New Morimoto Bulbs Not Bright

[ralphy205]

Hey guys. Just got some new Morimoto LED 2 Stroke Bulbs for my low beams on 2019 Tahoe LT and I swear they are no brighter than the old halogen bulbs. Previously, I had some HID bulbs and ballasts in there and they started to dim and found out they weren't getting enough power anymore (around 10 watts). Just assumed the ballasts had gone bad after a few years. I also have some other LED bulbs in my fog lights (forget the brand) and they are brighter alone than the Morimoto low beams. My headlights are the stock projectors. What am I doing wrong here? Is it possible the bulbs themselves are not getting enough power? I had always understood that these Morimoto bulbs were top of the line and were incredibly bright but not my experience so far. Then again, could be an issue with the actual vehicle and not the bulbs. Any help would be greatly appreciated for these old eyes! Thanks.

 

[Joseph Garcia]

First, are your new LED lights properly adjusted? From the displayed light pattern, it appears that they are. But, just to be sure, the position of the LED sticks in the headlight lousing should look like this.



Second, are your low beams adjusted correctly vertically? Rule of thumb is that the top of the light beam should be the same height at 25 ft. in front of the truck, as the height of the LED stick in the headlight housing at the front of the truck on LEVEL ground. You can check this by shining on a wall at 25 ft. from the truck on LEVEL ground, or on a LEVEL parking lot using a homemade device with a line drawn at the same vertical height as LED stick in the headlight housing at the front of the truck.



Check out the above, as from what I've heard, Morimoto makes an excellent LED headlight.

 

[Doubeleive]

Hey guys. Just got some new Morimoto LED 2 Stroke Bulbs for my low beams on 2019 Tahoe LT and I swear they are no brighter than the old halogen bulbs. Previously, I had some HID bulbs and ballasts in there and they started to dim and found out they weren't getting enough power anymore (around 10 watts). Just assumed the ballasts had gone bad after a few years. I also have some other LED bulbs in my fog lights (forget the brand) and they are brighter alone than the Morimoto low beams. My headlights are the stock projectors. What am I doing wrong here? Is it possible the bulbs themselves are not getting enough power? I had always understood that these Morimoto bulbs were top of the line and were incredibly bright but not my experience so far. Then again, could be an issue with the actual vehicle and not the bulbs. Any help would be greatly appreciated for these old eyes! Thanks.

it's most likely the morimoto bulbs are just not that bright, it has been noted before and is why i passed on them myself.
I would recomend going back to HID and use relays and a nice good gauge wire direct to the battery, use the oem harness as the trigger only.
ground directly to the body/frame as close as you can.
these ballast's are very good quality, they do have to come from china so expect 3-4 weeks delivery time

2pcs Hylux 50W 2A50 Canbus Ballast HID Xenon Kit for Headlight Replacement Bulb | eBay

2 x Hylux 50W 2A50 ballast. Output Power: 50W. Car Xenon Headlight. Car LED Headlight. Automatic protection for output open circuit/short circuit in 0.5seconds. Anti-electromagnetic interference: S95/54/EC.

www.ebay.com

 

[jets]

Hey guys. Just got some new Morimoto LED 2 Stroke Bulbs for my low beams on 2019 Tahoe LT and I swear they are no brighter than the old halogen bulbs. Previously, I had some HID bulbs and ballasts in there and they started to dim and found out they weren't getting enough power anymore (around 10 watts). Just assumed the ballasts had gone bad after a few years. I also have some other LED bulbs in my fog lights (forget the brand) and they are brighter alone than the Morimoto low beams. My headlights are the stock projectors. What am I doing wrong here? Is it possible the bulbs themselves are not getting enough power? I had always understood that these Morimoto bulbs were top of the line and were incredibly bright but not my experience so far. Then again, could be an issue with the actual vehicle and not the bulbs. Any help would be greatly appreciated for these old eyes! Thanks.

Halogen projectors have different optics and designed differently than HID projectors. Therefore light output from the same bulb will be less brilliant in a halogen projector right off the bat. Something to keep in mind. LED bulb clocking advice above is good to maximize output.

