Post your HID setup thread
 

In this format:

Reflectors: stock 2000

HID kit: 35W Bixenon 4300K VVME from their ebay store. This kit:
http://www.vvme.com/standard-h439003...cPath=44_46_35

Any complaints:
1) it has the "shakes" - the bulbs can be easily moved by hand, looking for solution
2) minor dark spots in low beam

Light pattern photos:
These are taken 1 car length away
Low beam: (Note the big bluky shadow to the upper left is from a strong street light and a bush)
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1295939093

High beam:
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1295939093

Reflectors: 2003 projector headlights

HID kit: 6000K basic (non slim) kit from Ebay vendor "autoluminate"

Any complaints:
1) Would have gone with 4300 temp if I had to do it again
That's pretty much it. No other complaints.

Light pattern photos:

*will snap some photos, but from memory both cutoffs are a little slanted with left (if looking from inside the car) side being a tiny bit lower and right a little higher. Kinda like / / .Not a big deal though and I like the lighting overall.

Reflector: Autopal E-Code (reflector bowl/smooth glass)

HID kit: DDMTuning.com 35w Digital Ballasts 5000k. Low beam only.

Any complaints:
1) i still find the want for a high beam sometimes.
really don't have any other complaints. the E-Code's seem to do a really good job of controlling the light. this lighting solution only cost less than $80 for everything shipped. Plus DDM backs up all their HID kits with a full lifetime warranty for only $35 + shipping. They also have great customer service. I had a ballast go out in my corolla and they replaced it without hassle.

I don't have any pics of the light pattern, but will snap a few later on today/tonight.

You're an asshole. HIDs in 99/00 reflector housings? Seriously? Look at all that scatter. I throw shit at people like you. :vash:
Those hotspots suck for light output as well. You NEED proper projectors to diffuse/spread the light properly. That's a TON of wasted output...you'd get better light spread from a normal halogen H4 bulb as the housing is designed for them...the housing is NOT designed for the different light pattern of the HID and thus the shitty output. Brighter:ne:better. Jason, I know you like to do stuff right...please get some 01-05 lights or retrofit some projectors in there!


They're supposed to be like that to illuminate the side of the road. Jap/UK cars are the opposite and light up extra on the right side...which I'm sure you knew :giggle:

Reflectors: Stock 2004-2005.5 Mazdaspeed headlamps. (2005.5+ use H7)

HID kit/low beams: Generic brand 9006 HID kit @ 4300K bought from local hustler.

High beams:stock

Foglight kit: SIRIUS HID driving/fog lamps made by HELLA.

Any complaints:
1) Not really. Knowing that they are nameless product constantly has me thniking they'll go out at the worst time. Occasional flicker when cold

2) Fogs tend to "dance" on bumpy roads since they're heavier than the stock ones and the OE bumper isn't attached in all the places it should be allowing some extra flex. Not an issue with the lights themselvs, but rather the mounting of the front bumper.

Light pattern photos:
Taken in my parking deck with shitty phone. Will get "real" pictures soon.
Low beam:
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5213/...3a1b60a4_b.jpg
headlights by AnonymousNamelss, on Flickr


Fog/driving lamps (not used at all times because of light scatter. Used on dark, lonely roads):
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5214/...dcab98fa_b.jpg
foglights by AnonymousNamelss, on Flickr

Both headlights and foglights: Note the extra amount of lighting off to the sides caused by the foglights.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5217/...bc4e60af_b.jpg
headlightsandfoglights by AnonymousNamelss, on Flickr

Dop, your links are bust

Strange, because they're a free hosting site and I can see them just fine. I'll upload them somewhere else anyway though. Thanks for telling me.

I wasn't going to use quite the same language, buy my thoughts are similar.

The E-code housings I have in my '90 (with halogen bulbs, admittedly) have a much nicer pattern that that. It's nowhere near as uniform as you'd get with a projector, but it definately doesn't hotspot and the upper cutoff is fairly sharp, with a bit of a kicker up and to the right.

I didn't realize that the '99-'00 housings were that bad.

Do you see this shadow?:
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1295972912

That's the shadow of a bush cast by a street light. That means the light from the street light is brighter than the scatter.

Would you really like me to have an informative debate about this? I'll be more than happy to prove your logic as insufficent if you're willing to actually learn, as you really seem to like to learn technical information. Most of the people who think that HIDs in reflectors is prefectly OK are ricers who aren't willing to learn the errors and misinformation about such lighting and are generally incompetent.

I'll go ahead and start building my post since others will be reading this and I hope at least one person will learn something from it....

Jason you're a very smart guy but there is no way in hell you're winning this argument. I'm with Dopple and Joe on this one.

