New JW Speaker 8700 Evolution 2 LED head lights looks very nice
- Thread starter Omar Brannstrom
- Start date
Hilldweller
SE Expedition Society
Ray @ SMS makes a nice harness.
He makes them for Daniel Stern, btw....
He makes them for Daniel Stern, btw....
It's in and works as it should, delay is gone.
For anyone needing this harness whether for these lights in particular or any other brand, the wiring for the passenger side light is barely long enough if you plan to mount the black box in my pic above behind your battery. I have the control box for my winch in front of the battery so I had to put the light harness panel behind it. There's not an inch to spare.
Now for my latest thoughts on these lights...
I'm not used to the sharp light cutoff which I feel is one of my issues my brain has with the brightness. Any other light I've used has scattered light that illuminates above 4' or so unlike these. I think that alone makes these lights appear less bright than they really are. The evenness of these lights is very good but there is a noticeably brighter arc of light where it first hits the road followed by a darker spot about 30' in front of you. It is just dark enough to make asphalt look purple in that area which is the most annoying thing to me. I'm guessing their fogs would fill this in nicely but I can fit them with my current winch setup.
The high beams are awesome, on par or probably better than the KC/Petersons. Id like to see the low beams lit with the high beams but I'm guessing that wouldn't meet DOT regs...
So, at a normal sales price of $780 plus an additional $120 for a necessary harness for them to work correctly, I cannot recommend them over the KC/Petersons simply based on price alone. Are they a better light? Yeah, but not $450 better.
I'm not used to the sharp light cutoff which I feel is one of my issues my brain has with the brightness. Any other light I've used has scattered light that illuminates above 4' or so unlike these. I think that alone makes these lights appear less bright than they really are. The evenness of these lights is very good but there is a noticeably brighter arc of light where it first hits the road followed by a darker spot about 30' in front of you. It is just dark enough to make asphalt look purple in that area which is the most annoying thing to me. I'm guessing their fogs would fill this in nicely but I can fit them with my current winch setup.
The high beams are awesome, on par or probably better than the KC/Petersons. Id like to see the low beams lit with the high beams but I'm guessing that wouldn't meet DOT regs...
So, at a normal sales price of $780 plus an additional $120 for a necessary harness for them to work correctly, I cannot recommend them over the KC/Petersons simply based on price alone. Are they a better light? Yeah, but not $450 better.
moabian
Active member
I received the lights and SMS harness yesterday. The circuit board box is larger than I expected (5"x2.5"x1.75"). Since I have the Genesis Offroad dual battery kit installed, the only place I can find to mount the box is on top of the battery hold-down plate as pictured. It will be zip-tied to the center fin and secured with some bomb-proof, high-heat 3M Velcro that I have. I tested the cable lengths yesterday and they seem long enough, even being routed somewhat circuitously so they are hidden and not in the way of anything that might need servicing (fuse box, air filter, etc.). It will probably be a week or more before I get around to installing the lights.
MANUCHAO
Aventurero
Hi.
Im contemplating getting a set of these 8700 Evolution 2 LED headlights..
I drive an old FJ60 LC, but I wonder if these would be plug and play...my old rig has the H4 connectors from factory..
Any other reviews of these lights outthere ?
All info is welcomed...
Thanks,
Frank
Im contemplating getting a set of these 8700 Evolution 2 LED headlights..
I drive an old FJ60 LC, but I wonder if these would be plug and play...my old rig has the H4 connectors from factory..
Any other reviews of these lights outthere ?
All info is welcomed...
Thanks,
Frank
Hilldweller
SE Expedition Society
If you have a simple H4, they'll be plug and play.
Look on Wranglerforum in the General JK area for a lively thread. Our JK problem wouldn't be your problem. We have pulsewidth modulated power being delivered.
moabian
Active member
That's what the SMS harness does...wires them to the battery. For someone knowledgeable in electronics, it might be easy to build your own harness.
I installed my Evo 2 headlights a few weeks ago and they are FAR better than the first version. The spread is much better and the high beams are absolutely great. With the Evo1 lights, I would always turn on the bumper-mounted Rigid E-series combo light bar for the final 3-5 mile approach to my cabin for deer and black cow protection. It covered a lot more ground than the original JW Speakers, both side to side and straight ahead. With the Evo 2 lights, while the light bar made everything a lot brighter, it didn't cover any ground not already covered by the new headlights. So I upgraded to the Rigid E2-series light bar which has similar spread to the Evo 2 but the reach is considerably farther down the road than even the Evo 2's phenomenal high beams.
