I put a brief recording of a night drive on the Kansas Turnpike here: YouTube (http://youtu.be/djU-bLYF9to)
The video is all low beam due to the amount of traffic. The video provides a representation of the color and pattern of the headlights. On passing, or being passed, the video shows the very sharp cutoff of the pattern. You can see the cutoff line on the sides of the adjacent vehicles. The light on the road is bright, but the light into the eyes of other drivers is not blinding. There is a portion of the pattern directed specifically in the direction of road signs near the right shoulder of the road.
The LED headlights placed higher than the OEM lights on our 1997 coach provide much better light for night driving. They consume less power than the original lamps and should last much longer with full illumination. They are rated to operate on voltages from 11.4-24 VDC. Current for each of the two lamps at 12 VDC is 2.5 A (30 W).
The Garmin 20 Dashcam is working well. It will store a day's travel on a 32GB microSD card. The video plays back on a Mac using the VLC player. I'm checking to see if "Dashcam Video" will be able to extract the GPS data to provide mapping and other information in graphical form during playback.
Those are terrific! I'd love to find a simple way to convert my old '93 coach to LED headlights.
Craig
71 mph, too...
I hurried just a bit to get around the SOB. I like to either lead or follow. I don't like to "beside." Normal speed for us is 65 mph. I think the speed limit on Kansas Turnpike is 75 mph. Lots of folk pass us. However, we pass a lot of them when we use our K-Tag to roll through the toll stations. ;D Grandkids are at the far end of the Kansas Turnpike, so we put a K-Tag in the FT.
Craig, check out the Model 8800 4"x6" headlights: Headlights - Products - J.W. Speaker Corporation (http://www.jwspeaker.com/products/headlights/#product=100160)
You might be able to fabricate a panel to fit in place of the OEM lights and mount the smaller lights on the panel.
Looks good. The light pattern appears to be the same as that of passing cars.
Can you see the blank hole just in front of the coach, or is that reserved for the dashcam to see?
I'm not sure if I understand the question. The area close to the front of the coach has sufficient illumination. I can add a bit more illumination with the fog lamps, but am more comfortable with those lamps turned off at night. I leave the fog lamps turned on during the day. They serve as daytime lights to make us more visible.
Dave,
I am really looking forward to the headlight upgrade! Anything to make night driving better - or MUCH better as the case may be.
Thanks very much for posting this!
Rich
What I have found when driving toward someone with LED headlights, they are not blinding. I do a lot of night driving in the winter
and I would like to have the LED lights.
I doubt many will end up driving a FT at night in the snow, but the headlights do not get warm enough to melt snow. JW Speaker has earned the reputation of making the best product but they are not heated. Some LED's are heated.
Make sure whatever you buy comes with an anti flicker harness or you may get...flicker :+)
I keep hearing about Led lights in the snow and the trucks have them and I don't know if they do anything special or maybe it's like the front of my motor home, no snow sticks to it. I drive in the snow so it would be a concern to me.
Some LED's are heated. I think you'd need a heavy wet snow to stick to them even without heaters.
I wonder if waxing the outside lenses of the LED headlights before winter travel would help snow "slide" off?
There were some good articles (gone now) by a lighting consultant about the fact that folks are needlessly bothered by a dark area just in front of their vehicle. They shouldn't be. If you have too much light right in front of you. Your eyes will naturally be attracted to that bright area. Which isn't good.
I was an owner operator that drove exclusively at night across Wyoming for ten years with a set of doubles. I ended up with a lot of experience at night driving. Icing was an issue with my driving lamps but conversely didn't need them much during inclement weather. These are what i ran Hella rallye 4000 (http://www.myhellalights.com/index.php/products/auxiliary-lamps/xenon-lamps/rallye-4000-xenon/) Normal bulb voltage was around 90-100 volts @ 2 amps from the ballast. So not much heat from a 10" lamp that had 7 figure CP ratings. Boy could i see down the road though. As a test I would be doing 75MPH & when I saw a dead deer on the shoulder I could stop a fully loaded set of doubles BEFORE passing by that dead deer. ^.^d
Did you take the deer home with you?
Nope. After all the Coyotes & Crows have to eat too. Plus it looked like a deer balloon at that point. :))
PS. I would think that the rather large windscreens on our rigs would be far more problematic than ice on the headlights. It was something I had to fight with constantly driving from Rapid City, SD to Sheridan, Wy every night in the winter. I ended up totally blocking the defrost vent to keep the windscreen as cold as possible to keep snow from melting when it hit. Worked pretty well as the snow just bounced off the cold glass.
If the opportunity ever arises, try putting a .22 hollow point into one of those balloons. Very entertaining! Don't ask how I know...
Do you have pictures of the headlight install?
Check this thread:
Front Facad modifications? (http://www.foreforums.com/index.php?topic=20411.msg151811#msg151811)