HID lights in non hid specific reflectors or projectors are FAIL.
They blind the shit out of people. I get blinded at lest once every couple days by some fail-tard in an suv or civic with their eleventybillion K hid kits in regular headlight housings.
Its bad. Real bad. Blinds people tremendously.

I was going to do the same thing as you and run hid with regular 99-00 lights.
Then I thought of all the assholes that blind me on a nightly basis and didn't want to be that guy. Ponied up for an 01+ light swap.

There's also the bi-xenon projector retrofit option that rotornut did which is very affordable and awesome.

Tonight I will drive my other car towards my parked miata with the low beams on.
I will also compare the beam patterns with a halogen in one side.

I thought the debate was ended here by Abe's post, which is why I decided to go ahead an use the stock 99/00 housings
https://www.miataturbo.net/showpost....7&postcount=85

There is no debate, your housing sucks. I put ebay HID's in my MSM and it cut off cleaner than any factory HID I've ever had. You need the newer housings. I bright light every one of you guys any chance I get.

First off, Jason, in your picture, it's really hard to debate anything because of the picture quality as well as the closeness of your car to the garage door. Obviouslly at such a short distance, the angles aren't going to be as obvious as if you were 4+ cars lenghts back. Not everyone in your line of light is only a car away from you. Even 3* of light will be blinding to other drivers. I'd like to see a picture of your car on level ground with a wall to the left side and no light pollution as well as a wall in front of you some distance down. It doesn't take much scatter to annoy the crap out of people in front of you, what might not look like might is a lot because of the type of light.

This is a prime example of terrible scatter. Though it doesn't look like much, this is what typically makes oncoming drivers angry...at least ones paying attention to the road. It doesn't look like much compared to the light down low, but it's significantly brighter than the "scatter" from a halogen bulb. The HID scatter can be just as bight as direct light from a standard halogen bulb.

Attachment 191490



This is a proper projectore + HID output. Note the cutoff line and the lack of any noticable glare. Remember there is a difference between auxiliary output. Aux. is the "scatter" that is designed to illuminate objects at higher angles (signs, reflectors etc...) without blinding people in front of you. Halogen/reflectors housings have more of this because the light output is lower and is tolerable to the eye. When you significantly intensify this, you piss people off...which is always going to happen with xenon lighting.

http://e36.floydexmachina.net/64y5gs...bulbs_epj3.jpg

The other thing are those hotspots. This is just wasted energy/light and another reason why reflector housings with HIDs suck. Reflectors are designed to take a specific light pattern from a specifically designed halogen bulb and spred the light a specific way. A halogen bulb produces light from a coil of wire in a very small space. We know that. A HID/xenon bulb is much longer and produces light from a long tube of gas...kinda like a 1" long lighning bolt in a container. Since the placement of the light source is much different, it hits the reflectors in much different angles and put light in places it was never meant to go.

Here is a typical "down the road" shot with HID/reflectors. Notice the pattern of light in front of the car.

http://www.blindinghid.com/images/hidpic.gif

http://oi39.tinypic.com/6ycilh.jpg


Now here are some "down the road shots with proper projectors. See the much more even light places on the street? No wasted light here.


http://www.mdxers.org/forums/attachm...p_image001.jpg

http://www.delonixradar.com.au/hid-x.../projector.jpg


A great example of the light output from a HID vs a halogen bulb. It's very clear that the way light is projected from the bulbs is significantly different.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2598/...4de9f09970.jpg



Maybe you like to see diagrams? These should be self-explanatory.

http://images.madrabbitt.com/hid-idiot.jpg

http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/attachme...point-diff.jpg

Abe is just as much as a ricer for thinking so. Just because cops are generally too lazy to know that it's illegal and that he has ridden behind friends doesn't mean it's not blinding the shit out of everyone.

I am tempted to put HIDs in my high beams to remind people what their HID/reflectors look like to me.

That second picture you posted looks just like my MSM cut off did.

Same here, but I'm too cheap to buy another set:giggle:

Thanks! :) Here it is:

Reflectors: 1999 housings with Morimoto Mini H1 Bi-Xenon Projectors

HID kit: 35W Xentec (from eBay) ballasts with 4300k Morimoto HID bulbs

Any complaints:
1) None. A million times better than the output of the stock '99-'00 housings with halogens (or HIDs for that matter) and was only $200 and some time to complete. (https://www.miataturbo.net/general-miata-chat-9/99-00-bi-xenon-headlight-retrofit-54647/)

Light pattern photos:

I need to get some better output shots, just haven't had time, but here's the quick shot I do have. Obviously not taken a long way away from the garage door and this was before they were adjusted/aimed. And a couple pictures of the retrofitted housings.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5203/...1bd590ba_z.jpg

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5089/...c972a5fb_z.jpg

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5248/...25e2cb89_z.jpg

Doppel,

I agree I have some "wasted light".
But I am more concerned about blinding other drivers than ultimate output, as these are a huge improvement over halogens.
I will do the test of driving towards my own car. If it's no different to me than OE HIDs, I will not change my setup due to scatter. My eyes aren't as good as some at rejecting glare because I had PRK surgery done.

