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Xan Presents: Everything You Need to Know About Automotive Lighting

danbfree

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#41
A certain amount of hotspotting exists by design, particularly in halogen reflectors - all bulbs are going to have some hotspotting and some peripheral flooding, but there are various minimum and maximum intensities specified at a large number of points and zones within the beam pattern. Without that, it's not a functional headlight beam, it's spray of light that resembles a headlight beam. In the case of the LEDs posted, the hotspotting is much more intense within a much narrower beam pattern than on even the bad stock halogens.

And again - the factory bulbs are total trash and the optics aren't great either, I agree with you, absolutely no question. The entire point of this thread could be summed up as how to mitigate that cheaply - inexpensive, good quality, totally legal halogen bulbs that require no modification to the vehicle. It's weird that I'm getting so much pushback on this and that y'all want to spend more money on something that, according to all existing studies and what we (ie people who know much more than me and do this for a living) understand about physics, doesn't work as well and sometimes requires modification to the headlamp assembly. I can't think of another situation in which someone has spent so much time telling car guys "hey, this thing is cheap, it's reversible, and it works the best" and the response so overwhelmingly being "actually this more expensive thing that isn't as good is better," but that's always the case with automotive lighting discussions, an oddly contentious topic for how boring the issue is.

Nothin' personal, we're all friends here - and I apologize if I came off harsh, my serious voice comes off a little gruff in writing sometimes - it's just a very strange thing for me to experience.



Dan and I have talked about this - though I'd have to buy another set of the god-awful stock halogens - but the problem is that there's no way to objectively measure which one is better, or rather, there's no way to do it that's accessible to the layman. Visual tests and photos aren't sufficient due to the issues outlined in the original post, and such equipment or testing is cost prohibitive. Trust me, if there was a way to easily and accurately do it, I'd have bought Dan a beer about it already. I do have some photos that show the difference between the stock halogens and the Philips Xtremevision +90s that I have in my car, but again, photos aren't much of a test.
First of all, it would be *scary* if even 2 very liked-minded people that are friends agreed on everything and then take it personally when they don't agree, no worries man! I understand your frustration, I was just hoping to advance the conversation with modern LED info and experience as you have to admit you did use old info for your main post. But even if a little outdated on LED performance it absolutely DOES bring important info to the table for discussion! That Bulbfacts.com that was mentioned earlier is very interesting, it shows some LED's under $40, the same price as premium halogens, performing very well with very clean cutoffs... Now, who know what car they used for their pics so I was just hoping to show with my crappy amateur pic that the cutoffs do seem pretty well in-tact with my Oedro set. I just find it interesting and worth discussing, I do apologize for flooding your thread, I'll try to keep it tight and concise for discussion my friend!
 


KKaWing

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#42


Left halogen, right Maxgtrs Mini H11 (pink thing)

Notes/comments: This is the cutoff vs hotspot thing. Notice how the hotspot is right in line with the cutoff in the halogen picture (left). The brightest spot is up high to "push" distance. The picture on the right doesn't do that, the cut off is now swapped to the "squirrel finders" with the hot spot well below it. I've matched the hotspot locations, but now the squirrel finders will glare oncoming drivers. If I match the cut off, there won't be enough light "at distance". This is what I mean by the LED light overpowering the stock headlights.
 


danbfree

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#43
Left halogen, right Maxgtrs Mini H11 (pink thing)

Notes/comments: This is the cutoff vs hotspot thing. Notice how the hotspot is right in line with the cutoff in the halogen picture (left). The brightest spot is up high to "push" distance. The picture on the right doesn't do that, the cut off is now swapped to the "squirrel finders" with the hot spot well below it. I've matched the hotspot locations, but now the squirrel finders will glare oncoming drivers. If I match the cut off, there won't be enough light "at distance". This is what I mean by the LED light overpowering the stock headlights.
Not sure what you mean by "squirrel finders", the pic on the right looks clearly better to me, I don't see any glare or light higher on the upper left where it would blind oncoming drivers.... sure it is a bit higher cutoff in the middle but still very acceptable.
 


KKaWing

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#44
Squirrel finders: nickname for the North American requirement for some light to bleed above the cutoff to light up street signs.

