DigitalBman

**** UPDATE LOCATED AT BOTTOM OF THIS POST****

**** Skip this section if you don't want my "story"****

First a little background, I have spent more than 500$ trying to find the perfect headlights that suite my needs. I want the pure white light and i want them to look good, but most importantly i want highly functional.

I spent 225$ on a pari of Spec - D Tuning HID Projector housings. They were a huge pain in the butt to finally get working right. I had to purchase multiple HID kits and throw something together that worked. After about a year these lights i had more then 400$ in started to fall apart. The LED day time running lights quit working and they held water went it rained. I had to drill holes in the bottom of the housings. Long story short, terrible quality.

For reference here is a picture of these lights:



They would fog up when it rained and became very scratched.

I then tried a set of eBay housings to no avail.



**** Read from here down about these awesome L.E.D. Headlights ****

---- I am in no way affiliated with this company, just one incredibly happy customer! ----

Company: Black Mamba Offroad
Website: http://black-mamba-offroad-lights.highwire.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Black...98982536832316
Price: $250 per pair

I came across this company through an XJ facebook page. I happened to find the company just a day or so after they announced these headlights for the Cherokee XJ's. They were exactly what i wanted. So i figured what the hell, and i ordered a set.

This is what I got:




Front and back - Black Mamba LED Headlights




Front - Black Mamba LED Headlight

The whole assembly just exudes quality! The front is made of thick glass and the back is cast aluminum that acts like a giant heat sink for the light.

The headlights are direct plug and play assemblies that require nothing special to make work. Seriously, take out your old light and put this one in.

Here is what they look like in my Jeep (excuse the fenders, in process of installing flares):






Now, in all honestly, I am not a die hard fan of the look of all the LED circles in the headlight housing, but saying that, these pictures do not do them justice, they look much better in person.

Now, on to the functionality of these lights. Due to the extremely high quality compared to other lights, I feel these lights will last for years and years.

These things are brighter than most HID kits. Unfortunately they are so bright that even on low beam you may get flashed from other drivers. But they are not NEAR as bad as having HID's in a crappy projector housing (FYI thats very bad, the light scatters, blinding on coming drivers).

I did tests, driving towards my buddy driving my jeep and I can firmly say that yes, they seem a little bright to on coming drivers, but they are not blinding.

The beams on the lights shine very far. A lot further than i would have thought they would

The following pictures do not do these lights justice, but just for reverence, the seeder trees on the very edge of the woods are about 75 yards away from my jeep. These lights really are truly amazing driving lights, honestly when i took my jeep for a spin on a nearby trail i did not even feel the need to turn on my light bar.

Here is Low Beam:




LED Headlights Low Beam


High Beam:





LED Headlights High Beam




**** Additional Details ****

These lights do have day time running lights. The company did some clever wiring and circuitry inside the assembly. The same lights that are the low beams are simply dimmer for the day time running lights.

Day time running lights - on when ignition is on:




When other side marker lights are on:




These are the LED's that come on with the Low Beams:



These are the High Beams (all lights come on):







Low Beams against garage door:



High Beams Garage door:




I am absolutely happy with these headlights! I highly recommend them. They are very high quality and provide such great functionality that you can not possibly go wrong!! The company has great customer service and I plan on doing more business with them.

If you have any questions about these lights i would be more than happy to answer them!!


****** UPDATE 10/16/14******

After all of the posts made throughout the thread over the course of the week or so since this thread has been made I want to add some good points that have been made.

Pros:
- Extremely high quality
- Direct plug and play
- Nice white light output
- The Aluminum housing is a giant Heat sink, so they run very cool
- The LED's draw less current on the system
- Thick Polycarbonate lens - more resistant to scratches and breaking (I thought it was glass until it was pointed out to me that it says polycarbonate on the website)
- 3 year warranty

Cons:
- There is NO clean cut off beam that good projectors housings will give you
- The lights are slightly more annoying than normal halogen headlights for on comming drivers (but not near as bad as bad as cheap HID's)
- Honestly as another user has pointed out, they have a look only a mother could love

The major draw back to these headlights is that there is no clean cut off. So yes, they are more irritating than normal halogen headlights. But no not near as bad as bad HID's. After owning these headlights for over a week and having done several hundred miles of night time driving (to and from alabama) I have not been flashed once. Maybe these southern drivers are just nicer or maybe it really isnt as bad as some of the users here have tried to say it is, I dont know.

What I will not do is run something that is hazardous to other drivers, if they become a problem and i start getting consistently flashed then i will report back here and then put my stock headlights back in until im ready to order a set of trucklites. But for now I have something different than every one else, I am happy with them.