Having said that spending $120 and emulating what Rotor did is attractive, for the improved output. Now that I looked at his thread, I'm curious if I can get a Euro pattern projector, as opposed to the DOT pattern. The Euro pattern is IMO much better. See my posts in his thread.
https://www.miataturbo.net/showthrea...t=54647&page=2

Glad you're taking this seriously...the more educated people, the better.

This is what your glare looks like. While it might not look bad up against a wall, it's still hard on the eyes. I think a LOT of people write this stuff off as "misaligned headlights" when they get popped in the face with glare...which is half truth.

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/6532/vioscrap.jpg

http://www.sinspeed.co.uk/blog/wp-co.../hid-glare.jpg

http://www.intellexual.net/hids/3.jpg

http://turborevs.org.uk/Xenon-comparision.jpg


Compared to how they should look in a proper setup-
(notice how you can see the headlight on top and the one on the bottom is just a bright spot?)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...r/IMG_2422.jpg

http://www.ridelust.com/wp-content/u...id-500x333.jpg

http://newbeetle.org/forums/attachme...e-dscn0584.jpg

http://articles.dashzracing.com/wp-c...cfl-halo-2.jpg

http://blog.everythingcarparts.com/w...dlights-10.jpg


I'm guessing this is the light pattern you are looking for. These are Infiniti FX35 projectors.

http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/8...hidkit1vs9.jpg

Yes that is correct (Euro pattern of FX35).

I wish the $120 projectors Rotor used had 'em.

Fucking DOT, I dunno why they updated their crap ancient 100 year old spec, with a new spec that isn't as good as the Euro pattern, instead of just adopting it.

So some searching, I'm sure you can find some projectors that have such a pattern.

I parked my miata and my beater (Acuronda with crappy halogens) one in front of the other so that an approaching car would see both cars' left headlight. Both were on low beam. Here are 2 pix, from different distances, taken at a height of an approaching sedan driver's eye. Take note that the camera's location from the cars is downhill, so the setup is worse than if the road is flat.

Here is the pic. The left bright spot is the Acuronda, the right bright spot is the miata:
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1296021140
and
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1296020800

Subjectively the miata's lights look brighter, but the street light is brighter!
I would call it "hmm, a bit glarey but not too bad". Nowhere near as bad as some I've seen, and far, far from mis-aimed halogens or hi beams.

Here's hi beam:
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1296020800


Now I was curious where the scatter comes from, so I took a closeup pic of the headlight, from an angle slightly above the cutoff point and from the direction of an approaching car:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1296020800

Now I compared it to the wife's Focus with halogens, which has much better lights than the Acuronda:
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1296020800

So as you can see, the scatter is due to the design of the reflector. It's those steps in the reflectors. I don't think it's so much due to the difference in the light source (filament is long and skinny, HID has a round globe about the length of the halogen filament). The halogen bulb produces about the same % of scatter vs. the hotspot.

My conclusion is, "good enough". Though Rotor's conversion would be good bang for the buck.

Here is a comparison against stock Focus headlights

miata
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1295939093

Focus
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1296022083

i also snapped a shot of my HID's in my E-Code's. yes, the optimum setup would be projectors. but this was cheap and improved the illumination of the road ten fold over stock. this is good enough till i justify spending the money for a low profile projector setup.

Attachment 191486

H4 halogen
http://www.machsources.com/productim...d-car-bulb.jpg

H4 HID
http://www.ferviduscurrus.com/90-253...ment-bulbs.jpg

All I can say is that I've seen multiple 99/00 headlights with HIDs and they were all wrong. With that, I'll stop posting in here and let the thread go to it's original purpose.

So for us with an NA chassis what is the PROPER way to do it?
i read e-codes are good... like the above post with them.... but they dont look that great.


im looking for light output like i would have in my 08 GTI

On my NA I was using HIDs in the Moss Motors low profile setup which have Hella projector assemblies. Very nice kit and great lighting, however, most people don't want to spend $500 on headlight assemblies. Neither did I, I traded someone my stock headlights and $100 for them. There's definitely a market for some less expensive projector solutions for the NA crowd.

for the NA chassis, the best i could suggest would be a low profile popup kit using a Hella projector made for HID's.

the pic i took was about 1-2 car away from the brick wall. i keep my lights aimed lower than most, but i still light up the road very well. usually the highest point of my cutoff, sans the up swept part on the right side, is below almost every vehicles trim line i have encountered.

