Diode Dynamics SLF LED Fog Light Bulbs Installed

cavero

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I took advantage of Diode Dynamics black friday sale and snagged some SLF H10 LED bulbs for my fog lights! This is a long post for what amounts to changing light bulbs but these things are $$$ and I couldn't find much info from other people who might've forked out $90 (black friday sale price) for bulbs, and I wanted the next guy to have something to go back and reference.

https://www.diodedynamics.com/fog-light-leds-for-2002-2012-ford-mustang-gt-pair.html (note the link defaults to the XP48, the SLF are nowhere near that cheap)

I was between the XP80 (510 lumens) and SLF (780 lumens) and I've been trying to find specs for stock H10/9145's vs Silverstar and every website lists them differently (Sylvania's amazon store listed the basic bulbs as 1005, the same as SilverStar which I know from experience isn't true). Since I couldn't find a reliable rating, I decided to go with the SLF because might as well go big or go home. Diode Dynamics has a fairly generous exchange policy so I knew I could downgrade if I had to. But with their street legal claims I figured even if they were hugely brighter than the halogen bulbs they had a good chance of not glaring other drivers.

Initial Impressions

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They come with big metal heat sinks on both the bulbs themselves and the drivers and seem pretty decent quality. Compared with the Sylvania bulbs I'm upgrading from, the plastic on bulbs and the factory connections seem a little lower than factory quality, but still seem OK. The heat sink sticks out farther than the connector on the halogen bulbs, but not by a huge amount, and there's plenty of clearance behind the grille anyway, so not a problem. I also held them side-by-side and the LEDs themselves line up pretty well with the filament of the halogen, which bodes well for the "street legal" statements.

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Installation
Goes pretty much like...changing a light bulb -- with a few exceptions. I've managed to change factory bulbs without removing the grille before, but you're definitely going to want to remove it for this installation. Reason is because the bulbs don't like to fit into the housings and you're going to use some force to get these things to seat in all the way. I think their o-rings are either slightly to big, too grippy, or not elastic enough to squeeze in on their own. There was a review on DD's site that said he couldn't get them to lock and secured them with electrical tape! I have a feeling he's probably going to have condensation issues.

I gave them a light coating of silicone to help it but I still had to use some force to get them far enough in to lock the tabs.
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The same reviewer said he zip-tied the drivers so they weren't hanging though, which seemed like a good advice, so I went ahead and did that, making sure I wasn't putting any stress on the wires:



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Plugging the connectors into the factory wiring harness was also a little bit of an issue. Just like the bulbs themselves, they took a lot of force to get far enough into the sockets to latch. Even then I had to press the latches down to get them to click. I'm sure if you slightly sanded down the connectors by half a millimeter it'd be fine.




Comparison to SilverStars:

To do a fair comparison, I took before/after photos and put the camera on manual mode, locking the settings so things would stay consistent between the pictures:
shutter : 1/13 sec
aperture: f/2.8
white balance 4850k (this towed the line between both the HIDs and halogen bulbs looking as close in the pics as it did in my eye)

Here's the beam pattern and brightness of silverstar vs LED:

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Silverstar
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SLF LED


Definitely a lot whiter and seems a lot brighter too.


Now for these next set of pics, I had to do some photochopping. I haven't been driving the car much lately and the battery was low for the first set of pictures so I couldn't get a shot of the HID headlights and SilverStar foglights on at the same time, I had to get them in separate pics and stitch them together. And even though I had the white balance locked, for some reason the HIDs by themselves look a LOT more blue than they actually are. By the time I got the LED's installed the charger had done its thing so I could get the pics I needed. So here's a combo pic of the HID+LED overlaid with the Halogens. The colors are pretty accurate to what I was seeing in person. You'll notice the part of the photo w/ the LED and headlight is a lot brighter, thats because there was a whole lot more light being thrown out than just the halogen foglights by themselves (the camera settings were still locked).

dsc_7984_combo_c5d8c9afc446bf6d316da61d8785caed35a4838d.jpg


And just the LED's+HID's. In person there is a very SLIGHT difference in color, but you can't really see it unless you're looking for it. The LED's are slightly more cyan and the HID's are slightly more purple. I have no idea what bulbs are in the headlights or even what color temperature they are, they're the Saleen HID housings I got off eBay with bulbs already in them, but they seem pretty close to the 6K that the LEDs are.

