Club Car Tempo Headlight Kit Comparison

[Golf Cart Wizard]

Golf cart headlights for the longest time have not been much better than a pair of candles slapped up front, however with modern advancements in LED technology as well as the introduction of the Club Car Tempo which was designed with factory headlamp mounting provisions, a plethora of new lighting options have entered the market. I've tried several and noticed wildly varying performance, as well as heard rants and raves from others about some of the different light kits so I wanted to do some real side by side testing to settle things with data.

I recently moved into a larger shop which provided perfect controlled testing environment, so I purchased a Klein ET130 light meter, marked the wall and floor, and got to work. I will be testing from two positions. One spot is roughly 10' from the wall, which has been marked with a "bright line" 22" above the ground, and a "cut line" 28" high These lines will serve more as a guideline as there are many other factors not controlled in this test as the lights were frankly so far apart in performance it really wasn't necessary. If a headlamp is mounted at a significantly different height I will adjust the line height accordingly. Now I will be judging the lights in this test for their performance as "low beam" headlights, as most golf carts are going to be operated in public areas. I emphasize this because it seems like most people these days have no idea what a "low" and "high" beam even is. It's right in the name for Christ's sake! It's supposed to be one beam pointed LOW and a separate beam pointed HIGH, it's not called a bright beam and a dim beam! Regardless of reality, none of the lights tested (in their unmodified form) provided a distinct beam between high and low, they only produced the same beam pattern at a different output level. Dimming a light that is shining into other people's eyes doesn't make anything better, it simply reduces your own visibility! That is what my 28" "cut line" is for. Any significant amount of light shining above this line is glare going into the eyes of oncoming drivers and will result in a lower ranking. The "bright line" represents where the brightest point of the hot spot/cut off should be around. The 2x4s also provide a great reference point, as each successive beam makes a good representation of the spread from directly ahead, next lane over, and down in the ditch. The photos were taken with the camera on a tripod set to manual ISO and exposure to accurately depict the brightness difference between different lamps.

The second test involves backing up the golf cart and measuring the light output on the ground at 5' intervals up to 65' in front of the golf cart. Now I will say this testing is pretty simple as I only have so much time and basic test equipment, the readings are not scientific but provide a good comparison point between all the lights tested in this setting. One thing to note when looking at the results is brighter isn't always better. People seem to think more light=see better, but they forget about contrast. Increasing the brightness of certain objects only makes others appear dimmer. The same problem happens with bright street lights, people think the brighter light reduces crime but in reality it can also create darker shadows for the criminals to hide in. Too much light too close in front of the vehicle will cause you to focus too much on what you are about to crash into instead of up ahead on what you should avoid crashing into. That is why on some automobiles the low beams will actually turn off when you select high beam, and why on some modified headlights you will see later I actually reduced the low beam output when "high" is selected. Lamps that shine too brightly too close in front of the golf cart will actually lose points.

Now the ratings will be largely subjective but do have data to back them up in the form of lux readings. This testing will also only consider the performance of the headlight itself. Other aspects such as quality or taillight performance will not be considered now, but may be in future testing. I will say that I purchased all of the tested products through wholesale sources so quality in particular won't be evaluated too harshly as QC standards often vary greatly between sources. I will make note of any major issues I encountered though. I will also say literally every single headlamp tested would have received a failing grade without some kind of modification, which was largely due to the fact none of them provided provisions for aim, and were often wildly out of spec when installed as intended. Now I didn't see the point in having a test where everyone lost, and aim modifications are something that really wouldn't be that difficult for the average person to figure out so the headlights will be ranked with proper aim. Other more significant modifications that require wizardry to pull off will not be eligible for consideration, but will be discussed to show how the tested products could be improved.

I have decided the best way to represent the performance was with an IIHS style "Good, Acceptable, Marginal, Poor" rating scale. Solely the headlight performance will be evaluated for 3 considerations: Beam pattern, Glare, and Color. A headlamp which receives a "Poor" rating in ANY category will not be eligible to place above one which received no "Poor" ratings. The categories will be assigned by the following characteristics.



Glare

Good: no light exceeding 10 lux above high mark. No odd glare spots

Acceptable: some light exceeding 10 lux just above high mark (none on left side posts). Some glare spots not exceeding 10 lux outside of typical field of view.