The right "cutoff" is a foot and a bit above where the hotspot is. The parking lot is angled where I parked, so the headlights are pointed down. Hot spot reaches most cars' door handles, cut off shines right in their face. Maybe it's something wrong my headlights but I'm not going to run it like that.
 


danbfree

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#45
Squirrel finders: nickname for the North American requirement for some light to bleed above the cutoff to light up street signs.

The right "cutoff" is a foot and a bit above where the hotspot is. The parking lot is angled where I parked, so the headlights are pointed down. Hot spot reaches most cars' door handles, cut off shines right in their face. Maybe it's something wrong my headlights but I'm not going to run it like that.
OK, I'm using that blue square section on the wall to judge and both have the same cutoff and if anything the halogen has more bleed above the cutoff to me... Thanks for your posts man, they are very informative so if you want to discuss more, I actually do love to learn how I'm wrong too, I started another thread for LED discussion HERE, to spare Xan all the LED talk he just LOVES so much! :)
 


danbfree

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#46
What about super slim ballast H11 HID kits? With the extra room in the headlight housing does anyone know f you can just tuck the ballasts in the housing cavity and use the rear covers or do they get too hot and ballasts need to be mounted externally? I suppose it's easy to find places to mount to with double sided mounting tape or zip ties I suppose...
 


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XanRules

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Thread Starter #47
the problem with HID kits in halogen housings is not the thickness of the ballast. It's everything outlined in the first post of this thread.
 


danbfree

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#48
the problem with HID kits in halogen housings is not the thickness of the ballast. It's everything outlined in the first post of this thread.
Sorry, just noticed that. This is one of the very few meant for reflector housing: http://deautokey.com/product/h11rc-...reflector-housing-not-your-regular-xenon-bulb

As far as heat, it should be the same as a 35w LED driver module, heat watts are heat watts, and they get pretty warm but if you go with larger ballasts, I'm sure they dissipate heat better.
 


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XanRules

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Thread Starter #49
Sorry, just noticed that. This is one of the very few meant for reflector housing: http://deautokey.com/product/h11rc-...reflector-housing-not-your-regular-xenon-bulb

As far as heat, it should be the same as a 35w LED driver module, heat watts are heat watts, and they get pretty warm but if you go with larger ballasts, I'm sure they dissipate heat better.
An HID reflector and a halogen reflector are different. An HID cannot be safely or legally used in a halogen housing. I have typed over 3,000 words explaining why and linked to multiple pages that cite empirical studies done with professional safety and measurement equipment detailing why in Post #1 of this thread. Again - anyone who is telling you that their "HID kit" can be safely used in a halogen housing is lying to try to sell you something. HIDs have been around for decades - if there were a way to safely run them in a halogen housing, a reputable manufacturer would have figured it out by now and the product would basically print money. But there isn't.
 


danbfree

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#50
An HID reflector and a halogen reflector are different. An HID cannot be safely or legally used in a halogen housing. I have typed over 3,000 words explaining why and linked to multiple pages that cite empirical studies done with professional safety and measurement equipment detailing why in Post #1 of this thread. Again - anyone who is telling you that their "HID kit" can be safely used in a halogen housing is lying to try to sell you something. HIDs have been around for decades - if there were a way to safely run them in a halogen housing, a reputable manufacturer would have figured it out by now and the product would basically print money. But there isn't.
With headlight eyelids/eyebrows, whatever you want to call them, they can tame any LED or HID that overpowers the reflectors from too high of a cut-off/glare... Even many aftermarket halogen aren't legal, like Philips Diamond Vision, so I definitely don't care about that part as long as the lights truly have great cutoff and no glare. Some LED's (FINALLY) are spectacular in that area now, some great example pics in my LED thread... But I can see this specific HID design as working well as it addresses the too long length of regular HID bulbs by being shorter AND with the anti-glare blockers, but you don't even address that and fall back to all the talking points on regular HID. To me, it's worth taking a closer look at as someone always looking to learn about the latest stuff and these also have a great guarantee backing them... As far as sales, too many people just accept the given rules and don't bother to research enough, that's one reason why many things never take off, people are too lazy to think outside the box. To me it doesn't make sense to live in 2014 lighting rules forever man, I'm just saying it's always worth taking a look at new technologies as long as you keep the knowledge you presented as a strong background and cautiously consider other stuff.
 


