NEW! Elite Series JL Wrangler & JT Gladiator LED Headlights from Diode Dynamics

[Evan_Nemesis_J]

Have anyone installed these on their Gladiator (OEM halogen) successfully without having to use a jscan device? I'm contemplating returning the lights b/c I don't want to deal with extra stuff.

I'm very perplexed that DD never bought in a Gladiator to help them create these super sophisticated and expensive headlight!!! They only mentioned of brining in a Gladiator to run tests on them, after customer complaints. Completely shocked here!!!

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[Diode Dynamics]

Everything about the launch of this product says they jumped the gun and rushed out whatever they could muster.

First, taking "ship in December" orders at the end very of November and then not shipping until February... how did they not know on Nov 28th that December was no longer possible? I guarantee you there was someone, somewhere in the organization trying to tell people the product wouldn't be ready in the aggressive timelines they'd set out, and that person was probably silenced by management for being "too negative". (pure supposition on my part, but it's a song and dance i've been to before)

Then, shipping a product sold as plug and play on multiple platforms, simply not work for anyone with halogens? From my reading it's not a hit-or-miss scenario. I haven't read a single post by a person with factory halogens and no jscan/tazer that has working headlights right now. There is just no possible way this headlight got tested on a halogen platform. It's not like it's a 15% fail rate. It's 100%

Then with all this knowledge they now have, the website still says this:


This just feels like a major top-down issue. And as a result my choices are either "spend another $200 to get working headlights, don't drive your truck at night for a while, or undo all the work you just did to putting them in to get them out until we figure out a fix and you can put them back in again"

Hey Rahkmella - I am Paul, the owner of Diode, and I'd be glad to directly provide a response to some of your assumptions about what we're doing here.

We were prepared to begin mass production of these lamps in December. Most components were on hand, and we were waiting for final deliveries to arrive. One component showed up, and 90% of the batch was defective due to a tolerance issue. It might have worked out, but there was a chance that some customers would have problems. So I personally stopped shipments, and asked our staff to send updates regarding the longer wait time.

Our service time works to provide updates immediately when we believe a delay may occur due to any kind of issue arising. I'm not sure what kind of environment you've worked in to draw assumptions about "silenced" employees, but that's not really how it works here. Diode is a small business, and we are on the same page as a team. It is always in our best interest to provide accurate lead times for customers. It's a huge headache for everyone when we don't. If we had received all components within tolerance, everyone would have seen shipments at the end of December.

Regarding compatibility/testing - as you know, there are numerous combinations of trim levels and LED/non-LED programs on the vehicles. I personally have a JL Sahara, and we tested a number of vehicles through the development process, including Sport models (with halogen, of course). There were issues discovered and addressed, to get everything working correctly. However, it's clear that the fixes we made to our circuits during development did not completely address the issues on every single vehicle.

We have a Sport in our garage right now that we were able to replicate the problem on. We will make circuit changes to the driver module and update the programming in order to compensate for this issue. These changes will be implemented prior to additional shipments to new customers, so at this time I do not believe any changes in product descriptions are necessary. If it's not something we can fix very quickly, we will update fitment and descriptions accordingly - but at this time, it seems we just need to make some slight changes to smooth out the operation.

We will work with existing customers to ensure their systems are working as expected. Although this may be your first experience with our company, please rest assured that we fully stand behind our products and will do whatever is necessary to provide solutions when a problem arises as it has now. You should not feel the need to go out and buy a Tazer at this time. We hope to provide instructions, guidance, or entire replacement headlights to everyone experiencing a problem very soon. If you are experiencing an issue, please be sure to email or call our team so we can be sure to provide that information as soon as possible.

Of course, if you do wish to make a return, please contact our team and we'll be happy to assist as well. I get it, this sucks and is not what you expected. We will work to correct it, but I do understand if you would prefer not to wait any longer.

Thanks,
Paul

 

[Diode Dynamics]

Hello!

