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HID headlights

LC4CARL

Aero challenged
Joined
Sep 8, 2008
Location
Vancouver, WA
I searched TB. Been reading various sites. There are so many companies that offer HID conversion kits it's overwhelming.

Seems like color in the 5k range is ideal, unless we want that cool blue (and who doesn't) toward the 10k color temp. I read that they run cooler (actual temp) than halogen, use less current and produce more light. So far so good. And they do that cool "pause" thing on start up.

Ballasts. Canbus? Other?

All HID's are Xenon gas?

Favorite kits?

H1 bulbs?

Any input would be appreciated.
 
Warm traditional yellowy halogen light ~3200k is better for seeing shapes in cool damp foggy weather and focusing the beam, just sayin’.

Unless you desire every bit of fog/water droplet imaginable to reflect back at you and stress your eyes out while you likely run over the pedestrian dressed in all black/dark blue in a memorable looking car with cop-magnet blue ricer lights in Portland’s (ever more) nimby ex-urbs, give the blue(er) lights a miss?

Also, presumably you mean LED replacements?
The pattern won’t ever be as good as a halogen is in a halogen lamp.
That said, less current draw and heat can be advantageous (thonthe snow won’t melt off them without heated washers/wipers (a possible self-inflicted first world problem to solve/another excuse for the wife as to why you’re always in the garage/hanging out with us dorks), but you can leave the lights on longer before draining the battery and in theory never again replace a halogen bulb. :e-shrug:

Xenons are pass? and akin to installing fluorescents in your house :cameron:.
As is typically the case, generic digital & lighting technology & products for automotive apps is usually yesterday’s technology heavily marked up.

Knowing & logically following that to its extreme, insistance on buying all cars used as well as (nearly) every single part would make the most ecological and fiscal sense.

So, patience & Give it a couple years you’re likely to find/trip over some 9004 LED replacements in the boneyard or your usual haunts in car modding dorkdom?

Already tripped over a set in a crusher-bound disposable Audi douche-mobile/colvoluted kraut-can in 9007 flavor and passed them to a friend (all my junk is too old to take 9007s) for cheap/trade.
Shoulda thought of you...wife’s mini probably takes 9007s if it doesn’t already have fluorescent style xenon HIDs
 
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I searched TB. Been reading various sites. There are so many companies that offer HID conversion kits it's overwhelming.

Seems like color in the 5k range is ideal, unless we want that cool blue (and who doesn't) toward the 10k color temp. I read that they run cooler (actual temp) than halogen, use less current and produce more light. So far so good. And they do that cool "pause" thing on start up.

Ballasts. Canbus? Other?

All HID's are Xenon gas?

Favorite kits?

H1 bulbs?

Any input would be appreciated.

Have eBay special kits in both cars. Have worked fine for a couple of years now. They're all Chinabay so whichever seller looks decent is fine.

3400k is the OEM temp for bmw/vw/mercedes. It produces the most light at the whites temp. Higher temps will have more color and less light.
 
Huh, I did not know that.

Yes, Volvo/Cibie's engineers designed good headlamps, but if full current is not provided by positive/negative wires, a new OEM headlamp set will not perform as expected.

GM would insert a resistor wire, which reduces current flow, but if "pure" 12 volts is sent from the battery, there will be a higher light output, but bulbs will burn out sooner.

My 93-245 has mint OEM headlamps, and sincerely, they work fine.

Back in seventies, I used the equivalent of an e-code on a motorcycle, which directs output light in distinct areas. On level surfaces...good...when transitioning to uphill grade, coverage area is reduced during transition. Point here, light output is focused, and much better than standard US approved lights.

Hence, clean up your grounds/hots first...
 
Have eBay special kits in both cars. Have worked fine for a couple of years now. They're all Chinabay so whichever seller looks decent is fine.

3400k is the OEM temp for bmw/vw/mercedes. It produces the most light at the whites temp. Higher temps will have more color and less light.