Doppel, it probably does not make too much of a difference, but my H4 HID bulbs have built in glare shields. its still not going to be anywhere as great as a projector, but from what i have seen, they will help cut down a lot of glare to oncoming drivers.

Doppelganger,

the comparison of the HID and halogen bulbs shows exactly my point. The light source in the HID bulb is the little sphere in the middle whose diameter is close to the length of the halogen filament. The Bixenons use a solenoid to move the sphere between the locations of the 2 H4 filaments you show, and in low beam mode, have effectively the same shielding as the H4 low beam filament (the upper one in your pic). I stand by my assertion that the sizes of the light sources aren't hugely different, like you suggested in your earlier post, a "1 inch long lightning bolt".

It's possible that the shielding and location of some HID bulbs are far worse than mine (VVME).

Again having said that, I do have the hots for the projector setup Rotor did. Great value for money for better low beam light output and less glare.

Not a fan of low pro setups. anything avaliable that fits stock location?

Perhaps so. I just don't belive that any HID should be put into a reflector as they are designed to put a specific light output on the road and a specific output above the cutoff line using a specific bulb...change that even 1mm and everything goes askew. Being in your position, I'd invest in some projector driving/fog lights and add HIDs and put some higher wattage H4 bulbs in...have your cake and eat it too! At least you're not using some ricer colored shit :laugh:. If I were in this position, I'd try these...

http://store.candlepower.com/64205.html

http://store.candlepower.com/90h4hbxtpo.html

It really sucks no one makes a HIR H4 bulb since that would be the solution for you guys with 99/00 or NAs running the Hella E-codes.

I will apologize for coming across as a dick, but I really want to stress the importance of safe and proper vehicle lighting.

There have already been a couple of good responses to this, so I'll simply concur. Observing that the HID assembly is about an inch long is no different from observing that the glass envelope around a halogen lamp is about the same length.

From Doppelgänger's later post, you can see that the actual light-producing element in a HID lamp is a tiny oval-shaped capsule located about midway down the shaft. It's a small ball of ionized gas, not an inch-long lightning bolt. I've highlighted it here:

http://img37.imagefra.me/i51q/thradd..._531_u77ts.gif

That's where the light lives. And to me, it does look to be about the same size as the resistive filament in a conventional halogen lamp. Now, from a practical standpoint there are obviously some differences, and I don't know enough about photonics and optics to make much more than a very slightly educated guess. I suspect that while the size of the element is similar, the position of the element may likely be different, especially since a halogen lamp typically contains two elements, offset from one another slightly. I don't have two to compare side-by-side, but I'd guess that the position of the HID capsule in this application is probably a compromise between the typical positions of the hi and lo filaments in a conventional H4.


A typical H4 halogen lamp also contains a design element which would be nearly impossible to replicate in a HID capsule. Here's a slightly clearer picture of an H4 than the one Doppel posted:

http://img37.imagefra.me/i51q/thraddax/hl_b95_u77ts.jpg

See how there's a tiny little reflector inside the envelope, placed so near to the upper (lo-beam) filament that it's practically touching it? You're not going to be able to replicate that with an HID no matter what you do.


So, yeah. I pretty much concur. Reflectors and halogen H4 lamps were designed to work together. HID-specific projectors and HID lamps were designed to work together.






How the hell did I miss that thread?

That is the link I'd been looking for. A place to buy actual, shuttered bi-xenon projector assemblies for less than $546.15 each.




I feel you here, as the little kicker on the end is one thing I like about my Hellas.

I wonder if you could approximate this effect with DOT projectors by rotating one of the two assemblies slightly counter-clockwise (as viewed from the driver's position)?

Yeah yeah..I meant to say 1cm..not 1in. But it's still a completely different light output/requency. Doing an image search for H4 HID bulbs reveals all kinds of "trickery" to emulate/shield/divert light..but it's still not the design of the H4 halogen bulb and will never put light in the same pattern. I wouldn't mind if it did and would be all about people seeing the road with better light.

1 mm error in the shape isn't much at all. Before the days of HIDs I experimented with wiggling the halogen bulb's seating and observed the effect on the pattern on a wall. I stand by my assertion that the scatter is not mainly due to the differences between the shapes of the light sources, but is inherent in the reflector design. See my reflector closeup pix above.