 

[K2 Kaiju]

The halogen projectors in the LT are dangerously dim. My go to replacement LED H11 were the cheap Hikaris on amz, but I also needed LEDs in the fogs to see well. I dont see the hikari h11s anymore though, but I did just get some FOCUSYK (lol china rando name) 9005s for my brights, and they are incredible - by far the brightest light I have ever seen. They do make an H11- worth a shot for 35 bones. Definitely get some for your brights.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CNGR5BNQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

Dont know how long they will last (hikari were 18-24 months), but that cheap is easy to replace...

 

[Doubeleive]

The morimoto 2stroke 2.0 put out around 2440 LUMENS, a comparable HID puts out 3200 LUMENS 30% more output
I will take a 30% increase anyday.....
you can adjust the led's anyway you want they won't put out the same light
when they figure out how to make a led in a bulbous form maybe they can increase output, surprised it still hasn't happened yet
and it's not about blinding anyone, if you are blinding people with bright lights then you need to adjust your beam properly

***and the HID's cost around 60% less.....than the morimoto's

 

[K2 Kaiju]

Meh, Im not impressed with my Denali HIDs as I still need my LED fogs to see, and havent used aftermarket HIDs for at least 6 years. 55w were pretty bright, but could melt the housing. Not sure I believe any stated lumens. I will say LEDs were shit until about 3 years ago as they couldnt put light down the road, but they have improved quite a bit recently...

 

[ralphy205]

Thanks for the help everyone. Ran some trial and error last night with several different kinds of bulbs and was getting the same result with each. So if it is not an issue with the bulb or kind of bulb then what else could it be. My fog lights and and high beams work great and they are also HID (high) and LED (fog) but my low beams are also the only projectors I have (stock). My original suspicion was that my low beams are just not getting enough power but as I was doing some reading last night I have seen others that have had their projector bowls "burn" which causes a dimming effect similar to what I am currently having. Does anyone have any experience with this? Can you replace just the bowls themselves? Thanks.

 

[CMoore711]

I highly doubt that your stock Halogen low beam projectors are burnt if all you've been running is stock halogen bulbs and aftermarket LED bulbs. None of those type of bulbs are going to produce enough heat to burn a projector bowl. Typically what causes projector bowls to get burnt are running very high wattage bulbs or HID set ups and usually there are other side affects to this as well like melted wiring harnesses burnt fuses etc.

Now unless there was some sort of electrical short somewhere that caused a bulb to short or an extreme burn out inside the projector I suppose it's possible, but there would have been other signs you would have seen around the headlight and bulb socket if that were the case.

I've ran 55W HID ballasts and bulb set ups in previous HID projector retrofits for 8-10 years on a previous vehicle and never burnt the projector bowls; That was with Acura TSX projectors. Now I have burnt bowls in smaller fog light projectors. Running 55W HID's in smaller 1.5" diameter projectors it was just too small of a space to run 55W HID set ups. The light output did get dimmer and was not as bright when that happened.

I will say in the first picture of your OP titled "Morimoto Low Beams H11" it looks like only your driver's side headlight is on and putting out light and almost looks as if your passenger side headlight is out.

Have you tried testing the wattage that you're getting at the main headlight harness connection to the headlight housing?
Have you tried testing the wattage that you're getting at the low beam projector socket connection?

Hey guys. Just got some new Morimoto LED 2 Stroke Bulbs for my low beams on 2019 Tahoe LT and I swear they are no brighter than the old halogen bulbs. Previously, I had some HID bulbs and ballasts in there and they started to dim and found out they weren't getting enough power anymore (around 10 watts). Just assumed the ballasts had gone bad after a few years.

When you found you were only getting around 10 watts in your original low beam HID set up was that before or after the HID ballast?
Did you try just replacing the ballast to see if that solved your issue? As you said ballast do go bad.

 

[Doubeleive]

this is how I did HID's in the 2016 with stock halogen projectors