Worth the effort?

Thx.
 
I searched TB. Been reading various sites. There are so many companies that offer HID conversion kits it's overwhelming.

Seems like color in the 5k range is ideal, unless we want that cool blue (and who doesn't) toward the 10k color temp. I read that they run cooler (actual temp) than halogen, use less current and produce more light. So far so good. And they do that cool "pause" thing on start up.

Ballasts. Canbus? Other?

All HID's are Xenon gas?

Favorite kits?

H1 bulbs?

Any input would be appreciated.


DON'T run the hid's. They will ruin the reflectors in those new ecodes. I ran them for year in my 87 244 and a friend told me about the problem of HID's and when i looked at the reflectors, they were junk.
 
Drop in led from China here, 5k, but actually more like 6 or 7k and they’re great but high and low beam are not very different. Have a set in the 122 with amber sleeves as well, they’re great in the round bucket but same deal in a square one, hi and low beam are hardly different from the driver seat.
 
E-Codes with good H4 bulbs and rewiring higher gauge with relays is really all you need to do on these cars. If you need extra, add more lights.

The drop in H4 LED stuff can be questionable. While LEDs are no doubt the future of lighting, there's quite a bit of deception online in typical Chinese bulbs when it come to true output. Don't believe what you see on the box... And even then, only recently have manufacturers gotten better at correctly mimicking an H4 bulb's filament position in the housing, which is critical to good light output.
 
Via another forum post...sniped...OEM lights have resistance wiring so light output is based upon some alternator voltage output.

These numbers are just calculations, not measurements so YMMV. They should be very close, though.

At 12V, a 55W light should use 4.58 amps. That means it has an effective resistance of 2.618Ω with the filament at operating temperature.

Using this resistance as a constant for the light bulb, we can calculate how much power the light will have when the voltage is reduced or increased. Formula is
P=((V?)/R) so as you can see, the voltage component has an exponential effect on power.

14V - 74W - 134% of nominal power
13V - 64W - 116%
12V - 55W - 100% (Nominal Power rating)
11V - 46W - 84%
10V - 38W - 69%

As this shows, ANY voltage drop in the headlights wiring will dramatically reduce the power of the headlights. Tungsten Halogen bulbs will get dimmer and more yellow as the power is reduced.

Using #12AWG wire and heavy duty relays will allow a voltage drop of much less than 1V. This can bring the voltage up so that the power is in that 116 to 134% range - without any 'illegal' light bulbs, solid state voltage boost converters, or other nonsense.

The result is brilliant, piercing, white light that will really light up the countryside. The high beams will command respect from oncoming motorists who don't dim theirs and get a flash from yours.
========================

Hence, clean up grounds/hots, or have dim lights with older vehicles.
 
New bulb for momma?s Mini. HID sux...


:lol:


8BAC5378-9335-4F67-AAEC-F7E34461E562-M.jpg
 
Expensive parts. Could be said for most newer cars in general. OTOH, most of those parts are easily obtainable, unlike the growing number of NLA parts we are increasingly unable to obtain.
 
E-Codes with good H4 bulbs and rewiring higher gauge with relays is really all you need to do on these cars. If you need extra, add more lights.

The drop in H4 LED stuff can be questionable. While LEDs are no doubt the future of lighting, there's quite a bit of deception online in typical Chinese bulbs when it come to true output. Don't believe what you see on the box... And even then, only recently have manufacturers gotten better at correctly mimicking an H4 bulb's filament position in the housing, which is critical to good light output.

+1

I have a set of the cheaper h4 led bulbs. While output is very good, pattern OK-ish, it's not ideal. Light is ice cold 6000k which doesn't suit the car. Now after more than two years of use (daily drive) one of the bulbs is failing, I notice a slightly different color.. Probably gonna use the good one in my motorcycle and maybe go back to halogen.. Or see what the better H4 led sets do for me..
 
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