Joe, that little "reflector" in the bulb isn't a reflector, it's a shade. Its exact shape varies from brand to brand. (I just looked at some of my H4 halogens of various brands) The HID capsule I bought has a complicated looking shade whose purpose is to cast a shadow of the same shape as the halogen.

In the end I looked at the glare of my own car and to me it's "acceptable". But again yes, I'm interested at some point in upgrading to 50W HIDs and projectors. (having and eating cake)

Joe, the shape of the E-code/DOT low beam output is a function of the shade inside Rotor's projectors. It can be modified. See what I posted in his thread.

Maybe not side to side, but fore/aft position changes the angles in which the light hits the reflector (focus). I wish I knew or could find more information about the light frequency of a halogen initiated light and a HID initiated light and the differences between UV and IR outputs associated with each....like the differences between looking at a very bight l.e.d. and a welding arc. I'm sure one is more harsh on the human eye over the other and would like to find proof/exactly why. I mean, I know when I've come around a corner and faced someoned HID/bi-xenon on "high" vs a normal halogen light on "high" and it's a noticable difference as the HID light seems to 'twinkle' and burn much more than a halogen. Yes, I know light color has a lot to do with that (which is why I hate everyone who runs blueish/blue/purple or whatever other color they think looks cool).

I'm still surprised how many different "designs" there are for attempting to chield a H4 HID like a H4 halogen. I don't doubt that a lot of the variations are imcompatable with various reflector designs.

But the location of the capsule fore/aft is a function of the accuracy of the location of the light source wrt the base, not a function of the shape of the light source. The fore-aft length of the HID light source is about the same size as a halogen filament, but fatter in the middle (side-to-side).

The scatter with the halogen reflectors with the use of halogens appears to be designed into them, perhaps to have a little bit of light in directions other than down to the road. They are there with halogens, they are there with HIDs. Projectors appear to have much more aggressive shading. Perhaps true for both halogen and HID projectors.

One thing appears true about projectors, by design, they capture and reflect a larger "included solid angle" of the light source's output for a given total size, thus put out more light for a given light source. This is why my friend's 2003 P5 factory halogen projectors have far better low beams than my miata with halogens.

About the same or exactly the same? Not that I'm asking you to know, but it's a big "?" that is a large determing factor to this entire discussion :) If we wanted to get super technical on that, we'd have to know if every H4 halogen bulb has the exact same placement and size of the filament and if every HID bulb has the same exact placement of the arc. But I don't expect to go that far, really.

Generally, HIDs change the light pattern when plugged into a reflector housing. Here is a fun example...an airplane. This is great because the light housings are not left or right biased light headlights, which can throw off the 'ole HID in one side and halogen in the other side comparison picture. Here you can see that two identical lights throw off a different pattern just by going from a 55w halogen to a 35w HID. Now, clearly the source of the light is positioned differently in order to move the light pattern that much. I'm not saying this is exactly what your headlights are doing as I've already admitted that one can probably use 5 different HID bulbs and get 5 different patterns in the same reflector and that there are different reflectors out there.

http://www.duckworksav.com/Images/So...ghtsOnWall.JPG

1cm is even liberal. That capsule is maybe 3-4mm at best. They really are shockingly tiny for the amount of light that they produce.

But I don't buy the argument of "different light output/frequency." Visible light is visible light, and unless somebody changed general relativity or the Wien-Plank distribution law while I wasn't looking, it all propagates the same way. The differences here are mechanical in nature, full-stop.



Ok, poor word choice on my part. But the fact is that it's a design feature which an HID element can only approximate at best.

(slaps self on forehead.)

Yeah, I expect that would in fact work rather nicely.

You're costing me money, you know that, right? :D




I'm not entirely certain that I'm following you here (the location of something isn't a function of its output, the output is a function of the location) but I still maintain that there are two basic mechanical differences at play.

One is the aforementioned shade / reflector thingy inside the H4 envelope which cannot be precisely reproduced in an HID design.

The other is that the position of the light source in an HID element is, at best, a compromise between the positions of the two light sources in a dual-beam H4. Yes, I am aware that there are "H4 replacement" HID elements which feature a solenoid-operated sleeve that moves around the light source, but the fact remains that the position of the light source itself is going to be different. And it is the relationship between the position of the light source and the reflector behind it does play a role in determining the shape and spread of the beam.

For a simple illustration of this, go grab a Maglite-brand flashlight (torch, for our UK readers), or one of the more faithful copies. Not an LED version, the old-school one with the incandescant lamp.

