HID Conversion Kit

[Locutus]

Hid lights are hot when working for any long length of time..

1..softens the outer plastic lens housing and any debris such as bugs and rubbish flicked up by other cars can stick to the softened plastic

2..with the heat issue i was told by both BMW and VW to never use head light protectors

i'm not sure that this makes sense. here is some simple maths to show you what i mean.

a typical replacement to 60/55W halogen headlamp would be a 35W HID bulb.

for argument's sake i'm going to assume i have a HID lamp that is 100% inefficient - i.e. 100% of the electrical energy going into a HID lamp is converted to heat.
this means my HID lamp can produce a maximum of 35W of heat output.

for a 55W halogen lamp to produce less than 35W of heat, the halogen lamp will need to be at the very minimum, 36.4% efficient.
according to wikipedia, a standard halogen lamp has an overall luminous efficiency of only 3.5%!
this means that our 55W halogen lamp is actually outputting around 52W of heat.

[Tezzax5]

Hid lights are hot when working for any long length of time..

1..softens the outer plastic lens housing and any debris such as bugs and rubbish flicked up by other cars can stick to the softened plastic

2..with the heat issue i was told by both BMW and VW to never use head light protectors

i'm not sure that this makes sense. here is some simple maths to show you what i mean.

a typical replacement to 60/55W halogen headlamp would be a 35W HID bulb.

for argument's sake i'm going to assume i have a HID lamp that is 100% inefficient - i.e. 100% of the electrical energy going into a HID lamp is converted to heat.
this means my HID lamp can produce a maximum of 35W of heat output.

for a 55W halogen lamp to produce less than 35W of heat, the halogen lamp will need to be at the very minimum, 36.4% efficient.
according to wikipedia, a standard halogen lamp has an overall luminous efficiency of only 3.5%!
this means that our 55W halogen lamp is actually outputting around 52W of heat.

I most definitely agree with your math but i wonder if the warnings they gave me had more to do with heat and the UV stabiliser that is used to stop the plastic lenses
from braking down and going cloudy?

Thoughts ?

t

[NitroDann]

Im pretty sure those wattages refer to energy output not power draw. you could test it very easily though.

Dann

[Locutus]

energy output in what form Dann?

i'm quite certain that the wattage stamped on any light bulb (or any other electrical device for that matter) should be the maximum power draw of that device, provided that the device is working as the manufacturer intended.

I most definitely agree with your math but i wonder if the warnings they gave me had more to do with heat and the UV stabiliser that is used to stop the plastic lenses
from braking down and going cloudy?

Thoughts ?

t

good point - i didn't think of that. i had a quick look and the philips HID bulbs have a UV filter on the quartz tubes, so i would hazard a guess that any half decent automotive HID bulb/ballast would have the same.

then again, shouldn't the plastics used in headlights and headlight protectors be UV stable anyway? perhaps the UV filters are more for skin and eye protection.

[NitroDann]

Sorry sat night ive had a couple beers. Its like electric motors, 200W motors draw 500 watts or whatever depending on their efficiency. But im no sparky.

Dann

[Mr Morlock]

the lenses on headlamps are normally Poly carbonate and are hard coated. Hardcoat is applied either by a rain lacquer process or sprayed. If a PC lenses is not hard coated it will fail very fast. Halogen bulbs have been UV cut by the major manufacturers - Osram and Philips for at least 15 years and the reason for this was the switch by the set makers and demand from car co's to produce headlamps with plastic lenses. Like all plastics the quality varies and a good set maker only uses approved materials. A bulb shield is often used on bulbs but it is not related to UV cut. One thing that was always warned against was using high wattage bulbs in headlamps beyond legal spec and one of the reasons was excess heat to say nothing of reduced life. HID are lower wattage than std halogens.

[Locutus]

scan/draw up a diagram of the wiring that came with your kit and i can help you out.


you're doing it wrong though:

- car headlights are pretty high powered, so it may not be a good idea to fit these on your own if you don't know what you're doing. worst case is engine bay electrical fire.

- your car does not have projector lamps, so HID bulbs will completely ruin the light pattern and potentially blind oncoming traffic, even with your reflectors aimed at the lowest setting.

- the inside of the headlight shroud gets pretty wet when it rains. the front isn't sealed in any way. i would hide the ballasts in a dry place in the engine bay.

[Mr Morlock]

an auto elect can do it though since these kits are not legal they may decline. I suggest reading Daniel Stern's website for an insight to this subject.

[Locutus]

if you purchased the correct kit for your car, you should not need a multimeter and you should not need to fiddle with the car's wiring harness. it should just be a matter of mounting the ballasts (which is actually the hardest part), then it's all plug and play.

are you sure the HID light output pic you saw was from an NA MX5? physics dictates that it's impossible to get a good light pattern without spending $500+ on new projector lamp housings.

[Regie]

i have had a look at Borked's HID kit

i spent a hour or two trying to figure out how it worked. There are separate relays and wires as his is a High/Low kit.

and as for the beam cutoff on the standard reflectors. The hot spot on the HID globe is ever so slightly longer than the one on the std globe. So no amount of adjusting will get a good cutoff beam. It will just throw the light everywhere..

id love to see a set of full HID projectors modified in to the NA housings... aka Fonzy's celica style

when i get my NC thats the first thing ill be doing. Ive got the HID projectors and good globe setup sitting here ready to go

[Mr Morlock]

You cannot design a lighting system in your backyard- and backyard companies are not designing OE lighting systems. These retro systems are not legal and there is a risk in ignoring the advice of engineers and legislators- probably 95% of vehicles are still not running legal HID systems and most find their halogen lighting fully functional and economical.

[manga_blue]

You cannot design a lighting system in your backyard- and backyard companies are not designing OE lighting systems. These retro systems are not legal and there is a risk in ignoring the advice of engineers and legislators- probably 95% of vehicles are still not running legal HID systems and most find their halogen lighting fully functional and economical.

... or put another way: HIDs bulbs have different geometry from conventional halogen bulbs. If you stick HIDs in lenses which were designed for conventional halogen bulbs then you might be very, very lucky and get better lighting but it's much more likely that you'll get worse lighting for yourself, dazzle the oncoming traffic and risk being booked for having an illegal setup.

If you just want to see better at night then just put in higher efficiency, DOT legal conventional halogen bulbs. Philips and Osram are the main two makers. They effectively double your range and spread of useful vision.

[Locutus]

^yep. when i put a new set of philips visionplus bulbs in my NA and was pleasantly surprised at the difference. i wasn't expecting much, but the marketing spiel on the pack is actually true!

[Hjt]

The Sp I recently purchased came with 8000k(?) HID kit consisting of 2x HID Ballast and 2x globes with a plug and play wiring set-up. After driving for a few nights, including one night of heavy rain I found I cannot see anything on the road, and i already knew it wasn't mounted correctly so before I caused or had an accident I removed the kit.

Currently i'm staring at the kit, pondering its worth, possible reuse and if i should jus bin it?

I have a whole new headlight on its way, should I bother with these or sell them and move on.

I'm considering dropping the globes to 4000k or so, no more as it's just to blinding (and blue)

[Locutus]

yeah i would suggest that you try 4300k bulbs.

there was an s2k behind me today with 8000k bulbs - looked purple