I just received another update from our engineers.

We have resolved the issue, and will be making driver circuit changes in order to provide resolution to the issue.

As expected, the issue has to do with the PWM "flickering" power signal going to the OEM Halogen lamps. We were well-aware of this, and we had provided capacitance on the driver circuit to "smooth" out the power as it goes to the projector unit. However, it seems that it just wasn't enough for all vehicles - perhaps based on voltage level, operating temperature, or just slight variations in all of the electrical components as they get power to those projector LEDs. In any case, a bit more capacitance does resolve the issue, and we're going to bump it up more to ensure all vehicles are covered, not just the handful (more than a handful now) we've tested here at our facility.

By setting your truck to "OEM LED" the vehicle no longer delivers a flickering signal, so there is no issue.

For immediate resolution, we've designed inline adapters that you can plug in to the harness you received from us. Please contact us to request a pair of adapters if you have a Sport model.

All new shipments will either include these adapters or the updated driver circuit.

Thank you again for your patience and all of the details you've provided to aid in quickly resolving this problem.

Paul

 

[Rahkmalla]

Hey Rahkmella - I am Paul, the owner of Diode, and I'd be glad to directly provide a response to some of your assumptions about what we're doing here.

We were prepared to begin mass production of these lamps in December. Most components were on hand, and we were waiting for final deliveries to arrive. One component showed up, and 90% of the batch was defective due to a tolerance issue. It might have worked out, but there was a chance that some customers would have problems. So I personally stopped shipments, and asked our staff to send updates regarding the longer wait time.

Our service time works to provide updates immediately when we believe a delay may occur due to any kind of issue arising. I'm not sure what kind of environment you've worked in to draw assumptions about "silenced" employees, but that's not really how it works here. Diode is a small business, and we are on the same page as a team. It is always in our best interest to provide accurate lead times for customers. It's a huge headache for everyone when we don't. If we had received all components within tolerance, everyone would have seen shipments at the end of December.

Regarding compatibility/testing - as you know, there are numerous combinations of trim levels and LED/non-LED programs on the vehicles. I personally have a JL Sahara, and we tested a number of vehicles through the development process, including Sport models (with halogen, of course). There were issues discovered and addressed, to get everything working correctly. However, it's clear that the fixes we made to our circuits during development did not completely address the issues on every single vehicle.

We have a Sport in our garage right now that we were able to replicate the problem on. We will make circuit changes to the driver module and update the programming in order to compensate for this issue. These changes will be implemented prior to additional shipments to new customers, so at this time I do not believe any changes in product descriptions are necessary. If it's not something we can fix very quickly, we will update fitment and descriptions accordingly - but at this time, it seems we just need to make some slight changes to smooth out the operation.

We will work with existing customers to ensure their systems are working as expected. Although this may be your first experience with our company, please rest assured that we fully stand behind our products and will do whatever is necessary to provide solutions when a problem arises as it has now. You should not feel the need to go out and buy a Tazer at this time. We hope to provide instructions, guidance, or entire replacement headlights to everyone experiencing a problem very soon. If you are experiencing an issue, please be sure to email or call our team so we can be sure to provide that information as soon as possible.

Of course, if you do wish to make a return, please contact our team and we'll be happy to assist as well. I get it, this sucks and is not what you expected. We will work to correct it, but I do understand if you would prefer not to wait any longer.

Thanks,
Paul

Paul,
Thanks for the open statement. I appreciate it quite a bit, but i think there is a lesson here: empowering your employees to share as much information as possible will lead to less upset customers. You took time out of your day to rationally and reasonably explain the issues your company has gone through, and it has definitely addressed some of the fears I expressed about your product and your design and manufacturing process.