As you twist the top of the flashlight, the beam changes from a broad, spread-out pattern to a tightly focused one. The way this is accomplished is that the action of twisting the top causes the reflector assembly to move forward and backward relative to the lamp, which is entirely equivalent to moving the lamp forward and backward relative to the reflector. You're not changing the shape of the reflector, merely the relationship between the position of it and the lamp.

As I said, I'd like to know if there is or isn't a different in the type of light based on the light source. I can't say I did all that well in science back in highschool. I'm sure you read that and said to yourself "what an idiot". But hey, I'm open to the absorption of knowledge. Ok seriously though, I feel at this point I'm being a pain in the ass to you guys and will STFU.

This is turning into an interesting thread.

I caught this little part. If you use the projectors I did, you are immediately limited to 35w systems. People quickly found that the 50w systems started melting things on these projectors. Not because the projectors are cheap or brittle, but simply because they weren't designed to handle the amount of heat the 50w systems produce. Some also found out that the cheap eBay HID kit bulbs put off a ton more heat than a quality bulb and we're having issues as well. So just FYI. There's a ton of good knowledge on HIDplanet.com, before I did my retrofit I read and researched in those forums for a couple of days.

Is there any real work involved in doing this with the Moss kit, or is it just a matter of bulbs? This is what I would like to do if I could get my hands on a Moss setup for a reasonable price.

Agreed. But assuming that the HID Bixenon solenoid moves the arc's center when going from low to high beam properly to the proper centers of the 2 filament positions, then the only other variables are:
- the shape of the light source (of which I said the HID is a bit fatter in the middle, maybe 3 mm wider)
and
- the accuracy of the shade

Regarding the shade, think about the shape of the shadow an H4 would cast if it's placed in the middle of a sphere. Now design an HID shade that sits outside the capsule, so it casts the same shadow. Not too hard.

As for the width of the light source, I pointed out that moving a halogen lamp side to side by about 2 mm blurs the low beam demarcation line indeed, but doesn't hugely increase the scatter above said demarcation line (which is what causes glare).

Note that if the light source width were a real issue, a halogen projector design would suffer from the same increased scatter when HID capsules are installed. (Projector designs combine a reflector and a lens, in order to have smaller headlights with greater light captured and sent forward. The reflectors in projectors would have the same size of focal point as reflector-only designs) However, this doesn't seem to be the case. Note that halogen projectors appear to have less scatter built into them than typical reflector designs.

I suspect that the reason we see OE's using projectors for HIDs, is because they moved to projectors (using halogens), *before* HIDs became common.

I still stand by what I said, that the scatter is a function of the reflector design. The scatter is there whether you use a halogen bulb or an HID capsule.

As for the extra nasty HID-in-reflector patterns shown, that's probably a function of:
- poor light spot location accuracy vs a halogen
- poor shade design

I suspect that the quality of the HID bulbs is variable, and the VVME I use is pretty decent. This may be why there are so many crappy patterns out there, and yet AbeFM and I think our setups are "OK". This is different than concluding "all HID setups in reflectors will have awful scatter"

I agree. Look at the older Acura RLs (99, 00, or so), they don't have projectors but came with HIDs from the factory and have a very nice beam. I've never looked at the reflector closely though.

I was thinking the same thing.

On the very low end of the scale, this might consist of little more than a plate which bolts into the stock headlight housing in place of the stock sealed-beam unit, which has a provision to mount a projector similar to the one linked to earlier. It's possible that depth and waterproofing might be issues, but I expect something like this could be made to work.

Personally, I'm thinking back to the idea that bounced around some time ago where somebody had taken a set of eBay-sourced clear-lens turn signal assemblies, gutted them, and installed halogen lights inside- the idea being to use them as the main headlights. I'm wondering if an HID projector assembly this small might be able to fit in such a configuration...




This first assumption is where my thought process diverges from yours.

If the arc center of the HID lamp is located in the space which is precisely between where the two filaments of a halogen H4 would be, then right off the bat we do not have a "proper" positioning of the light source. If we want the pattern to be identical to what we'd have with a halogen light source, then the entire HID capsule itself would have to move forward and back when you switch from hi-beam to lo-beam.

Again- think of the Maglite. Changing the relative position between the lamp and the reflector by just one or two mm changes the beam pattern dramatically.


Again, I think that this is only going to be approximated at best. Looking back at the image of the H4 lamp I posted earlier, the shade actually encompass the lo-beam filament. It wraps around it not only on the sides, but also the front and back. Given that the HID capsule assembly is enclosed inside a secondary, cylindrical glass envelope, there is just no way you are going to achieve that kind of coverage with a mechanical shade, especially given the need to articulate either the shade or the capsule depending on whether hi-beam or lo-beam operation is desired.