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XanRules

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Thread Starter #51
With headlight eyelids/eyebrows, whatever you want to call them, they can tame any LED or HID that overpowers the reflectors from too high of a cut-off/glare...
high cutoff/glare is only one issue with putting LED or HID "kits" in a halogen housing - as stated in post one, the primary issue is getting the right amount of the right type of light in the right places.

Even many aftermarket halogen aren't legal, like Philips Diamond Vision, so I definitely don't care about that part as long as the lights truly have great cutoff and no glare.
The Diamondvision are complete ass but I believe they are indeed legal.

Some LED's (FINALLY) are spectacular in that area now, some great example pics in my LED thread... But I can see this specific HID design as working well as it addresses the too long length of regular HID bulbs by being shorter AND with the anti-glare blockers, but you don't even address that and fall back to all the talking points on regular HID.
again - the issue with LED or HID "kits" is that they do not put the right amount of light in the right places. The "talking points" at this point are like, decades of empirical research and testing.

To me, it's worth taking a closer look at as someone always looking to learn about the latest stuff and these also have a great guarantee backing them... As far as sales, too many people just accept the given rules and don't bother to research enough,
Sure, but you're taking a small marketing blurb over decades of empirical research. It's not inconceivable that the "latest and greatest" technologies could have been discovered by some fly-by-night company working out of a Chinese sweatshop, but surely you and I will agree that it's unlikely that such a company would have figured something out before Sylvania, Philips/Osram, or similar companies who employ some of the best automotive lighting engineers in the world to design OEM and aftermarket lighting systems, all of whom have reached the conclusion, at great cost to them and to manufacturers who have to design multiple types of headlight, that it can't be done.

that's one reason why many things never take off, people are too lazy to think outside the box.
I assure you that aftermarket LED and HID kits have very much taken off, and, in fact, are quite popular.

To me it doesn't make sense to live in 2014 lighting rules forever man, I'm just saying it's always worth taking a look at new technologies as long as you keep the knowledge you presented as a strong background and cautiously consider other stuff.
These aren't "new technologies," they just shortened the length of the filament so it doesn't illuminate the entire reflector. People have been marketing that type of product for at least a decade, I remember when they were the "next big thing" in like 2007. As far as this specific product goes, You can see from the photos (noticeably not taken in the same place under the same conditions) that they don't have much light above the cutoff, but a very narrow beam full of hotspots. Again, glare is only one issue with HID kits - the primary issue, same as any other type of light, is putting the right amount of light in the right directions. This kit, like all other kits, does not do this. Please refer to Post #1 and the linked posts within for details as to why. The idea that people are living in "2014 lighting rules" is silly, as, despite how truly strange the world has gotten, the laws of physics haven't changed since 2014.

This is, in terms of the underlying mental schema, approaching flat-earth/anti-vax stuff. There's tons of well-documented empirical research and established science done by reputable people over decades, but you read something that a salesman wrote on the internet and now you're not so sure and think we should "keep an open mind" and "think outside the box." C'mon man, use your head.
 


danbfree

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#52
We're not going to agree, you just point to your words that don't cite any sources/examples of LED technology that is any newer than over 4 years old. It's simply NOT impossible to mimic a halogen filament quite good enough, and over these last couple of years especially they have made very real progress. So while the rules of physics haven't changed, the technology certainly has. The spottiness is from reflector housing itself that's present with all bulbs too, I thought we covered that? But since you are uninterested in actually addressing these and just tell ME to use my head, I'll go ahead and use it and just ignore you on this topic from now on. You may call it the Gospel, but just like the actual Gospel, not everyone buys it especially when you are too hard headed to look into anything that challenges what you think, so no big surprise you got threads deleted and locked with that attitude. We are entitled to our opinions, I've tried to have a rational discussion but obviously it's as impossible as convincing Uncle Joe that Obama wasn't born in Kenya and just enjoy all the other parts of the relationship that aren't so divisive. See you around in non-lighting related threads Xan, I know we agree on just about everything else so that's where we'll interact from now on. :)
 