Marginal: some light exceeding 10 lux just above high mark (none on left side posts). some glare spots exceeding 10 lux however glare is mostly controlled.

Poor: no glare control. Light well in excess of 10 lux at high mark, consistent readings above 10 lux well above high mark.



Beam:

Good: good distance and side illumination without excessive foreground illumination.

Acceptable: good side illumination, no excessive foreground lighting, some distance illumination

Marginal: some distance illumination

Poor: negligible distance illumination



Color:

Good: pure white with good CRI

Acceptable: slight color shift with usable CRI

Marginal: Noticeable color shift, some colors muted

Poor: heavy coloration, object colors illuminated by lamps are heavily distorted



If the products tested are improved or other lights are requested for testing I will update the results, however like IIHS's testing the testing metrics will become more stringent as more light kits can pass the current testing, and other categories will begin to be considered for evaluation.

 

[Golf Cart Wizard]

6th: RHOX

“The clear loser”

Price: Too much

Link: No seriously please don’t buy these





While trying to choose which light kit was the best proved to be a challenge, choosing the loser was fortunately very easy thanks to the horrendous performance of this RHOX kit. This really doesn’t need any in depth analysis, just look at that beam pattern. There is literally zero attempt to focus the output of the LEDs, resulting in a mess of light vomited all over the wall. This obviously earns them a “Poor” glare rating, and despite the wonton light output the actual visibility provided by these lamps is also very poor. If you look at the light output charts you will notice on “low beam” mode these are actually dimmer than the bumper mount light bar! There really isn’t much to analyze here, and I have many other reviews to write so I’m going to phone this one in, just like the Red Hawk engineers when they designed this god awful product. DO NOT BUY!!!!!

 

[Golf Cart Wizard]

5th: OEM Club Car

"Let there be light"

Price: ~$1,000.00

Link: Your local Club Car dealer




And light there is. Everywhere. These headlights outshone all the others, except for where it mattered. Like the Rhox lamps these lights put out an obscene amount of glare, earning them a well deserved "Poor" rating in this category and landing them in 5th place, far from the outcome I had predicted prior to beginning this test. As you can see in the photo the entire wall is illuminated. I don't think I measured a single point BELOW 10 lux anywhere in this mess. Not to mention the hotspot is shining well above the cut line, with nearly 400 lux of output shining directly into the eyes of oncoming traffic. These lamps make for great high beams as you will see great, however no one else will be able to see at all. Now this is something I would have expected from the cheap Chinese light kits, as they really don't know what the f*** they are doing and are usually just throwing together cheap imitations of real product designs they copied. But Club Car? Come on, they're the original equipment manufacturer, they should know better than this. Aiming the headlights would take away the worst of the glare, however would still result in a "Poor" glare rating as readings are over triple the 10 lux limit well above the cutoff. Also if the part came installed from the factory most people would assume it works correctly and does not need adjustment. These lights do score "Good" for beam and color, however it is worth noting the output was only middle of the pack where it actually mattered, as you can see in the chart in the last post. In other aspects the appearance of the headlamp unit itself, while looking well made is rather dated. The individual string of LEDs for the DRL looks pretty 2009. A major plus is the taillamps did have noticeably better optics than all the others, making them much more visible to traffic behind you. In my opinion Club Car really needs to just scrap these headlights and go back to the drawing board.

 

[Golf Cart Wizard]

4th: Instamatic Deluxe Dual Headlight kit

"So close, yet so far"

Price: $299.95

Link: Club Car Tempo Deluxe RGB Light Kit | Instamatic®



And I thought the modifications I had to make to the ebay lights (discussed later) were a bit much. I pretty much had to reengineer these entire headlamps! When I first fired these up problems were immediately apparent. The beam pattern was very irregular, and there was a distinct dark spot between a high and low section. However selecting "high" and "low" beam did nothing but make the beam brighter or dimmer.



