Heated Truck Lites
- Thread starter dchew
- Start date
JamesWyatt
Caught the Bug
Hey, in the photo it only looks like the top half is heated. Can you confirm if it heats the entire lens on yours? Truck Lite is sending me new ones - they said it should have heated the entire lens even on low beams.
cozdude
Guy with a Red 2-Door
Yes the whole lens is heated. From videos I have seen the top heats up and defrosts faster
dchew
Active Member
After a few more wet snowstorms and some better investigating, looks like mine are also only half heated. Contacted Northridge and they handled it quickly. TruckLite will be sending replacements and a return box for these. Great service!
Dave
Dave
twoxstreem
New member
The bottoms will defrost once you use high beams that kicks in the defroster.
dchew
Active Member
Did you hear that from TruckLite? I originally thought that might be the case, but two reasons now I don't think so: First, since high beams are used infrequently, a design like that may not be too effective. Second, I sent them photos and they didn't ask anything about using the high beams, and it is pretty obvious they are off in the pics; they just wanted mine back ASAP.
Dave
dchew
Active Member
TruckLite confirmed with me today the entire lens is supposed to heat regardless of whether the high beams are on. I want to reiterate that I am very happy with the headlights and especially Trucklite's quick response and reaction. Both TruckLite and Northridge are doing a great job here. :thumb:
This is a new product, and as far as I can tell only a few of us have had this half-heated issue. I highly recommend these to anyone who wants very bright LED's and lives where there is wet snow. :yup:
Dave
This is a new product, and as far as I can tell only a few of us have had this half-heated issue. I highly recommend these to anyone who wants very bright LED's and lives where there is wet snow. :yup:
Dave
JamesWyatt
Caught the Bug
Yup, mine where half-heated and without even asking where I got them, TruckLite shipped me new ones a while back. They also said it was not supposed to require high beams to fully heat the lens. They should be sitting on my porch when I get home from work today. Will report back.
I thought I remembered reading the military heated versions were only half heated - maybe a design/production mixup at the factory? They said their engineering team wants to take a look when mine are received back and see what's going on.
Kudos, though, to TL on their customer service.
JamesWyatt
Caught the Bug
25 degrees and blowing snow on a 30 minute drive at 35-40mph. Before leaving, Jeep was in a parking garage and sat for three hours in the mid 20s degree air.
Checking the lamps after arriving home, the top half is quite warm, bottom half is not. Probably radiant heat helped clear the lower lens anyway.
Last night I tested low beams VS high - the lowers were not warm on low beam, but quickly heated after turning on the high beams.
So TL says they're not designed to operate this way, but that's how it seems to me. Whether this is a problem for ME or not living in Texas - well they do the job regardless. HOWEVER - if you get a shiz-ton of snow and ice, you may be running half-baked.
I'll try to stay in touch with TL about their findings once they get mine back - but, hey, TL: if you're reading this, please go pull a set and test low beam VS high beam heat.
JamesWyatt
Caught the Bug
I'm getting my threads on this topic confused. Please reference this thread for TL's response:
http://wayalife.com/showthread.php?t=24104
http://wayalife.com/showthread.php?t=24104
Linebacker
Caught the Bug
I had the same ice formation on my stock headlights after a pretty good storm in Colorado. I'm thinking your Truck Lites may be just fine and the culprit is the aerodynamics and shape of the grill around the lights. Just guessing.:twocents:
JamesWyatt
Caught the Bug
The customer service and engineering staff at TruckLite have shown me great patience over the course of our correspondence over my questions. I ended up on a phone call and discussed this directly. There is a small variance in temperature between upper and lower when on low beams - IIRC 2-3 degrees C. And I think the answer to why the uppers seem to be so much hotter may be due to the heat rising within the lens. This would explain the tendency for the snow and ice to melt from the top down, too.
They were also kind enough to share aiming instructions to reduce the hot spots. I'm trying to parse the details, but the short of it seems to be you need the ability to adjust the beams horizontally. (There are write ups out there for adding the horizontal adjustment screws including part number for the screws.)
They were also kind enough to share aiming instructions to reduce the hot spots. I'm trying to parse the details, but the short of it seems to be you need the ability to adjust the beams horizontally. (There are write ups out there for adding the horizontal adjustment screws including part number for the screws.)
d-nought
Member
I know this is reviving an old thread but just wanted to share my experience.
I had the same issue with a set of heated Truck-lites seemingly only heating the top section of the light.
I may might have been hyper sensitive to the "heated" piece, but when the lights are being advertised as "Heated Lens’ provides a steady, complete surface melting of snow and ice, only active when temperatures drop under 50˚F" I wanted to check with Truck-Lite themselves. I initially thought like some others that maybe there were 2 different heating elements, one for the top (low beam) and one for the bottom (high beam) that only activated with the corresponding beam, but that was not the case. After a couple of emails back and fourth with several different techs, and some interesting responses from internal emails such as "This looks fine to me but I’m unsure what they’re supposed to look like.", the warranty department confirmed that the light should heat completely and uniformly and are issuing me a replacement set of lights.
If you are seeing only the top half of the light defrost it maybe worth a quick note to Truck-Lite. The warranty department also shared this tid bit of information, "There was a design issue with the initial samples that were built about 1 year ago". Unfortunately they also said that there was no way to identify the lights that would have been in the lot that contained the defective units.
Thanks Truck-Lite for standing behind your product! :thumb:
I had the same issue with a set of heated Truck-lites seemingly only heating the top section of the light.
I may might have been hyper sensitive to the "heated" piece, but when the lights are being advertised as "Heated Lens’ provides a steady, complete surface melting of snow and ice, only active when temperatures drop under 50˚F" I wanted to check with Truck-Lite themselves. I initially thought like some others that maybe there were 2 different heating elements, one for the top (low beam) and one for the bottom (high beam) that only activated with the corresponding beam, but that was not the case. After a couple of emails back and fourth with several different techs, and some interesting responses from internal emails such as "This looks fine to me but I’m unsure what they’re supposed to look like.", the warranty department confirmed that the light should heat completely and uniformly and are issuing me a replacement set of lights.
If you are seeing only the top half of the light defrost it maybe worth a quick note to Truck-Lite. The warranty department also shared this tid bit of information, "There was a design issue with the initial samples that were built about 1 year ago". Unfortunately they also said that there was no way to identify the lights that would have been in the lot that contained the defective units.
Thanks Truck-Lite for standing behind your product! :thumb: