inittab

HID "bulbs" are 35watt low-wattage bulbs, they put off a LOT less heat than normal headlight bulbs.

Pele

iTrader: (28)

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...nversions.html

Junia

I got some more pictures but they too are a little blurry. Its kinda wierd because I have to take these pictures without the flash and I guess the camera doesn't have anything to focus on so I'm guessing thats why they come out sort of blurry.




everyone decided to park in their driveway tonight so this is what I got. I think you can see the light pattern in the second one where I took the picture from behind the car. Well, I changed out the driver side bulb and it is kind of yellowish too. I have one last bulb and I hope its white like the passenger side because if not I'm changing the passenger out to match the driver side headlight.

Manntis

So you've read about HID headlamps and have it in mind to convert your car. A few mouse clicks on the web, and you've found a couple of outfits offering to sell you a "conversion" that will fit any car with a given type of halogen bulb, for between $900 and $1300. STOP! Put away that credit card. Trying to "convert" halogen headlamps to HID is an unsafe thing to do. There are *NO* legitimate or safe HID retrofits for the headlamps of any car which didn't have HID lamps as a factory option. "Retrofitting" an HID arc capsule in place of a filament bulb is a very poor idea. There are lots of folks out there advertising "retrofits" of this type. In a nutshell, it is sometimes possible to physically adapt an arc capsule to go where a filament lamp was meant to go. It is really NOT possible to attain an acceptable (let alone compliant) beam pattern this way. Some of the "retrofits" get kind of close with regard to cutoff gradient and relative light levels within the beam, but most all of them have beam problems...improperly placed hot spot, dark spots in the center of the beam, excessive foreground illumination, excessive stray (glare) light, improper cutoff placement, etc.

It is, as I say, sometimes possible to place the arc in the headlamp exactly where the filament was located before. However, an arc is a fundamentally different *kind* of light source than a glowing filament. The reflector and/or lens optics in a headlamp meant to take a filament lamp are designed specifically for the characteristics of a glowing filament.

Many optic designs rely on the edges of the filament to shape the beam pattern, for instance, and there is no reason for chromatic correction to be worried about, because in most filament-lamp headlamps, chromatic aberration is not a problem. (Some polyellipsoidal optics do exhibit substantial prism effects at the cutoff.) The boundaries of the arc in an automotive HID capsule are much "fuzzier" (to use a technical term!) than the edges of the filament in a filament bulb. There are substantial color differences at different points in the arc (the edges, the ends, etc.), while the color of a glowing filament is relatively uniform. The arc is usually not the same length as the filament. For all these reasons, it is not reasonable to expect an acceptable beam pattern just because the arc is placed in the same location as the filament was.

Note that this does not even address the issues raised in lamp designs in which the filament is not coaxial with the bulb base (9007, NDF/9008) or in which the filament is transverse rather than axial (H3) or transverse AND non-coaxial (9004). All arc capsules (D1, D1S, D1R, D2, D2S, D2R, 9500) have axial arc paths that are coaxial with the base. This does not stop "headlamp mercenaries" selling "conversions" for such headlamps. The resultant mess cannot be called a beam pattern, but as long as the "converted" lamps spray-out lots of purplish light, the purchasers of such "conversions" tend to be happy, not knowing and/or not caring that they are driving with dangerous, overly-glaring, inadequately-performing headlamps. ESPECIALLY if the seller of the "retrofit" has given ill-informed (or just plain fraudulent) assurances that the kit is "beam pattern corrected". There's flatly just no such a thing!

Most people do not have the expertise (let alone the equipment) to judge the acceptability of a headlamp beam pattern. Most people can tell the difference between arc light (purplish) and halogen light (not purplish). It is certainly possible to physically place an arc capsule into a halogen headlamp. But for all real purposes, it is NOT possible to make an acceptable headlamp this way. For some cars, legitimate HID retrofit kits are available. These consist of complete new headlamp lens-reflector units to go with HID capsules and ballasts. This is the *ONLY* safe and proper way to put HID headlamps on a car not originally so equipped.

~D. Stern

Junia

Good thing I didn't have to pay that much for them. Luckily they aren't that bad because I jumped in my dad's car and drove toward mine and the lights didn't really bother me at all.

I think the worst is when I drive approach a suv or a pickup coming the opposite way and their light just blind the crap out of me.

cptpain

iTrader: (1)

is that a Hi/Low kit? of just a Low beam kit?

$525!!!? i found a company (Promax) that sells their Hi/Low HID kits in every type available for $360ish.... ask me where... they also sell on ebay for about half the price than from their website

perfect_circle

holy thread ressurection batman!

Directfreak

iTrader: (2)

OLD Thread, but good info. I would like to see the currently installed HID kit with a PROJECTOR style H4 Bulb:


As opposed to the REFLECTOR type currently used.


Should look have a nice cutoff like THIS:

Cowboyfun

Thats how it should look.

Manntis

I'd rather put in flush-mount projectors and eliminate the flipups.

perfect_circle

what kind of car is that?? is that a shelby?!?

85 FB

Amazingly, I just purchased those exact headlights (the top ones/projectors) and a new wiring harness for it, altho this'll be with Hyper White H4 bulbs, not HID. I'll be installing them tomorrow. Will be willing to take pictures at night if anyone is interested.

And, perfect circle, that's a 3rd gen.