After a closer look, as well as blocking portions of the lens I had the answer. You see, this lamp has 4 downward facing LEDs whose light is bent ~90 degrees by 4 individual reflectors. After covering the reflectors I noticed the outer two were providing a distinct wide low beam pattern, and the inner two a focused high beam. But for some reason all 4 LEDs are illuminated constantly, using a PWM driver to lower the voltage and thus brightness rather than separating the circuits. This arrangement throws off excessive glare regardless of the beam selected, and provides poor illumination on low. I can't send a golf cart out the door like that, so I had no choice but to disassemble the lamp to see what I could do.

Long story short I found the weird dark spot was caused by the LED PCB being misaligned, so I developed a better PCB retention setup, and then I modified the actual PCB traces to separate the inner and outer 2 LEDs and added a new wire to activate the extra circuit. Finally I rearranged the two PWM drivers which were each originally driving one individual headlight, so that one was driving both low beams and the other driving both high beams. I wired them so the low beams are illuminated at full brightness with the highs completely off when "low" is selected, and when you select "high" not only do the high LEDs illuminate at full brightness but the low LEDs dim to the lower brightness so you can focus on objects further ahead as well as have a visual indication you have changed modes. With the corrected beam arrangement these are now the only lights tested that produce a true high and low beam with discernibly different patterns. I don't get it, it's like the reflector and PCB were designed by two different companies that never talked to each other. The reflector was obviously designed to be used as a dedicated low and high beam so I'm not sure how it ended up going into production in this nonsensical all LEDs all the time format.

Now these lights are stuck in 3rd place as their out of the box performance would earn a "Poor" glare rating with readings in excess of 200 lux on "low beam" and 500 lux (!) on "high beam" well above the cut line (the highest of any lamp tested), however with the modifications these would have been the clear winner. I'll skip the details as this post is getting long enough, but I will say these changes would be very easy to make in production. As such I will mainly focus on the modified performance, as out of the box is basically just high beam mode.




To start with these were the closest to being aimed correctly right out of the box. Flexing the bracket to point the light, then tightening the screw to hold the position was sufficient, no shimming required. Now looking at the wall we can see what is the best beam pattern of anything tested. You have a clear defined central hotspot fading out towards the bottom to provide even illumination, and there is sufficient side and ambient illumination without too much excess glare above the cut line. These aren't quite as good glare wise as the ebay lights owing to the reflector rather than projector design, but still earn an "Acceptable" rating with only minimal light above 10 lux right above the center cut lines. These are also the second brightest lights here finishing only slightly below the ebay lights (surprise there), however the beam pattern is much smoother and has better spread with a more reasonable amount of mid ground (30-40') light, so overall visibility is actually better despite the slightly fewer lux. Plus you still have high beams, so you have the ability to increase the light field giving these another advantage (again with modification).

In other thoughts I like that the DRL on these is actually bright enough to see during the day (I will note I got the non-RGB, version, which I can't find on the GCS site). I do wish the DRLs would activate with the key rather than manually having to be switched on and off every time. There is one other feature I don’t like, although I don’t see this feature listed on the GCS website so this may only be the particular kit I got. They have so called "Self cancelling" turn signals, after about 15 seconds they just quit blinking, even though the switch is still on (it doesn't re center). There is no clicking sound or blinking light either so you have no idea your turn signals just turned off. As mentioned earlier I am only rating headlight performance now, however if I include a turn signal category in future testing this "self disabling" feature would be an automatic "Poor" rating. These do come with a mechanical brake switch which is a plus, and the timer is integrated into the control unit minimizing junk stuffed in the pedal cavity. I hope they implement the suggested changes to these lights, when they are functioning as they should these are by far the best lamp tested and would have been the hands-down winner.

 

[Golf Cart Wizard]

3rd: Ebay

"By default"

Price: $189.99

Link: Club Car Tempo LED Light Kit - Deluxe Street Legal (12v - 48v) | eBay



Now these lights ended up in 3rd because they were one of only three light kits tested not to receive a "Poor" rating in the glare category. However that doesn't mean these headlights were actually good. Beginning with the visual inspection, I peered through the single projector and noticed the unit contains only a single LED with a freeform reflector element, compared to the multi LED arrays of the others. However when I first turned them on I was in for a shock, as despite less LEDs these things are bright! It wasn't even close, either. The brightest portions of the beam on the wall measured over double the lux of what any other competitors could muster. They also have a very sharp cutoff with practically no light outside the beam, making them the only lights to earn a "Good" glare rating. However, that's where the good times end and the problems start to appear. With the headlamps installed flush with the cowl as intended, the beam is getting low like lil jon & the east side boyz. As you can see the cutoff is well below the bright line, which is a problem the distance test will illustrate well. In the area 10-15' in front of the golf cart you are seeing well over 500 lux, however there is literally no usable light more that 25' in front of the golf cart.




