its not aiming them up, its keeping them the same level. when i got mine i had to pitch them down quite considerably. it may be my aftermarket headlights, but ive seen stock-aimed headlights with HIDs and they are like high-beams.

 

It isn't that I am against all kits. It is a cost vs. value comparison. Honestly I am against HIDs in stock housings not made for HIDs. Your above statement is the exact reason why.

This is just ridiculous to think it is so widely accepted for people to just pop a $50 Chinese set of HID in their stock housings and blind others with no regard to legality or safety. I cannot stand it when 99% of a forum applauds people for doing this. It is no different than street racing, heck it is worse because when in use it ALWAYS effects others.

I am not looking to argue, just state the point of all those who care about not driving into you at night head-on while being blinded. Drive at me with your illegal HIDs, I will continue to drive at you in your lane, blowing my train horns with my brights, strobes, and Q-Beam in your eyes. I will stoop that low. Try it.

That's all for now. I guess people don't realize how ridiculous the things they say truly are.

*hangs head low and slowly shakes it side to side*

 

groovy man. Ill be sure to have them aimed properly. and Im getting aftermarket headlights, which has the glare shields? if thats what thats called. and i dont think theyre illegal in my area

 

All HIG kits are cheap Chinese kits. Open any kit and the insides will look just like the next, with very very few exceptions. Any kit that tells you otherwise is lying to try and gain your money, usually at a higher price.

That's fine, it just makes you a douche who should be driving a BMW, not an F150.

HIG kits are illegal everywhere in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and most every other country. Very few countries are exempt and the ones that are, are usually 3rd world countries or places with little regulation with regards to traffic. HID's aren't illegal, but they are in projectors and have the proper glare shields to compensate for the excess light.

NOTE:
HIG = High Intensity Glare - They aren't legal and are plug and play.
HID = High Intensity Discharge - They are legal and require OEM components (like projectors) to work with stock headlights.

 

Well unless the aftermarket headlights are OEM projectors, that is about the closest you are going to get to legal. That is the reason I did a retro, I was/am driving 30+k a year and most of them were at night for 2 years. I found the cost of a few hundred bucks and too many hours of labor to be well worth OEM-esque output (I had cheap HIDs, but real projectors). If I were to get a ticket for it I would fight it. My interpretation of the way the law reads is if the lights are in OEM HID intended housings, it is legal. Well I had cut up the projectors from the Infinity FX an mounted it within my Ranger housing, thus In the Factory housing, in my housing, lol.

So unless that is the case, they will be illegal, but I would bet $100 you won't ever be hassled for them if they are aimed down (no endorsing it, but merely offering a suggestion for the course you are going to take regardless). Basically it is not so much a regional thing, but a national thing (DOT and NHTSA).

Here is a good read:
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/nhtsa/NHTSA.html
One from 2004: http://www.civicforums.com/forums/98...ot-ticket.html
http://orca.st.usm.edu/~jmneal/tiburon/hids.htm
http://www.hidplanet.com/
Read the HID University on this site, very knowledgeable.
http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/

 

I know it sounded ruthless. Ill ask my couple buddies that are cops and some that work on swat about the glare issues.

 

Kuruption, you're absolutely correct about them producing less heat. I actually knew that, but was having a "senior moment", something I seem to do more and more for some reason. :o Good, I get a "Dumb Post" point for today.

And, mtylerb, you're right about the voltage. I'd forgotten about the fact that something over 20,000V is used to strike the arc. But, the ballast can't "create" power. If it's getting 35 (or even 55) Watts input at 12V, then the output current will have to be very, very small. I doubt the wires will burn up. But, the insulation may not hold up to that much voltage. So, I agree that special, high insulating wiring would be needed. Once the arc is struck, the voltage drops to something below 100V, since the heated plasma maintains the arc.

I did a bit of research, thanks Kuruption, and at least one source said that stock housings focused the light from HIDs all wrong, just as you implied might happen for 55 Watt lights. This, of course not only creates glare but probably illuminates the road poorly. This source said that placing HIDs in stock halogen housings was illegal in the US. I don't know if this is true, but it could be.

Another source, that was very interesting, talked about the fact that the "blue" 8000K lighting that seems popular among some people is really a poor choice in that it cannot be focused well, so it causes glare, is hardly brighter than a halogen light, and is tiring on the eyes of the driver using it. This source pointed out that the two premier makers of HIDs: Phillips and Osram-Sylvania sell nothing above 6000K. OEM color temperature is 4100K, which is close to normal "daylight". Here's a link: http://www.intellexual.net/hid.html It contains some pretty interesting (and convincing) pictures.

Again, thanks gentlemen, for keeping me honest and for correcting my earlier stupid post. Good luck on your HID install, 01f1502wd.

- Jack

 

Hey JandJ. I've posted numerous times on this board, with regards to kits. You are correct that the popular 8000K and 6000K are poor choices. Daniel Stearns Lighting Consultants, has done an article on why Selective Yellow is a superior lighting choice for fog lights. In that article, they point out that blue, though it appears to produce more light, is harder for your eyes to focus on. That is the reason that France actually required all headlights, for a period of time, to be Selective Yellow instead of white.

You are also correct that 4100K, or more recently 4300K, is the OEM colour used by the high end car manufacturers. The reason most people go with 6000K or 8000K is because they want the same thing they see coming from OEM projectors. What they don't understand is that the colour they see is produced as a result of the prism effect that happens when the light passes through the front lens on the projector.

