60-Series Wagons Tech talk for the 60, 61, and 62-Series Cruiser wagons -- FJ62.com

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05-28-10, 05:23 PM

slcfj62

Semper Paratus

Join Date: Oct 2008

Location: In the valley of the Great Salt Lake.

Posts: 1,822

slcfj62's Garage

Waltzing Matilda

Semi-Scientific Headlight Bakeoff

I just concluded an experiment where I compared several flavors of sealed beam and several flavors of H4 headlights to each other. I set up my test inside my garage with the windows blacked out and aiming the headlights at a sheet of drywall up against the garage door about 12 feet away from the headlights. Power was supplied by a beefy 35A power supply with a constant voltage set at 13.5 volts. I measured reflected light intensity with a digital lux meter aimed directly at the most intense portion of the light pattern. The measured light was at the low end of the lux meter scale, but since the purposes of the test were just to compare the reflected intensity of the several headlights, the accuracy of the actual measurement is unimportant. Here are the headlights I compared. All of them are FJ62 rectangular headlights with the exception of the Sylvania XtraVision which is a round FJ60 headlight.

Sealed Beam:

Sylvania Silverstar H4656ST
Sylvania XvraVision H6024
Koito H4652
Wagner (No Part Number)

H4

AutoPal HL-106 H4
Hella Free Form (totally clear lens)
Cibie 082395

The Koito and the Wagner were on my FJ62 when I purchased it two years ago, so this test may not be fair to them because they have been used an unknown amount of hours. But, I threw them in the test just for comparison purposes.

My camera automatically adjusts the aperture opening to brightness, so the relative brightness of the various headlights is not accurate in these pictures. The pictures serve to show the light pattern. The digital light meter is used to determine relative brightness. In the pictures, the more of my ugly garage door with the cheepo cardboard insulation you can see above the hot spot, the more oncoming drivers will be blinded by the headlight.

So here we go with the pictures (LO beam first, HI beam second):

SECTION 1--SEALED BEAM

Sylvania Silverstar H4656ST

Notice the amount of stray light above the hot spot of the LO beam picture. This will appear as glare to oncoming drivers. It is interesting that with two of the three sealed beam rectangular headlights, the HI beam had less light intensity than the LO beam, it's just aimed higher and in some cases a little to the left. Also notice that the SilverStar has a whiter light than all of the other headlights.

LUX: LO=49 HI=36

LOW BEAM

HIGH BEAM

--------------------------------------------------------------

Sylvania XtraVision H6024

This is the only round headlight I had to test. There is stray light above the hot spot, but not as much as the SilverStar. Also the intensity of the light is higher than any of the rectangular sealed beam headlights, probably due to the round vs. rectangular design.

LUX: LO=63 HI=77

LOW BEAM

HIGH BEAM

---------------------------------------------------------------

Koito H4652

Notice the stray light above the hot spot. I don't believe this headlight is available, but I decided to show it because some vehicle lighting web sites that I have seen have high praise for Koito lights. I didn't see any visible superiority. In fact, the light pattern is very similar to the Sylvania Xtravision.

LUX: LO=49 HI=41

LOW BEAM

HIGH BEAM

---------------------------------------------------------------

Wagner (no part number on the light)

This headlight is terrible on LO beam. Notice how much of the garage door it lights up.

LUX: LO=25 HI=26

LOW BEAM

HIGH BEAM

---------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION 2--H4

All of the following headlights are H4 headlights. The exact same light bulb was used to test each headlight housing and is an AutoPal 60/55W H4 lamp.

AutoPal HL-106 H4

I bought this headlight on ebay. This headlight is very inexpensive compared to the other H4 headlights that I tested. You can see that the vertical cutoff is fuzzy and not much better than the sealed beam headlights. The low light intensity indicates a poorly focused beam. Both the Cibie and the Hella have much higher light intensity using the exact same bulb.

LUX: LO=39 HI=87

LOW BEAM

HIGH BEAM

---------------------------------------------------------------

Hella Free Form (the one with the totally clear lens)

This headlight had more stray light above the hot spot than you can see in the pic. Because the hot spot has more intensity, the camera aperture closes some and you can't see the stray light very well. What is interesting is that using the exact same bulb in the Hella as in the AutoPal gives a significantly higher intensity hot spot in the Hella. This is due to the headlight housing doing a better job of focusing the light.

LUX: LO=55 HI =117

LOW BEAM

HIGH BEAM

---------------------------------------------------------------

Cibie 082395

This is the headlight I have in my FJ62. You can see the sharp vertical cut off with the LO beam and the even distribution of light below the cut off line. There is very little stray light above that straight cut off line. This headlight is top shelf. Get it here.