Not too hard? It's totally impossible given that you can't get behind the HID capsule owing to the cylindrical envelope which encloses it.


It's a function of both the reflector design and the spacial relationship between the reflector and the light source. The latter is going to be quite difficult to replicate under both hi-beam and lo-beam conditions. At best, you might be able to optimize the position of the capsule for lo-beam operation, however I'm not aware of any fore-aft adjustability which is inherent in the design of either an H4 reflector assembly or an H4-based HID assembly.


Here's a diagram of the '99-'03 RL headlight assembly (left side):
http://www.acurapartswarehouse.com/d...-03-225150.png
A couple of observations. First, this assembly uses separate lamps and separate reflectors for hi-beam and lo-beam operation, rather than combining both modes of operation into a single assembly as do our H4s.

I'm also not aware that this particular reflector assembly was used in any other Acurae which ran a halogen-only setup, so I'd imagine that the designers were able to optimize the design of the reflector for the position and characteristics of the specific light sources used.



Again, I'm not trying to argue here. Both you and Abe have done this and so it's obvious that it works. I merely hold that it is less optimal to stick an HID capsule into a reflector designed for a halogen lamp, particular in a twin-filament design, than to install one into a housing designed and intended for use with the HID lamp in the first place.

There are untold numbers of OEM reflector headlights with OEM HID bulbs. The upper level version of my car cam with them, and I have been looking for them

What I take from this thread

NA - SOL for now

NB - OEM projectors work fine with a proper HID kit, at least that is what I got from page 1

I know the Acura RL, the Nissan Maxima and a couple others have HID in reflectors as OE, and those things still bother me, mostly the Acuras.

I was doing more research on all of this yesterday and came to a mildly surprising bit of information. It seems that halogen equipped projectors are actually different from HID equipped projectors and that the position of the light source and shape of the lens is different. So technically not all projectors are "made" for use use with HID. While it's still clearly a much better solution, I couldn't find a specific reason of "don't use HIDs in projector housings because x,y and z". All I could find was that there is a design difference between xenon projectors and halogen projector shapes.

Insert foot in mouth? Perhaps. I'd like to find a S2K or similar low car with OE HIDs and compare the light output/spread/pattern to my HID-equipped halpgen projectors. A E55/S2K/TSX projectore retrofit may be in order.

I'm wondering how difficult it might be to crack open a set of those clear lights you see on eBay (that take H4 bulbs) and retrofit the projectors into those. There are sets on there as well that claim to be projectors simply because they have a projector lens built into them, but have no cutoff shield. Anyway, the result could be something that fits properly into the stock housing for those who don't like the low profile setups and it's waterproofed. The dimensions would make all the difference, but the projectors I used are not very large at all.

Cspence is running HIDs in the turn signal ports of his white car, no main headlights, but I can't recall if he's using a projector or not.

From what I've read HIDs in most halogen projectors will create some hot spots and minor light scatter, but nothing that you normally see unless you're really looking for it. The cutoff is usually still very sharp and the majority of the light goes where you want it to, like in your car or the Hella projectors in the Moss setup, which are halogen projectors. However some halogen projector housings simply cannot withstand the amount of heat HIDs create, you'll see either melted housings or the internal reflector material/coating bubble and flake off.

Dammit, I wrote that very badly.

What I meant was, a solenoid arrangement that properly moved the HID capsule such that the center of the HID light source in each of the low and high beam positions, is moved to the respective proper H4 low and high beam filament centers.

No Joe, re-write your above missive with my corrected statement in mind. ;)

This may be because if an engineer were to do a clean-sheet design of the reflector or projector, one wouldn't restrict themselves to halogen-mimicking HID bulbs, but would consider all available HID bulbs and choose one for overall cost, reliability, performance, and manufacturability.

Perhaps the "halogen aping" HID bulbs were designed to either replace halogens in existing headlamp assemblies, OR were a means for their manufacturers to sell them to car manufacturers by overcoming the latter's resistance by requiring a *minimal* re-design of said existing assemblies. And perhaps later on, after HID's were accepted, said HID bulb designers then worked with headlamp designers to come up with a better system design which of course meant diverging from halogen-type designs.

This sort of thing happens all the time in the engineering world.

If indeed my theory is correct that the halogen reflectors in my miata and Focus were designed to have *some* scatter, it stands to reason that said scatter would be a little much with either a higher output halogen, or an HID bulb. Which as I observed looking at my own car, "is a bit annoyingly bright, but not too bad".

HIDs generate less heat than halogens.

Witness their power consumption: 35W for a typical HID, 55W for a typical halogen.

