sterlingcrew

I was looking at various LED fog/driving bulbs and notice the higher output ones have an attached housing with a built in fan for cooling.
I drive quite a bit off road and on muddy gravel roads.
Considering the location of the bulb socket on 2013 F150's, is there an issue with these filling with dirt and shorting out/plugging up the fan? I haven't seen this addressed anywhere in my searches, other than the water video.

Also, I've searched many threads but it would be really helpful if there were more before/after pics from inside the truck. Am I missing a POV thread?

230748

sterling, this video should answer your question. I can't speak for other bulbs, but this video is using the kits on my website. I had some folks over at F150ecoboost.com ask pretty much the same thing (they were concerned with the fog lights since they were lower and more prone to environmental things).

2004-2014 Lights: http://www.4x4truckleds.com/ford/2004-20014-f-150/

Video (at 5:43 I bury them in mud/dirt/gravel)

sterlingcrew

Good video, thanks for that. They seem to be very durable. My only other concern would be what happens when the dirt and sludge freezes? I'm not trying to pick apart your product, but it's a real concern where I live.
Is the fan on whenever the light is on or is it on a thermostat? That way the heat produced would likely melt the ice before it kicked in.
I suppose a person could also try and rig up a housing. I really wish Ford had better front wheel well liners to keep mud off the engine and wiring.

230748

The fan is on whenever the light is on. The 2015/2016 have a sealed bulb. I do have available larger headlight boots, but don't believe the earlier models use boot/dust covers, correct?

I have to say, if you are getting that much sludge/junk on the back of your housing, you may want to think about protecting your engine bay a bit more as you should not have that much "stuff" inside your engine back on the back of your headlight housing.

With that said, IF for some reason you do happen to get something in there, turn the truck off and it freezes... the fan will not spin... but it'll quickly heat up and melt whatever is in there.

The fan COULD fail though. These are LED headlight bulbs don't forget, they can TAKE abuse but are not really supposed to. No headlight bulb should.

Hopefully that helps you out.

sterlingcrew

I wouldn't be concerned about the headlight bulbs but the fog light sockets are right in line and get constant spray from the front tire.
I think I'll try the headlight bulbs first and see about the fogs.

Thanks for the info, appreciate it!

230748

I made it through the winter here in NY with the fogs, no issues. Granted it was a weird winter for us. We got hit, HARD, but it came in one big fall, and they cleared the roads fast. So it's not like I was in say Alaska in constant snow/ice conditions. Tough to say.

Headlights you should have no issues with. Fogs... well you know very well they are right near the road... if it was me, my money, i'd risk it. I mean, that's kind of what I'm doing now. I put a lot of time/money into trying all these products out before selling them to the public... if something failed I'd have removed it. So far, no failures... but again, every location/state/area will have it's differences.

Curley13

Thanks for the video, I never knew LED's are so tuff. I've been reading this forum for the last few day's about all the lighting options and it's just crazy, no clear direction. I had a 2014 with the HID's and just loved them, now I have a 2016 with the crap halogens.


It seems the biggest enemy with these LED's is heat, so why are you completely covering the back of the bulb/fan? Why not have a seal that seals around the base of the fan, allowing it to breath?

230748

We're not anymore Curley. That video you may have seen is old and ONE Method of installation. We offer a "Ballast Relocation Kit" when you buy the lights, as an add-on, it gives you the necessary wires/boots to keep the ballast mounted OUTSIDE the headlight cavity.

This does not help the FAN but the bulb will not die. The bulbs were failing in the low beam because the ballast heated up so much, the bulb overheat.

The ballast is really where all the heat is generated so keeping that outside the cavity is what you need to do.

Another company provides a boot with a hole cut out for the fan... but customers then get water in their headlights (I know from experience, this is why I started my own company offering quality products that WORK). I still have water in my light from way back when using that style design.

Even if you sealed the bulb up tight against the boot, water would still get into the fan area and seep into the cavity.