LUX: LO=55 HI=113

LOW BEAM

HIGH BEAM

slcfj62 · 05-28-10, 05:23 PM

I just concluded an experiment where I compared several flavors of sealed beam and several flavors of H4 headlights to each other. I set up my test inside my garage with the windows blacked out and aiming the headlights at a sheet of drywall up against the garage door about 12 feet away from the headlights. Power was supplied by a beefy 35A power supply with a constant voltage set at 13.5 volts. I measured reflected light intensity with a digital lux meter aimed directly at the most intense portion of the light pattern. The measured light was at the low end of the lux meter scale, but since the purposes of the test were just to compare the reflected intensity of the several headlights, the accuracy of the actual measurement is unimportant. Here are the headlights I compared. All of them are FJ62 rectangular headlights with the exception of the Sylvania XtraVision which is a round FJ60 headlight.

Sealed Beam:

Sylvania Silverstar H4656ST
Sylvania XvraVision H6024
Koito H4652
Wagner (No Part Number)

H4

AutoPal HL-106 H4
Hella Free Form (totally clear lens)
Cibie 082395

The Koito and the Wagner were on my FJ62 when I purchased it two years ago, so this test may not be fair to them because they have been used an unknown amount of hours. But, I threw them in the test just for comparison purposes.

My camera automatically adjusts the aperture opening to brightness, so the relative brightness of the various headlights is not accurate in these pictures. The pictures serve to show the light pattern. The digital light meter is used to determine relative brightness. In the pictures, the more of my ugly garage door with the cheepo cardboard insulation you can see above the hot spot, the more oncoming drivers will be blinded by the headlight.

So here we go with the pictures (LO beam first, HI beam second):

SECTION 1--SEALED BEAM

Sylvania Silverstar H4656ST

Notice the amount of stray light above the hot spot of the LO beam picture. This will appear as glare to oncoming drivers. It is interesting that with two of the three sealed beam rectangular headlights, the HI beam had less light intensity than the LO beam, it's just aimed higher and in some cases a little to the left. Also notice that the SilverStar has a whiter light than all of the other headlights.

LUX: LO=49 HI=36

LOW BEAM

HIGH BEAM

--------------------------------------------------------------

Sylvania XtraVision H6024

This is the only round headlight I had to test. There is stray light above the hot spot, but not as much as the SilverStar. Also the intensity of the light is higher than any of the rectangular sealed beam headlights, probably due to the round vs. rectangular design.

LUX: LO=63 HI=77

LOW BEAM

HIGH BEAM

---------------------------------------------------------------

Koito H4652

Notice the stray light above the hot spot. I don't believe this headlight is available, but I decided to show it because some vehicle lighting web sites that I have seen have high praise for Koito lights. I didn't see any visible superiority. In fact, the light pattern is very similar to the Sylvania Xtravision.

LUX: LO=49 HI=41

LOW BEAM

HIGH BEAM

---------------------------------------------------------------

Wagner (no part number on the light)

This headlight is terrible on LO beam. Notice how much of the garage door it lights up.

LUX: LO=25 HI=26

LOW BEAM

HIGH BEAM

---------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION 2--H4

All of the following headlights are H4 headlights. The exact same light bulb was used to test each headlight housing and is an AutoPal 60/55W H4 lamp.

AutoPal HL-106 H4

I bought this headlight on ebay. This headlight is very inexpensive compared to the other H4 headlights that I tested. You can see that the vertical cutoff is fuzzy and not much better than the sealed beam headlights. The low light intensity indicates a poorly focused beam. Both the Cibie and the Hella have much higher light intensity using the exact same bulb.

LUX: LO=39 HI=87

LOW BEAM

HIGH BEAM

---------------------------------------------------------------

Hella Free Form (the one with the totally clear lens)

This headlight had more stray light above the hot spot than you can see in the pic. Because the hot spot has more intensity, the camera aperture closes some and you can't see the stray light very well. What is interesting is that using the exact same bulb in the Hella as in the AutoPal gives a significantly higher intensity hot spot in the Hella. This is due to the headlight housing doing a better job of focusing the light.

LUX: LO=55 HI =117

LOW BEAM

HIGH BEAM

---------------------------------------------------------------

Cibie 082395

This is the headlight I have in my FJ62. You can see the sharp vertical cut off with the LO beam and the even distribution of light below the cut off line. There is very little stray light above that straight cut off line. This headlight is top shelf. Get it here.

LUX: LO=55 HI=113

LOW BEAM

HIGH BEAM