Bax9s/H6W Led City light update (burned out)

Everyone may remember my thread from a few months ago posting picutures of the led replacements for the city lights in my headlight units. Well, while they did look great while they lasted, they also just burned out. These even had heatsinks built into the unit. I assumed that these heatsinks plus the lower temperature inside the assembly due to my litronics would result in a longer lifetime for these leds but I was mistaken. Anyone else have the same or a different experience? Are there any other alternatives aside from the Porsche sourced H6W/Bax9s bulb here in the U.S.?

Were these the high intensity ones? I picked up a set of the low/regular intensity and they seem okay so far. That was just after i saw your post on the subject. They're the correct color to match the factory headlights, but I wouldn't mind them being brighter....if they actually lasted.

Yes, they were the High Intensity. I emailed customer service at 42 Draft Designs and they are sending some others out free of charge, so kudos to them for standing behind their product. According to them they have had very few reports of failures, so perhaps I got a bad batch or something. Time will tell.

Are the low intensity visible at all? Mine are bright when looking directly at them but since their output is relatively narrow as far as spread, most of the light seems to go straight ahead and does not radiate to the sides as I would like. If they were really bright (as they are) AND radiated out the side to really light up the headlight assembly I would be in love.

hi everyone - any update to this - has anyone else had stellar results with a particular LED bulb? Thanks

Yes over the 3 years i have had mine it, i have had 2 burned out... i have some Spares, onces i run out i will go back to Classic Halogens. But these LED's do looks great, i have had many people inquire me about them and for $2.69 SHIPPED for a Pair, it worth to Try http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...category=33713

Mine run at 150% of rated current flow but only 10% duty cycle at 2000Hz.

I have the low intensity LED light and it works great but it is a lot dimmer than the previous halogen version. I don't mind though as I don't really see the purpose of these lights except for looking cool if you drive with your parking lights on. I don't do that very often so it really doesn't matter to me. As long as they last a long time I'm happy.

I bought the ones from 42 Draft Design. After a couple of months one of the is dead...just like the ebay license plate lights. Going back to halogen

I went in a different direction but so far have been very happy. I bought some Philips 4000k bulbs from these guys http://www.motivemods.com/ The are not only a good match for my Hoen USA bulbs but also the Bi-Xenons. So far fully satisfied... I'll post a picture of the city lights when I get home tonight. I also got some matching 4000k H3 fog bulbs but have not installed those yet.

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OK but do the bulbs look blue when turned off?

I guess they do look blue but the citylight is barely visible the H11 highbeam bulbs stick out more and are more visible. Here is a night shot with flash.

OK thank you.

I also had the high intensity led bulbs and both burned out in less than a month. I've been using the Nokya led bulb and so far they seem to be much better quality and so far no burning out. Not as bright but it's okay and match the HID color very nicely. So far, the only downside to the Nokya's is price. Very pricey at about $20/pair.

For another data point, I replaced both city lights with LED from 42draft designs about 3 years ago and one just burned out this week. For $8.50 each I plan to buy two more from 42 draft designs and replace the dead one and keep a spare. LB

The best solution is to build your own and use a 3-5W external resistor to limit the current/power.

I just received two pairs, i.e. 4 of these 1W LED bulbs for $6 shipped. http://www.ebay.com/itm/2x-Ba9s-1W-L.../281114492829? They look great so far when I put them in tonight, will see how long they last, there is no mentions of warranty in their ad, hopefully not because they know they won't last...... But for $3 a pair shipped, I just bought a second pair in case they burn out early and the seller won't offer any warranty replacement, time will tell. The halogen bulbs cost anywhere from $15 to $20 each, no thanks even if I have to replace these LED ones once every couple of years.

I recently went in with a guy from work on the 42 DraftDesign "open" style LED just to compare. Even though it has a collectively higher rating than the ones I originally used (more elements) it was noticeably less bright than the one with just one LED and a focus beam lens enclosure. The end cap actually disperses radially quite well too so it lights up the entire housing My original thread is here - https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...9&referrerid=0 Few months in and no issues.