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Driving Impressions:

I did a test drive last night (sorry no pics), and they seemed to work OK. Standing in front of the car I had no glare and I didn't have any other drivers flashing me. They lit up the sides of the road a little bit and pretty decently in front of the car, but weren't a jaw dropping WOW difference. I wouldn't go in expecting the sort of brightness you get from HID foglights where night becomes day, but those also glare the ****e out of other drivers and I got pulled over for those once. I wonder if the glare shields in the housing might have anything to do with it, since they sit right over the LED chips.

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06 T-RED S/C GT

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I was actually looking into making the switch from OEM to the DD SL1 LED fog lamps until reading the safety recall notice that you posted. It appears there have been reports/complaints about the SL1 led fogs as being too bright and causing excessive glare to oncoming traffic. According to the safety recall notice, it also claims that DD will replace all its SL1 led's with halogen bulbs in accordance with the recall. If these claims are in fact accurate? then I see no real advantage in upgrading from the OEM halogen fog light bulbs to the DD SL1 fogs which will be replaced with halogen bulbs over the current LED chips. At any rate, thanks for providing the link regarding the safety recall notification. That being said, I suppose it's also safe to assume the same will also apply to the Diode Dynamics SLF LED fog light bulbs as well :shrug:
 
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cavero

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Please check that they are not part of the DD recall. I just received a letter yesterday about this. I have DD in all my cars.

https://livingsafelyrecalls.wordpress.com/2020/10/23/us-nhtsa-recalls-diode-dynamics-headlamp-bulbs/#:~:text=Diode Dynamics, LLC (“Diode,delivered in the United States.


Wow I've never heard of a safety recall on aftermarket bulbs before. Good news is the H10's don't seem to be part of the recall:

Diode Dynamics, LLC (“Diode”), an Earth City, Missouri establishment, has recalled an estimated 27,890 model year SL1 LED Replacement Headlamp Bulbs, part numbers DD0215P, DD0216P, DD0217P, DD0218P, DD0219P, DD0323P and DD0340P marketed, sold and delivered in the United States.


Versus what Diode Dynamics has on their website for the H10 bulbs (mine underlined):

DD0151P $40 H10 HP48 LED Cool White (pair) 0.13 lbs
DD0156P $90 H10 XP80 LED Cool White (pair) 0.29 lbs
DD0285P $120 H10 SLF LED Cool White (pair) 1 lbs
DD0345P $120 H10 SLF LED Yellow (pair) 1 lbs


Looking up some of the part numbers, SLF and SL1 are two different levels (I initially thought SLF was just an SL1 for Fog lights, but not only are they different part numbers but they list different outputs too. SLF is 780 lumens and SL1 puts out 1630.
SKU PRICE NAME WEIGHT DRIVER COMPONENTS
DD0180P $40 H8 HP48 LED Cool White (pair) 0.13 lbs
DD0187P $90 H8 XP80 LED Cool White (pair) 0.29 lbs
DD0284P $120 H8 SLF LED Cool White (pair) 1 lbs
DD0215P $150 H8 SL1 LED Bulbs (pair) 1.1 lbs DD4067 SL1 Bulb Collar Set H8
DD0344P $120 H8 SLF LED Yellow (pair) 1 lbs

Weirdly enough, I'm able to find a couple of these recalled part numbers still for sale on their website. You'd think they would have put them "out of stock" or something.
 

06 T-RED S/C GT

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Just for your own piece of mind, I would contact DD by phone to bring them up to speed about your concerns regarding the recall notification. Despite the SL1 and SLF having different part numbers and putting out different output lumens, I would still be concerned as both are in fact H10's.. Here's the link provided below for the SL1 in H10

https://www.diodedynamics.com/h10-sl1-led-bulbs-pair.html
 

cavero

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Yeah I'll get ahold of them. I used the vehicle finder when I ordered and the SL1 H10's didn't come up in the results. Would've thought that might be how they're preventing people from buying them for on-road use. Then again they list them for the 2005-2011 Tacoma which uses H10's too.

I'll post when I hear back from DD
 

06 T-RED S/C GT

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When they didn't come up using vehicle finder, I selected forward lighting under the bulbs drop down list and they came up. Meanwhile, I'll be looking forward to your post when you hear back from DD, as I'm also interested in the SLF/SL1 H10 fog light kit.
 

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