However, it took me almost a month to get this answer. I've spoken with CS, I've emailed CS, I've messaged back and forth on these forums, all trying to get a straight answer as to why the product I ordered hadn't shipped yet. I cited the back-to-back delays, and the fact that every time a delay was announced it was always at the very last possible minute. December 29th to inform me you weren't shipping in December. January 19th to inform me you weren't shipping 3 weeks later as stated. February 2nd to inform me you weren't shipping 2 weeks after that.

Any person at any point in time could have said "we got a bad batch from our supplier" and frankly my patience would have grown exponentially (i deal with contract manufacturing professionally, I'm aware how things can go). But each time i asked what was going on i was given "we're sorry the last guy person gave you the wrong date, here's some more wrong dates! And your comments will be 'passed on to management'." The honesty that you've showed today makes me more interested in being a customer, while the placation that I was provided previously had the opposite effect.

As for not adjusting your product page, that I understand.

As for what's left for me to do, well frankly I didn't have much choice. I know this part isn't your fault, but due to my xtreme recon fender flare extensions, dropping a fender liner is a more arduous task than the standard install. The idea of not being able to drive my truck at night was distasteful, and uninstalling the DDs to install the factory halogens again, to uninstall the halogens at some point in the future to reinstall the DDs when the problem got sorted was simply too much of a pain to be worthwhile. Which lead me to what was the only option I felt I had left to maintain a working truck: a jscan license, a security bypass cable, and an OBD dongle. Amazon is delivering the final two items any minute now. But the idea of spending the extra money isn't exactly thrilling to me.

If there's anything I hope you take away from this, it's that customers want honesty, not to feel like a can being kicked down the road. I've seen your honesty today, and I've greatly appreciated it, but as the owner you need to empower your customer facing employees to be able to provide the same.

A current and hopefully future customer,
Jim

 

[Benbean66]

For those I was conversing with earlier in the thread, I removed thwbred wire from the fuse box today, and the halos shut off. I wired them to a fused 30amp relay, and am now able to control the halos via a switch. Perfect, i.m.o... the only thing I'm having an issue with is programming. I cannot seem to get the the show mode to activate, and I cannot seem to change the DRL/Halo settings. I had this issue before I switched the power source so I know it isn't due to that. I may reach out to find out if I'm missing anything.

 

[WarMouth]

Hello!

I just received another update from our engineers.

We have resolved the issue, and will be making driver circuit changes in order to provide resolution to the issue.

As expected, the issue has to do with the PWM "flickering" power signal going to the OEM Halogen lamps. We were well-aware of this, and we had provided capacitance on the driver circuit to "smooth" out the power as it goes to the projector unit. However, it seems that it just wasn't enough for all vehicles - perhaps based on voltage level, operating temperature, or just slight variations in all of the electrical components as they get power to those projector LEDs. In any case, a bit more capacitance does resolve the issue, and we're going to bump it up more to ensure all vehicles are covered, not just the handful (more than a handful now) we've tested here at our facility.

By setting your truck to "OEM LED" the vehicle no longer delivers a flickering signal, so there is no issue.

For immediate resolution, we've designed inline adapters that you can plug in to the harness you received from us. Please contact us to request a pair of adapters if you have a Sport model.

All new shipments will either include these adapters or the updated driver circuit.

Thank you again for your patience and all of the details you've provided to aid in quickly resolving this problem.

Paul

What has been decided about the fitment against the air box? I know when I spoke to CS on the phone they mentioned you guys were exploring maybe a 90 degree adaptor or something along those lines. I am looking forward to getting the inline adapter so the lights work, but thats just the first problem that needs to be addressed as I can't imagine the housing or the wiring will hold up for 8 years crushed against the air box.

 

[darkhorse13]

What has been decided about the fitment against the air box? I know when I spoke to CS on the phone they mentioned you guys were exploring maybe a 90 degree adaptor or something along those lines. I am looking forward to getting the inline adapter so the lights work, but thats just the first problem that needs to be addressed as I can't imagine the housing or the wiring will hold up for 8 years crushed against the air box.