So I made some foam gaskets to raise the angle of the headlamps and retested. Now the light was reaching the bright line, and recorded the highest lux reading at the 65' mark of any light tested, very impressive! While these were the brightest at distance, they were even brighter near the front of the golf cart in the 10-35' range, which makes further objects appear dimmer despite the additional long range lux. Also the projector beam was a little bit too well controlled. It's like the opposite of the OEM lights, there is absolutely no light outside of the defined beam pattern. This means you have no lighting to your side into the ditch/sidewalk area, and no ambient lighting around you or above the cutoff making it difficult to see taller objects or that aren't in front of your golf cart. The sharp cutoff also causes the light to dance around in front of you almost like it's flickering because a golf cart has a short wheelbase and will bounce way more than a car does as you're going down the road. If only there was a way to take all that extra foreground light and put it somewhere else…



Fortunately there is, thanks to the magic of lens optics. Now I will say this is definitely not an original idea. I used to have an old BMW with the glass headlights that had the projector beams, if you look at the lens you will notice there are vertical lines running through the glass along the bottom. These are linear distribution optics to solve the exact same problem they had with their early projector headlamps.



I pretty much did the exact same thing. I got a 60 degree by 12 degree linear distribution lens and glued it to the outside of the headlamp lens directly over the area that was causing the excessive foreground light. The 60 degree horizontal distribution spreads that light out to the sides where it was lacking, not where it is distracting, and the 12 degree vertical provides enough light just above the cutoff to see higher objects without sending too much and causing excessive glare (these still rate "Good" even modified). While the modified beam pattern would rate "Good" as well, it is still not the best as there are too many sharp transitions in the pattern causing weird patches of light.



Now the reason I say this modification is forbidden is because there is a lot of room for error which could cause decreased visibility and/or excessive glare, making for an unsafe condition. And given the number of people that think it’s OK to blind everyone at night with their sh***y LED “retrofit” bulbs purchased from Amazon.com because they “never get flashed”, I’m not sure I trust the general public to make an accurate assessment of whether they have performed this modification correctly. In an earlier test (results in chart) I found the beam was not quite right, I'm not sure if that's because I positioned the lens wrong or because the projector unit itself was defective (I have noticed a lot of inconsistencies with these lamps).

This fix also wouldn't work on the production level as again there are inconsistencies in the projectors, If they began molding the optics into the lens it would never align properly with the actual projector beam and would end up hurting more than helping.

In other thoughts at least the installation is very forgiving thanks to the large rubber bezels with screw retention, these are very good for beginners/DIY as the other styles of lights are not easy to install and have practically 0 tolerance for error. I also like how these are true 48 volt lights, not 12v lights with a reducer zip tied to the harness. And the fact this comes with a mechanical brake switch and timer is a huge plus. Quality also appears to be decent with no major installation challenges. These would be a great DIY option if only the light output was a little more refined.

 

[Golf Cart Wizard]

2nd: Instamatic Street Legal Precedent Light Kit (Light Bar)

“DIY and budget friendly”

Price: $199.95

Link: Club Car Precedent Street-Legal LED Light Kit- Instamatic®Electric / Mid 2008 - Up




Another unexpected outcome here. There isn’t too much to be said here, this headlamp provides a decent, usable beam pattern without casting a ridiculous amount of glare into oncoming traffic. This bar uses an array of 12 forward facing LEDs. The glare is borderline with many areas around 15 lux, however is still able to earn a “Marginal” rating. The beam pattern is well distributed although is dimmer than many other options. These score “Acceptable” in this category, with a “Good” color rating.

Now I will say I have been using these light kits on Precedents for several years and have seldom had any quality problems. These also operate directly on 48 volts, simplifying everything without a need for a reducer. And simple is definitely the theme here, as no cutting is required for the headlamp, just remove your bumper and install the lamp. This is a great option for people worried about having to cut holes in their cowl.