Now that I'm be been driving with these for over a month I can say that I absolutely love them. In fact, I take back most everything I said in earlier posts about them. When I get in my sons LJ now, I realize how much better they are compared to the KC's.
It's my opinion that the headlight buckets on JK's and T/LJ's need to be modified in order to get the full benefit of any headlight upgrade. From the factory the only adjustments you can make are up/down. The factory aim has them pointed towards the right side of the road slightly and they blend together at the edge of the road. A trip to the dealer for two adjustment screws and the proper metric tap to rethread two of the mounting studs to fit them will allow side to side adjustments. I now have my beams adjusted to where each lights bright spot touch each other in the center of my lane in front of me. This does away with the very bright spot that's created from the factory beam overlap that's noticeable with leds but not so much with the halogens. Doing this has made the light pattern and evenness significantly better with either brand of headlight. I've yet to modify the LJ but I'm still convinced the JWS are much better anyhow.
Now for snow... I drove from NC to NY through the snowstorm that blanketed the mid east states the day before thanksgiving and I can confidently say these suck in the snow but so would any led light that's not heated. Once the sun set I found myself having to pull off to the side every 20 minutes of so to clear the snow from them. It was very scary pulling off the road when there were cars sliding around and overturned 18 wheelers but so is driving without headlights in the snowy darkness... If I lived where it snowed a lot there's no way I'd own leds. I've been brainstorming to figure out a way to fix this and so far all I can think of is adding sprayers from the washer system to douse them with de-icer but it'd be a pain to do.
It's my opinion that the headlight buckets on JK's and T/LJ's need to be modified in order to get the full benefit of any headlight upgrade. From the factory the only adjustments you can make are up/down. The factory aim has them pointed towards the right side of the road slightly and they blend together at the edge of the road. A trip to the dealer for two adjustment screws and the proper metric tap to rethread two of the mounting studs to fit them will allow side to side adjustments. I now have my beams adjusted to where each lights bright spot touch each other in the center of my lane in front of me. This does away with the very bright spot that's created from the factory beam overlap that's noticeable with leds but not so much with the halogens. Doing this has made the light pattern and evenness significantly better with either brand of headlight. I've yet to modify the LJ but I'm still convinced the JWS are much better anyhow.
Now for snow... I drove from NC to NY through the snowstorm that blanketed the mid east states the day before thanksgiving and I can confidently say these suck in the snow but so would any led light that's not heated. Once the sun set I found myself having to pull off to the side every 20 minutes of so to clear the snow from them. It was very scary pulling off the road when there were cars sliding around and overturned 18 wheelers but so is driving without headlights in the snowy darkness... If I lived where it snowed a lot there's no way I'd own leds. I've been brainstorming to figure out a way to fix this and so far all I can think of is adding sprayers from the washer system to douse them with de-icer but it'd be a pain to do.
Good Idea on the left/right adjusters. I will be doing that, I always found that weird. No left right adjustments. As for the lights icing up, yep. I am applying some rain x type product to my lights. One positive I have is that I have 100w yellow hella 450 fogs and they work awesome, and with the extra wattage they heat up nice and give me full beam no matter what the conditions. So in the rare case that my headlights do ice up, I have backup light. That being said, there is a company that has a heated version of the truck lite out there. I have seen them. They have a defrost element in the lens that works to keep the lens warm. Now, if someone would only do the same for the windshield of the Jeep. That's a pain as well.
Hilldweller
SE Expedition Society
I did that over the weekend too and had a better drive this morning.
I just dug in and used the factory nut that's in there though.
Polish the lens with Plexus often and snow will have a tougher time sticking. I wouldn't use any non-stick greasy kids' stuff like Rain-X unless it's a version made special for plastic ---- the chemical reaction is called crazing and it renders the lens milky.
The original model #8700 was a larger unit that had a fan in back by the cooling fins. The fan circulated warm air through a small orifice in the face to the optically perfect GLASS lens. It worked great ---- the lens was replaceable in case of a shatter.
You needed to modify a JK to install them though and they were unpopular. The mod would also annoy the NHTSA as well as your local service writer...
I'll have to try the plexus when I head to Vermont in a few weeks for a ski trip but if they're calling for a decent amount of snow I'll be swapping in the crappy originals.
The biggest issue with the snow Im thinking is that the lights are recessed in the grill. It's like they're in a bucket facing forward just scooping up whatever is in front of them.
Hilldweller
SE Expedition Society
Yeah, there's that.
If you're up to it, pick up a set of the plastic innerds from a dealer; they're not too awful pricey. Install one right over the other as a big shim and move the lights forward that additional 3/4". It would give the snow less room to accumulate.
People did that with the originals to ease the mounting.