I've been wondering this myself. Power is power, and heat is heat...

Could it be that with a halogen, more of the heat generated is conductively coupled out of the assembly through the base, whereas with a xenon lamp, more of the heat is radiatively coupled into the surrounding plastics?

Or is this whole thing just a myth, and these housing would have melted with halogen lamps in them anyway?

I honestly have no idea.



Ok, now I understand why we seemed to be speaking at cross purposes. I didn't realize that you had found an H4-replacement HID in which the entire capsule moves forward and back- the few units I have personally seen had the capsule fixed in one location and moved a semi-cylindrical shutter back and forth around the capsule.

I still maintain that you're not going to achieve equivalent cutoff with a shade that is external to the outer envelope (on an HID assembly) vs. one which actually encompasses the light-emitting element (in the H4), however you're right in that the reflector performance show be comparable in a moving-capsule design, assuming that the movement of the capsule is properly calibrated to the nominal positions of the two elements in a halogen H4.

That would actually be a neat test for you to do: put your HID capsule side-by-side with a halogen H4, with the mounting surfaces aligned, and document the position of the HID capsule relative to the filaments in the H4 with the solenoid energized and de-energized.

Understandable. Starting with a new type of lighting should have a fresh design to optomize it's capabilities.

As for light scatter being designed in, that is correct (as I noted earlier in post #14), to illuminate various overhead signage on the roadway. The question is, how much light scatter/percentage of lumens, is designed above the cutoff or outside the beam pattern on a reflector vs a projector. I knew we can't answer that here without the people who have designed them or a light meter. It is widely assumed that reflectors put more light out in this area compared to a projector and putting a HID in there increases the lumens outside the beam pattern enough to be seen as a problem to oncoming drivers. Oh trust me if I had the time/equipment I would love to know how much and what differences there are in both hosings with their native lighting and HID.

could be that the HID is a more effective emitter of IR?

It seems you might have hit it on the head. After reading some more into this, halogens radiate more infrared heat which is absorbed by all of the surrounding materials. HIDs radiate less infrared heat, however the heat they do produce seems to stay concentrated on parts in close proximity, which might explain why people are having problems with reflector coatings flaking off from inside the projector bowls (most coatings fail after 250º F) or housings melting.

I found a few different threads across the net with some readings taken on halogen and HID bulbs:

Halogen Filament Temp = 5,480º F
Halogen Bulb Glass = 1,100º F
Halogen Bulb Base = 415º F

HID Arc = 10,800º F
HID Bulb Glass = 1,385º F
HID Bulb Base = 465º F

Not concrete data since things can vary from bulb to bulb and applications, but HIDs definitely create more heat at their origin. How it's transmitted to the rest of the parts in housing seems to be completely different. I'd love to get ahold of the proper measuring equipment, I could put my car next to my g/f's '00 and do some direct comparisons.

Imagine placing said H4 on low beam in the center of a 1 ft diameter plastic translucent globe. You will see a shadow on the globe. Draw its outline with a sharpie. Your task is to design a shade for an HID capsule that sits outside of it, that produces the same shape shadow... I don't see why this would be too difficult.

<duplicate post>

Linky? Is this with the same power rating? Or 35W vs. 55W?

Heat is not the same as temperature BTW.

A lower power HID will definitely generate less heat than a halogen, but the way the heat gets out could indeed be very different.

The IR content may be it - perhaps most of the heat from the halogen gets out in the form of IR and reaches whatever is being illuminated (road, garage door, oncoming driver's retinas). If the light from a halogen on your thighs when standing in front of the headlamp feels hotter than from HIDs despite the dimmer output, then this statement is true.

And then the heat generated by the HID may be conducted back down to the base, resulting in higher temps at the base.

This thread *really* is turning interesting. :)

Yet it almost turned necrotic.


A bit of light reading has supplied some anecdotal descriptions of the physical architecture of HID assemblies in general. Wikipedia, for instance, has this to say:It seems probable that the outer glass envelope might, in addition to protecting the inner capsule from physical damage, might also serve to attenuate the high levels of UV radiation being emitted.

If this is the case, then it is plausible that HID assemblies of higher quality (and, one presumes, greater cost) might utilize outer envelopes which, due to differences in their composition or coating, are more effective at attenuating the UV radiation produced in the arc.

Now, unlike infrared light, UV does not typically have a pronounced heating effect. It does, however, cause the degradation of plastics and other polymer materials by fading and cracking. Think of a plastic toy which has been left outside in the sun for several months- it becomes discolored and brittle.

Hmmm I wonder if there are reports of factory headlamp plastic lenses turning brittle or yellow after a few months of HID usage.