Some more details:
- These things do very well in bad stormy rain. (there was a flash flood warning out)
- They are sealed beam, so i expect no trouble on the trails as far as getting them wet
- No issues fogging up in the cold or rain
- I went off roading with these a couple times now and they wash no different than stock headlights
- Also ran through some brush - no noticeable scratches on lenses

It was nice to find something different that i had never seen before, from a company i had never heard of before, and have my expectations blown away for quality.

These are NOT the PERFECT L.E.D. Headlights for Cherokee XJ's my over zealous title suggests, but they are damn close! Again, the only major drawback is the beam pattern, I wish it had a clean vertical cut off. Thankfully they are not near as bad as cheap HID's though. So i really do not foresee it being a problem. But like I said, if they become a problem, I will report back.

After owning these for a little more than a week I am still very happy with them. I hope this review is helpful and gives my fellow Cherokee lovers another option!

****** UPDATE 10/19/14******

Last night I was flashed on an unlit road by a person driving a BMW Z3. I dont know if it was because of the beam of the headlights or because he was in a low car. Or maybe it was a combination, i dont know. He flashed right before we passed. Not from a far distance. Thought I would share this incident for what its worth.

I will continue to report back any incidents.


****** UPDATE 1/11/15******

I am still loving the lights! I have not been flashed since that BMW I talked about in that last post. These things are awesome when offroading and the look has seriously grown on my with my light bar mounted up front.

Unfortunately though, it seems that the customer service of this company has basically become non-existent. I love the lights, but have since started to dislike the company very much. I have been waiting on a pair of their hulk spot lights for a couple months now. And the communication is terrible. It seems that many other people are having these issues with Black Mamba. These lights were promised to all customers whos product delivered in more than 25 days. My headlights delivered in 30 something days. The guy has promised time and time again that I will receive the lights, but has since stopped communicating with me in the past month or so. It seems that customer service with this company went from great to non existent. I just want everyone to have a fair heads up.

93_xjcherokee

I want those now

Demonoid369

so is it one each is $250?

MolonLabe

Those look to be a great plug and play options but I'm curious why you never looked into building a set of retrofitted projectors?

They will out perform any other setup and the cost may be similar depending on the kit you choose.

I hope that doesn't come across in a negative tone because that isn't my intention, I am just curious.

Rogue4x4

I would like to know this as well...if it's $250 for the pair, it's a no-brainer...been wanting trucklites for a while, but they're just a bit too pricey....

cruiser54

Great info.

Jrozar

When you say pure white light, what Kelvin range are they? Between 5500-6000K?

DigitalBman

It is 250 for a pair. The cost will go up to 300$ at some point. Right now they are having a sale for reaching 10k Likes on there Facebook page.

DigitalBman

250 for a pair!

DigitalBman

It's a white LED. What it looks like to me is somewhere from about 5800k - 6200k.

DigitalBman

And I thought about the trucklites too... But I wanted something different that is more unique. Plus, I am willing to bet the build quality of the trucklites are not as good as these lights.

DigitalBman

Oh not at all! You make a great point.

I have quite a bit of experience with HID's. With HID's you must have a ballast, you have to cut the factory plug (in most cases) and wire it up, etc.

I tried an eBay pair of retrofitted lights and the quality was garbage. Granted these were not the expensive retrofits that cost several hundred dollars.

I grew tired of dealing with the HID's for my jeep. What I really wanted was LED's they draw less current and put less stress on the electrical system. What i mean by that is due to less current draw the wires in the harness do not get as hot and the alternator is not working as hard to keep the battery charged (yes i know that is a pretty nominal difference).

Also, HID's have a warm up time, these do not.

LED's are on and off.

Plus, in my experience with HID's on my friends vehicles, the factory HID's i have encountered, and my personal experience with my Jeep and Mustang, these particular LED headlights are easily just as bright as HID's.

Now i will say this, if you have good projector housings then there is a clean cut off line for the light.

With these, there is not a clean cut off line. They are like normal headlights where the light is focused into a beam but the residual light scatters.

That was probably a more wordy response than you were looking for!

But i hope i was able to answer your question.

mentalbreakdown00

not bab, been wanting a light bar, but this seems cheaper..

DigitalBman

Like i said in my post, I went to try them on some local trails and i did not even feel the need to turn my light bar on.

Also, my light bar is a 9,000 lumen Chinese eBay bar that i have had for over a year. I think it cost 120$. It has held up surprisingly well for such a cheap bar.

If you look at my very first pic you can see how i mounted. Inside the bumper. I created a thread around here somewhere discussing my build of that bumper.

DigitalBman

In case you are interested:

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f67/wh...nstall-172457/