basic Sylvanias for the lows and Philips for the highs, but there's always room to improve lighting.
I do need to tweak the adjustment on them still as the beams cast a little to the left of the truck,

You must be registered for see images attach

Hoping to add a set of Harbor Freight lights in the bumper holes soon; any decent bulb upgrades for those?

 

[df2x4]

Doing the 9011/9012 bulbs was probably the best thing I've done for my headlights. Until I did my 4Hi of course; I think mine are basic Sylvanias for the lows and Philips for the highs, but there's always room to improve lighting.
I do need to tweak the adjustment on them still as the beams cast a little to the left of the truck,

You must be registered for see images attach

Hoping to add a set of Harbor Freight lights in the bumper holes soon; any decent bulb upgrades for those?

I forget which headlight housings you're using... Do they have glare caps over the low beams? Reason I ask is like I mentioned a couple posts up, the 9012 HIRs lack the painted bulb tip that the 9006s have so they might cause glare issues for other drivers if you don't have glare caps in the housings.

 

[98chevy2500SS]

Very useful information! Thanks for posting some information on bulbs that aren't intrusive with the blue tint, but will still give off a white light @df2x4.

I will have to check out those Philips Xtreme's and possibly order some. I got some NAPA NightVision Brilliants for the lows and highs, and are better than Sylvania SilverStar Ultra's and ZXE's IMO. They were on sale for $32/pair, not too bad, so it won't be a huge loss if I got rid of the them in the future.

So do HIR's produce a white color? If so, how do they do this without blue tint? I am looking to do this to the high beams only as the lows don't have a glare cap on them.

 

[BNielsen]

I forget which headlight housings you're using... Do they have glare caps over the low beams? Reason I ask is like I mentioned a couple posts up, the 9012 HIRs lack the painted bulb tip that the 9006s have so they might cause glare issues for other drivers if you don't have glare caps in the housings.

I've got a set of Ebay specials that are VERY similar to the old TYC Elegantes; I think @88GMCtruck has a set on his 6.5 Burb; I found them through one of his threads. And they do have the glare caps; I specifically made sure to find a better set of headlights with glare caps.
I had a set of glass lense lights but they were absolute junk. These are way better quality all around.

 

[df2x4]

Very useful information! Thanks for posting some information on bulbs that aren't intrusive with the blue tint, but will still give off a white light @df2x4.

I will have to check out those Philips Xtreme's and possibly order some. I got some NAPA NightVision Brilliants for the lows and highs, and are better than Sylvania SilverStar Ultra's and ZXE's IMO. They were on sale for $32/pair, not too bad, so it won't be a huge loss if I got rid of the them in the future.

So do HIR's produce a white color? If so, how do they do this without blue tint? I am looking to do this to the high beams only as the lows don't have a glare cap on them.

None of the good bulbs we're talking about here are going to produce a "white" light if you're thinking of something similar to the color of the SilverStar Ultras or ZXEs. Even the Philips X-tremeVisions with that little blue band are going to be somewhere around 3500K, which is fairly yellow. (And not a bad thing, as yellow light is actually much easier for our eyes to use than blue) Notice what Daniel Stern said about the X-tremeVisions in one of my earlier posts, the blue ring around the top doesn't actually tint the beam in any noticeable way.

The blueish white light is actually a bad thing, hence why I was concerned about the X-TremeVisions having blue tint at all. You want to stay away from anything that puts out light a similar color to SilverStars.

 

[98chevy2500SS]

None of the good bulbs we're talking about here are going to produce a "white" light if you're thinking of something similar to the color of the SilverStar Ultras or ZXEs. Even the Philips X-tremeVisions with that little blue band are going to be somewhere around 3500K, which is fairly yellow. (And not a bad thing, as yellow light is actually much easier for our eyes to use than blue) Notice what Daniel Stern said about the XtremeVisions in one of my earlier posts, the blue ring around the top doesn't actually tint the beam in any noticeable way.

The blueish white light is actually a bad thing, hence why I was concerned about the X-TremeVisions having blue tint at all. You want to stay away from anything that puts out light a similar color to SilverStars.

Good to know, I will probably just put my XtraVision's back on for now until I can get some X-TremeVisions. How much more improvement are the X-TremeVisions vs. the XtraVisions?

 

[Moparmat2000]

Anybody concider LED drop in headlamp bulbs that fit stock composite lamp housings? I saw these on evilbay and was wondering if anybody pulled the trigger on a set. I figure if they are bright, then the vibration resistance of LEDs, and low power consumption would also be a win.

The 2019 silverado actually uses LED headlamps. I was checking one out in the parking lot at work today.