 

[Golf Cart Wizard]

1st: 10l0l

"When middle of the road is good enough"

Price: $239.99

Link: Golf Cart LED Light Kit Deluxe Headlight Kit Upgraded Daytime Runnin for Club Car - 10L0L



Now these are not the greatest, as we can see by previous tests there were other lights that with a little magic performed even better. So then why did these win? While these weren't exceptionally good at anything, they also weren't exceptionally bad at anything either, avoiding a "Poor" rating in all categories. These lights were also the only ones besides the light bar to produce a somewhat useful beam pattern without any modifications besides aiming. And they definitely needed aiming. When I turned these on I swear I could hear Goodie Mob coming through cause the beam was pointed sky high when installed in the default position. To rectify this situation I took an old rubber windshield mount, chopped off the barb to make a solid spacer, and stuck it between the headlight to underbody screw hole and then tightened the screw to level the lamp.





On to the testing, to start with I did my visual inspection peering through the lens. These use dual LED projectors which have 3 LED chips in each surrounded by a square reflector. The outer projector is for low beam and the inner turns on as well for the "high beam". The high beam projector simply produces the exact same beam pattern as the low beam just at a slightly higher aim, which results in not much more than just a bright and dim beam, not a true high beam focusing the light in front (like the modified Instamatic lamps do). And you will definitely need to use that high beam, if you look at the floor test results there isn't even 10 lux of output more than 35' in front of the golf cart on "low". The issue here which is apparent in the photos is there is no clear hotspot, just a wall of light, resulting in the distorted gradient beam pattern without much distance lighting. The beam still scores "Acceptable" as it provides ample side and ambient lighting as well as adequate forward illumination for a stock golf cart, however if you plan to build a high speed street cart I would definitely recommend a different lamp with better distance illumination. Also despite the projector style lamps, there is still some weird glare created. You can see a random crown of light shining up high and center on the wall. On low this distortion is below the 10 lux threshold but on high that area reads over 15 lux. The cutoff also has too much curve to it, resulting in some portions of the low beam reaching above the cut line. On high there is over 30 lux well above the cut line, which I mention because if you install these lights without the upgraded high/low signal switch they are wired on high beam full time, which is why they rate "Acceptable" with the signals and "Marginal" without for glare. Also something I have not even mentioned yet is the color category, as every other lamp has received a "Good" rating. These however scored "Marginal" as they have a noticeable deep blue almost purple coloration to the light, giving a much cooler color temperature. They almost look like those awful purple street lights I've been seeing infect some roads. While I did my best to keep the camera settings consistent, I did forget to set manual color correction, so I edited the photos to shift the color to try and show this.

In other aspects I will say these lights definitely look the part, although the DRL could be brighter as it is difficult to see in sunlight. Like the Instamatic lights they also have to be manually activated, I wish they would use the gray bullet connector wire to activate DRLs with the key. The blacked out headlamp bezel looks great especially when I'm putting together a blacked out sporty golf cart, and the taillights include these really cool swooshes for the running lights, separate from the brake/turn light. I hope other manufacturers copy this type of design, but I sure hope they don't copy the quality as these are definitely the worst taillamps of the bunch. When I went to install one the screw caught the lamp causing the corners to crack slightly. I went to do the other side and noticed that lamp already had the cracks in the lens! I opened a new box and discovered both taillamps in that one were pre-cracked as well. While they may look cool they are definitely fragile, be careful not to run into anything.



The included wire harness also had several issues. The driver side taillight wire is inexplicably short, requiring some creative harness routing to just barely fit. The brake switch wire is also in the wrong spot, coming out in the middle of the floorboard. I had to pull back the loom, reroute and extend the wires to reach. And don't get me started on the brake switch. It comes with one of those ridiculous pressure pad things. First of all they just look awful especially when they're held on with phillips screws with visible wires coming down. I cut them open to get the guts out and shove them under the original pad for a cleaner look. They also don't light up the brake lights unless you are pressing the brake pedal in just the right spot and applying enough pressure, so especially with regen braking you practically don't have brake lights at all. With the mechanical switches I can set them up so just resting your foot on the pedal will light up the brake lights, so people will actually know you are stopping. These pads are also very failure prone, not to say the mechanical switches aren't, but that's due to cheap unsealed switches which could be improved vs. an inherent design flaw. This light kit does have a relay box so it would have been simple to just integrate the time delay into that unit and not need an additional timer under the floorboard. But overall this is still a pretty decent kit, so it receives the top honors for now (at least until a revised set of Instamatic lights shows up at my door).