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XanRules

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We're not going to agree, you just point to your words that don't cite any sources/examples of LED technology that is any newer than over 4 years old. It's simply NOT impossible to mimic a halogen filament quite good enough, and over these last couple of years especially they have made very real progress. So while the rules of physics haven't changed, the technology certainly has. The spottiness is from reflector housing itself that's present with all bulbs too, I thought we covered that? But since you are uninterested in actually addressing these and just tell ME to use my head, I'll go ahead and use it and just ignore you on this topic from now on. You may call it the Gospel, but just like the actual Gospel, not everyone buys it especially when you are too hard headed to look into anything that challenges what you think, so no big surprise you got threads deleted and locked with that attitude. We are entitled to our opinions, I've tried to have a rational discussion but obviously it's as impossible as convincing Uncle Joe that Obama wasn't born in Kenya and just enjoy all the other parts of the relationship that aren't so divisive. See you around in non-lighting related threads Xan, I know we agree on just about everything else so that's where we'll interact from now on. :)
Your post to which I was responding specifically asked about HID kits in halogen housings, not LEDs. My original post in this thread literally links to technical write-ups and tests done with professional equipment on why they don't work, which I will link again below:

http://dastern.torque.net/techdocs/HID/HB1_HID_Retro.pdf
http://dastern.torque.net/techdocs/HID/HB4_HID_Retro.pdf
http://dastern.torque.net/techdocs/HID/HB1_HID_Retro_a.pdf

I'm not being unreasonable or irrational or ignoring the evidence on this. We've agreed to disagree on LEDs - you think the technology is too new for there to be a consensus, I don't, whatever - but HIDs have been around and tested for decades with the same results. If you think you know better than the physicists and engineers at CalCoast Labs, an industrial testing laboratory with millions of dollars of sensitive testing equipment that they use to vet lighting products for the NHTSA, DOT, SAE, and other organizations and governing bodies, that's your prerogative, feel free to write to them. But the implication that I'm being unreasonable and ignoring empirical evidence about HID kits in halogen housings is silly.
 


danbfree

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#55
Your post to which I was responding specifically asked about HID kits in halogen housings, not LEDs. My original post in this thread literally links to technical write-ups and tests done with professional equipment on why they don't work, which I will link again below:

http://dastern.torque.net/techdocs/HID/HB1_HID_Retro.pdf
http://dastern.torque.net/techdocs/HID/HB4_HID_Retro.pdf
http://dastern.torque.net/techdocs/HID/HB1_HID_Retro_a.pdf

I'm not being unreasonable or irrational or ignoring the evidence on this. We've agreed to disagree on LEDs - you think the technology is too new for there to be a consensus, I don't, whatever - but HIDs have been around and tested for decades with the same results. If you think you know better than the physicists and engineers at CalCoast Labs, an industrial testing laboratory with millions of dollars of sensitive testing equipment that they use to vet lighting products for the NHTSA, DOT, SAE, and other organizations and governing bodies, that's your prerogative, feel free to write to them. But the implication that I'm being unreasonable and ignoring empirical evidence about HID kits in halogen housings is silly.
I understand regular HID bulbs in regular non-retro'd reflector housing are exactly what everyone did wrong that blinds people, I've just never seen an actual xenon bulb designed quite like that one that isn't just some black heat tape on regular DS1 bulb or whatever, but a combination of proper length and minimal heat tape for glare ... I'm going to quiz the company a bit more and see what they say. They are US based at least as far as language purposes, we know where they are probably made, but I've seen no other bubs like them, my interest is piqued...
 


danbfree

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#56
your post constitutes legally actionable libel. Not only that, but your continued harassment violates both California (my state) and Florida (your state) anti-cyberbullying laws. Keep my name out of your mouth and off of your keyboard, please.
Holy crap that escalated quickly! All of you guys mentioned have been cool with me, even had minor tiffs with some of you, no biggie, we get over them... and I've been here a full 6 months, so not exactly "new"... AND I'm well aware of how stubborn Xan is on the topic, that's OK! I appreciate his overall knowledge even if I do give up and don't post much more here other than if I find out anything interesting on that one special design HID...
 


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XanRules

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Thread Starter #58
Yeah, I pinged the mods and asked them to take out the trash but I think this guy's just too committed to posting for them to keep up.
 


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