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I generally found the heavily clustered smd(led) to be less bright as well but can serve its purpose when it comes to applications that require wider dispersion patterns. It's generally more marketing than anything else, sort of like the 36 adjustable position coilovers, lol. I'd rather take a 1 element genuine Cree bulb over a 25 element clustered bulb(if dispersion is not as important).

Exactly, which is why I went for the single 1W bulb rather than the "2.5W" bulb with 5 of 0.5W elements. I'm happy with how much light the ones I got put out, it even disperses (as can be seen in my pix) quite well and should serve the night time "city lights" function quite well, longevity remains to be the key question now.

Avio, those look like some nicely designed units. You point out a single LED, but it looks like a large one so I bet it is pretty bright. Will be interesting to see how they hold up Who says Porsche's are $$ to modify

One day later with about 2 hours of total running time, since these are on whenever the engine is running on my car, one bulb has already failed, I first noticed something strange this afternoon after washing the car and turn on one side to take a day time photo, it dimmed a little bit by itself after being on for about a minute, then flickered off and back on once, did that again then remained on steadily. I then tried the other city light bulb to realize it is no longer working even though I confirmed both worked properly last night. I took the bulb out, connected directly to the battery, tried both polarity directions, it's burned out. I tested the other two extra bulbs, both worked, so I replaced the dead one and will see just how long another one burns out. LED technology is suppose to last very long time, I'm not terribly impressed at the moment, I will notify the seller now and tell him I'll wait another week to let him know if these bulbs keep burning out.

Well, it's raining today so decided to stay home to get a few things done. At one point I went to the garage to test these LED city lights I installed only 2 nights ago, the one I reported in the post above that dimmed, brightened, and shut off then came back on all by itself no longer works even though it was still working last night! So that's two failures within basically one day of installation an about two hours of running time. Not impressed to say the least. I'm going to put the last of the working bulbs in, if any of these two still working now fails within the next few running hours, I will not only be asking for a refund, but I'm going to comment on the longevity of this product on the seller's eBay site once I have my money back, so that others don't go through this hassle.

This looks like what I had bought http://hidglorious.en.made-in-china....up-Lights.html 5,000 hrs and 18 months warranty, 0.05% failure rate. I must have been real unlucky. Upside is I'm getting real good at removing and reinstalling these headlight assemblies!!

Hold that thought, I think I have an electrical issue, the LED bulb I thought was burnt out last night is now working when I connect it directly to the battery with a piece of wire, in fact both LED I thought failed are working directly with a wire making connection to the battery. In process of tracking down why the bulb won't work when plugged in the socket, unfortunately no easy way to measure voltage, going to use a 600 grit sandpaper to clean the contacts in the receptacle connector.

Found out the electrical issue was a broken bracket for the mating connector receptacle of the headlight mounting tray, I suspect it was broken by the paint shop last year but could not prove it, I repaired it once with adhesive, I guess it didn't hold so I just repaired it again with high strength epoxy, I will replace it later if it still doesn't work. The bigger revelation is that the bulbs I got were BA9S base, which has the mounting/locating lugs 180 deg apart on the base, the proper bulbs are BAX9S, which has the lugs 150 deg apart, while you can force the BA9S base bulbs into the city lights receptacles, it deforms the base slightly, and is not recommended. What I end up finding to be closest are these http://www.ebay.com/itm/2pcs-BAX9S-H...4c407c&vxp=mtr , they are twice the price of the BA9S bulbs I got but still pretty inexpensive.

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I bought these as well. Lasted about 1 month, was sent replacement free of charge from China, they lasted 2 months, occasional use. Looking for something better...

I just purchased H6W's from Pelican for $4/bulb. We'll see how long they last, definitely not as bright as the LEDs.

Yeah I just saw that last night while looking at the headlight trays, the $15-20 range was what I had read about in older postings, as well as the local auto parts shop, the girl must have felt sorry for me when she told me they can get these for me at $20 each tax in, then added "That's what you get for owning a Porsche" comment, at least she was smiling and not chuckling/laughing when she made that comment.