 

[Golf Cart Wizard]

Wild Card: Yamaha Drive 2 OEM Headlamps

“Take notes”



Now these lights aren’t going to be ranked as this test is for the Club Car Tempo, however since I had this golf cart in the shop I figured may as well see how other Original Equipment headlamps compare to what Club Car and the aftermarket have to offer. And we can see right out of the gate these headlamps have a real cutoff below the Cut Line, earning them a “Good” glare rating. While the beam is well focused and provides very bright sideways illumination, the hotspot is too low in the beam which hampers distance (>50’) illumination. There is also a sharp step between the hot spot and the lower foreground lighting. While not perfect these still score an “Acceptable” for beam pattern, being knocked down from “Good” due to the large brightness disparity between mid range and long range illumination. These headlamps would benefit greatly from a “high beam” function to make up for this. And while there is some color shifting around the cutoff, there is nothing distracting so these still score a “Good” color rating. I will also mention these were aimed correctly as installed on the golf cart, I did not have to adjust these, although I did not see an aim adjustment readily apparent if they did need to be. While the headlamps are pretty great the turn signals are pretty pathetic, there is this skinny amber strip and the whole thing doesn’t even light up! There’s just one tiny bulb at the end that is very difficult to see. That definitely needs improvement. All in all a very good light kit.

 

[Golf Cart Wizard]

 

[bazzz]

I want to thank you for this information and your time it took to accomplish this testing. Did any of the lights require a voltage regulator or were they all direct wire to batteries? Have you compared 36 volt to 48 volt to see if they had similar output or if it was lower due to the lower voltage?

 

[Golf Cart Wizard]

All of the tested lights were either 48v compatible or included the voltage reducer with the kit, so no extra wiring/parts were needed. The operating voltage has no effect on the light output of the multi voltage kits. LEDs only operate within a very narrow voltage range so these lights still have voltage regulation, they just have 48v rated drivers built directly into the lamp units vs. a single external DC/DC converter. If you had an LED circuit designed to operate directly at 48v it wouldn't even turn on with 36v, likewise a direct 36v LED circuit would be fried instantly on 48v. See below chart on the relation between voltage and current through an LED, pass a few tenths above where you should be and it just behaves as a short circuit.

 

[jgm16]

Left field question: any chance you would know if the RHOX Tempo reusable template works with 10L0L light kit? Thanks

 

[chopperjohn]

GCW…..would please elaborate on the shim work you did in the 10LOL light kit. My kit also lights the tree tops. A picture or two would be appreciate. Thanks

 

[Golf Cart Wizard]

GCW…..would please elaborate on the shim work you did in the 10LOL light kit. My kit also lights the tree tops. A picture or two would be appreciate. Thanks

If you look at the second picture in the review you can see I put a rubber spacer between the bracket and the base, it is one of these windshield mounts I just chop the barb off the end:


It goes between the bracket and the position shown


Before you reinstall the cowl you measure from the ground to the bottom corner of the headlight and to the top corner, those are the dimensions you use to make the two aiming lines on the wall. Then back up the golf cart 10-20’ from the wall and tighten or loosen the screw to compress the rubber spacer and raise/lower the light. A spring would probably work as well. I use the original screw but you may need a longer one depending how far off you are

 

[chopperjohn]

Got it. Thank you.

 

[GGarfield]

what an useful thread.

 

[1YAMAGUY]

Put Rhox Deluxe on my 2018 Drive2 EFI.
Poor fitment to body contour, with no adjusting of the Hi, Lo beams. But! they do look nice, and the DRL is and has been a real asset, and brake lights are real noticeable. Headlights, good for coon hunting, lighting trees very well. Attachment is a one way ticket too.
My actual experience in 2020