North Carolina vehicle inspection re: H-4 led headlights

Moving back to N.C. with my 2000 Tacoma : ) .......wondering if my led headlight conversion will cause problems in a state safety inspection.
( with original housing, lenses, properly aimed high and low beams)

 

I'd imagine they would cause issues, since even aimed properly they don't really have a cutoff in a reflector housing and they have tons of glare to oncoming drivers.

See here: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/why-leds-should-not-be-run-in-halogen-reflectors.454371/

 

Unless you do projector conversion forget about LED headlights. Simple test: at night walk 50 ft in front of your truck and standing look at you headlights set to low beams. Are they awesome bright? Yes? It means they are junk. Ideally your low beams should not be seen brighter than front markers and all the light should be below 3ft above the ground.

When I drive in bad weather at night I often stop to wipe my headlights clean. Light dispersed by a thin layer of mud on the glass ruins the cut-off and not only reduces the output but whatever is left is directed at oncoming traffic.

 

Not disputing you in any way but just noting my observations.....I live near a medium size city ( lots of country driving also ) and in the few months I've had them I haven't once been high beamed by on coming traffic in city or country. There is definitely some bleed over in low beams and it really helps with seeing street signs ( but not enough it seems to annoy oncoming drivers ?) Unlike the LED's in your link, the newer versions of the H-4 LED's now have a small hood over the low beam chip which I imagine helps a lot with the better low beam cut off. Also mine are only 25 watts each possibly lower wattage than some of the really blinding led conversions.
I'd still like to hear from any N.C. drivers on their led headlight vehicle inspection results. Thanks.
( I will try standing 50' in front and observing the low beams as another member suggested)

 

Now that it's dark here I tried standing 50' in front of my Tacoma with the led headlights vs my other vehicle with stock halogen headlights...yes, the LED's definitely have more glare than the stock halogens. Enough to bother/blind other drivers ?????? Either it's not annoying any oncoming drivers or they're too polite to high beam me.....Or maybe with so many drivers with high powered lights ( and jacked up vehicles) these days everyone is used to bright blinding headlights ?

 

Not to advocate this as a great option for those who are just looking to upgrade their lights, but since you already have the LED's, it might be a good option to reduce the glare. It did help immensely with my OPT7 LED's.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/problem-solved-the-led-headlights-glare-guard-mod.395222/

 

Excellent article. Thanks for posting.
The LED's I'm using are nighteye h-4 and they do have the low beam shrouds.( For a picture just go to eBay if interested in the design) The low beam shroud does look smaller than the excellent homemade fix.

(I've never been high beamed yet but they do bleed over more than my weak yellow O.E. Kia Rondo halogen headlights)

 

The shroud does not fix the geometry issue. The reflector housing is made if many small reflectors designed to direct the light from the light source to specific areas in front of the car. But it is designed with two things in mind: the light source is in exact spot and emits the same amount of light in each direction.

If you replace a bulb with the one that does not have these two parameters as expected then all science put into housing design goes to trash. This is why LED or HID bulb does not work well in reflector housing. You can expect dark spots where supposed to be light and bright areas above the cut off line. I don't understand why it is so difficult to comprehend.

And one note for the older Tacomas using 200mm housing, if you look at Autopal or Hela units you will notice that the glass is also designed and composed of many different shape lenses helping to spread the light where it should be.

 

About the "being high beamed" test it is completely wrong. In 99% cases people "high beam" (by flashing) the oncoming car to remind them to switch from high to low. This is when thy think the other driver forgot to switch to low beam. So if you are being flashed often it means your headlights lok like you are using high beam all the time, and that is as bad as it can gets.

But if your lights are blinding but still not as bad as high beam, in 99% you are not going to be flashed unless the other driver had really bad day and has to vent out. So in short not being "high beamed" means just you are not pissing off everybody enough to flip the switch even if you are blinding them.