Voltage can be increased with a small transformer, though the current isn't changed. The ballast converts the DC power from your car into a useable AC power source and steps it up to 26,000V for the initial firing. It then steps it down to, I believe 85V which maintains the arc. I am posting this from my BlackBerry, so I don't have access to the links I normally have. The reason that HID's don't perform well is the way the light is produced.

Halogen (uses a filiament) looks like:
|==|

The 2 wires are connected in a horizontal or verticle fashion.

HID (uses an arc) looks like:
|
}
|

The two points of wire are connected by an arc (curly brackets) of electricity. The light is formed from front to back which forms an entirely different focal type and length.

D2S projectors are made to handle this and focus the light properly. OEM HID's produce very even and wide path of light with no hot spots, something that saves your eyes from fatigue.

Halogen reflectors are made to harness the small amount of light that such bulbs produce. They limit the width of the light to make what, small amount of useable light it produces, useful.

Anyway, there is a lot of information over at HIDPlanet, where I get most of my info from. Take advantage of the resource, that's what it is there for!

PS, sorry for the low tech post. While nice to be able to post at work, while doing nothing, nothing beats having all the info at my fingertips. I can answer questions later, if you have any!

 

I see.....would lightning headlights be good for HIDs? (im sure not since theyre non oem projectors), and should I buy the projectors for HIDs instead?

 

For absolute best results, you'll want to use your stock headlights with a clear front housing (can be made or found on eBay) and mount the OEM HID projector inside there. I am currently collecting parts to mount HID projectors from an Acura TL inside some stock Harley headlights. By doing this, the focal point is correct, the cut off is safe for everyone else on the road, and you have quality in both the housing and the projector. An HID projector mounted inside stock headlights can give some amazing results (click for larger picture):



Those red lights are his tail lights (a Lincoln LS retrofitted with Lexus LS460 projectors). The full article is over at HIDPlanet. Feel free to post pictures of your HID kit in halogen reflector "cutoff". That picture was taken approximately 500' back and 50' up a gravel pit.

I strongly suggest starting your HID experience off right, instead of going through the HID Kits, and saving yourself a couple hundred dollars in the meantime. Start with the HIDPlanet University Thread and just start reading. When you have questions that don't seem to get answered, go up to their General HID thread and start asking questions. There is a lot of very knowledgeable people over there that are willing to share their knowledge with you. That is where I've learned everything and that is where I go to continue learning.

You can always ask questions here and I'll do my best to answer, but there is a lot of information over there, already, that may answer questions you might have.

Cheers!

 

Mtylerb, excellent post and I DO understand what you meant about the orientation of the arc in HIDs - it clearly changes the way the beam has to be focused.

Just so you'll know, I lived in France when I was in high school in the 50s, and yes, we had yellow headlights. (My Dad was stationed there in the Army).

But, I have to disagree with you slightly about the way voltage is stepped up by the ballast. Let's say we have 35 Watts going into the ballast. At 12 volts, this means the amperage is about 2.9 amps, because Watts = volts x amps. Now, Watts are a measure of power, and you simply cannot "create" power out of nothing, or you'd have a perpetual motion machine. So, assuming there are no power losses in the conversion (there are, but we can ignore them), the output of the ballast still has to be about 35 Watts. This means the current has been reduced to about 0.0013 amps (or 1.3 milliamps). We don't need high amperage to bridge the arc gap, just high voltage, so, the spark might be similar to what you get walking across a carpet on a cold winter day and touching a water faucet. Once the arc is struck, the plasma field reduces the insulating properties of the gap and the voltage can be reduced to 85, and the current will increase to about 0.41 amps.

Because the current is so low, the conductors from the ballast do not have to be huge, but, they DO have to have very good insulating jackets (something like what you saw on old spark plug wires). And, I doubt that OEM wire harnesses are suitable.

- Jack

 

Hey JandJ,

Sorry, didn't mean to sound argumentative. I was posting from the tarmac at an airport waiting for a delivery from up north!

Here's some information with regards to Matsushi.ta ballasts (used by Acura):

It looks like it draws up to 20 Amps during the start up phase and then steps it down to an average of 4 Amps for the remainder. You are right that it doesn't create energy out of thin air.

Sorry for my mis-information!

PS Since when does Matsu****a need to be censored?!

 

Finally found what I was looking for:



Voltage to Amperage profile, that I knew was somewhere. This is for the typical D2S bulb, D4S bulbs (no mercury) requires a higher start voltage and a lower median voltage (42VAC).

Here's some more info, with regards to D2S/D4S (OEM) HID's:



I'm really not that advance with electronics, so maybe that makes sense to someone else.

These come from HIDPlanet.

 

Nice posts, mtylerb! Both of them!

The second post says that the ballast provides a square wave alternating current electrical supply - pretty similar in all respects to what an inverter that you plug into your cigarette lighter provides, if you want to run AC devices off your car battery. I did not know the lamp was powered by AC, thanks for educating me!

As the thing warms up, it can pull up to 2.6 amps, but once at operating temperature, the amperage is down to 0.4 amps peak. There's an interesting very short burst of -12 amps negative right after ignition as the voltage drops back towards zero. Looks like effectively, there's a short circuit condition there.

Two things relating to my last post - notice how the amperage is effectivly zero at the runup to ignition, and even during the 23 KV burst. Then, notice how the amperage drops as the voltage amplitude increases. This says the power is relatively constant over the whole operating environment.

It's a pretty neat system!

- Jack

 

Thanks!

Yeah, and there's so much to learn about it. Oh well, just keep trying!