Not that this is the end all be all fix but Diode mentioned this in post #165

 

[rconkin]

For those I was conversing with earlier in the thread, I removed thwbred wire from the fuse box today, and the halos shut off. I wired them to a fused 30amp relay, and am now able to control the halos via a switch. Perfect, i.m.o... the only thing I'm having an issue with is programming. I cannot seem to get the the show mode to activate, and I cannot seem to change the DRL/Halo settings. I had this issue before I switched the power source so I know it isn't due to that. I may reach out to find out if I'm missing anything.

I’m on my last night shift of this set so I’ll look at mine again tomorrow. If I remember right, I cut the tap a fuse off the red wire and went to my Voswitch. I have the blue wire on the same terminal so no power to either until I turn it on which turns the off-road part on. My DRL/halos are still on without power to red wire. I’ll double check when I get up tomorrow. As far as switching DRL and show mode I didn’t have any issues there so can’t be much help on that.

 

[THE SANDALORIAN]

The airbox fitment is why I have delayed my install as well. Some of the other items mentioned in this thread have me a bit nervous also.

 

[darkhorse13]

The airbox fitment is holding up my install as well. Some of the other items mentioned in this thread have me a bit nervous also.

Did you make sure that the harness clip is fully seating into the headlight bucket with a "click"? I had to use a pretty good amount of force to push this into the headlight. It's a very secure fit and I'm wondering if it's not fully seated? Yes, my wires are also touching the airbox but not enough to prohibit installation or cause concern.

 

[THE SANDALORIAN]

Did you make sure that the harness clip is fully seating into the headlight bucket with a "click"? I had to use a pretty good amount of force to push this into the headlight. It's a very secure fit and I'm wondering if it's not fully seated? Yes, my wires are also touching the airbox but not enough to prohibit installation or cause concern.

Guess I should clarify, I've delayed installing my lights hoping that there would be a solid solution to some of the issues. When I do get to installing them, I will follow your advice and make sure the harness is fully seated.

 

[rconkin]

Did you make sure that the harness clip is fully seating into the headlight bucket with a "click"? I had to use a pretty good amount of force to push this into the headlight. It's a very secure fit and I'm wondering if it's not fully seated? Yes, my wires are also touching the airbox but not enough to prohibit installation or cause concern.

I’m off until Friday so I’m going to look at cutting the air box and inserting something to create a pocket for the wires so they don’t rub at all. I’ll post some pictures when I do it. I know, something we shouldn’t have to do, but, it will give me piece of mind. It was very hard to seat the plug.

 

[zuki_dan]

For those I was conversing with earlier in the thread, I removed thwbred wire from the fuse box today, and the halos shut off. I wired them to a fused 30amp relay, and am now able to control the halos via a switch. Perfect, i.m.o... the only thing I'm having an issue with is programming. I cannot seem to get the the show mode to activate, and I cannot seem to change the DRL/Halo settings. I had this issue before I switched the power source so I know it isn't due to that. I may reach out to find out if I'm missing anything.

I had the same issue after first install. But went back and re read the instructions.

Supposed to be key on engine off. Turn on the parking lights and cycle 3 times ending with the parking lights on.

For show mode same as above but before cycling the headlight switch turn on the offroad lights switch.

I was trying to do it with the engine running and it does not activate programming mode.

 

[Pickles85]

I got mine installed yesterday yes the passenger connector has very little clearance to the airbox and would like to see a 90 degree adapter for it but for now it will due. I did end up coding for the LEDs using JSCAN never tried to see see if there would be any issues I had it so I figured it couldn't hurt. I find using a 4mm socket and rachet is far easier then using the tool they supply to adjust aim. I also found instead of struggling to get tot he adjuster on the passenger side its quicker to just pull the airbox out and it gives you plenty of room to get in there.

 

[rconkin]

@Benbean66 Did you get the programming of DRL worked out?

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