HID Headlights??

[ronclark]

A good for anyone thinking about HID
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/Hid/HID.html

 

[colby450xc]

I bought SilverStars for my truck and they made a huge improvement. Theyre bright white, no blue, perfect and cost about $30 with no modifications.

Don't put HIDs in non projector housings, theyre friggin obnoxious and I lose all respect for you as another driver on the roads I share with you. My two cents!

 

[Original_Ranger84]

How do you properly aim headlights that look like this?

You start by taking a picture from an actual driving position and not in the regular beam of the light. If I put halogen bulbs in that and took the picture from the same spot it would look exactly the same.

A good for anyone thinking about HID
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/Hid/HID.html

The site has good information however the information is one sided. The lamp they used for a test was the fluted lense i believe which has no cap over the front of the bulb to prevent glare like newer light housings. The reason they have less glare from halogen bulbs is the ceramic coating on the front of the bulb.

Really what it comes down to is proper aiming guys. a halogen lamp can blind you just as much as an HID if the idiot that installed them didn't put it back in right. Ive seen vehicles with low beams that are bright as hell (thinking newest chevy and tundras) and still manage to blind you while others don't.

 

[flyinryne]

Don't care what company you buy 10k hids from, they are blue. Not a tint of blue. They ARE blue.

The bottom line still remains it depends of the company and how many watts, will outcome on what color they are. Here are mine in my 04 d-max, Theses are 10k, 55w from Retro solutions.

 

[4.0B2]

55 watts will flush out the light a little more than a 35 watt will. a 35 watt will have more blue at 10k than the 55 watt one. but yes, there is blue in that...no matter the wattage. compare it to my 4500 35watt and you'll see the blue.

 

[4x4junkie]

WHY DO PEOPLE WANT THE BLUE BLUE LIGHTS?

I would so like to know the answer to this one as well. The human eye doesn't even respond to short blue wavelengths as well as those in the slightly green to yellow-orange range...

I was actually looking into some LED lights for mine and it was the same thing (though maybe not quite as extreme as with some of this HID stuff, but still I could not find a single LED lamp that put out actual WHITE light anywhere, every single one of them was pushing a bluish 6000K. So I gave up.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Really what it comes down to is proper aiming guys. a halogen lamp can blind you just as much as an HID if the idiot that installed them didn't put it back in right. Ive seen vehicles with low beams that are bright as hell (thinking newest chevy and tundras) and still manage to blind you while others don't.

The current bodystyle Chevy is terrible, I have been wondering if they had a silent recall on them though because the ones with the high lights seem to be getting fewer and farther between.

 

[Original_Ranger84]

The current bodystyle Chevy is terrible, I have been wondering if they had a silent recall on them though because the ones with the high lights seem to be getting fewer and farther between.

Yeah maybe, I think its the newer redesigns and I think the HD's suffer from it more. But the Fogs are the worst on them.

 

[bilzy7]

I find white HID's easily on V-LED's site. White, pure white, stuff like that.

 

[--weezl--]

you do realize that "federally illegal" would make them illegal nationwide right, as in "federally"?


but yes, HIDs w/o proper housings are illegal in most states, not federally tho, because there are no federal traffic laws, every state is responsible for making and enforcing their own traffic laws

i'm pretty sure there are laws, i quoted all of these posts last night, when i was in a decent mood, had a really bad day, i don't feel like looking them up right now

I am from Tennessee, not sounding smart or anything but i could careless about it being illegal. And besides were i am from is a small county and the county cops don't care and you might see a state trooper around about twice a month. Soo.

saying things like that is a good way to get you banned from this forum... i've seen it happen more than once in the past

Look im not going to get into a huge toss over this, But 10K with Retro is not exctally blue, it has a shade of blue too it.

you're 100% wrong, kelvin is a temperature rating system for colors, based on the color of visable light emitted from a star burning at x degrees kelvin, if the 10,000k bulbs you're buying aren't blue, then they aren't 10,000k, simple as that, that's science... and 10,000k IS blue, with a purple hint, which is well past white, true absolute pure white is 5000k

You start by taking a picture from an actual driving position and not in the regular beam of the light. If I put halogen bulbs in that and took the picture from the same spot it would look exactly the same.



The site has good information however the information is one sided. The lamp they used for a test was the fluted lense i believe which has no cap over the front of the bulb to prevent glare like newer light housings. The reason they have less glare from halogen bulbs is the ceramic coating on the front of the bulb.

Really what it comes down to is proper aiming guys. a halogen lamp can blind you just as much as an HID if the idiot that installed them didn't put it back in right. Ive seen vehicles with low beams that are bright as hell (thinking newest chevy and tundras) and still manage to blind you while others don't.

skipped a lot of your post, on today's read, but agreed a halogen lamp CAN blind you as much as an HID, (to which i believe you refer an HID bulb in an incandescent reflector housing)

an HID bulb CAN be placed in a reflector housing and properly aimed also, provided that the reflector housing was designed for that specific bulb... easiest way to explain it, the light that comes out of the HID bulbs is not the same as an incandescent/halogen light, simply because it's an arc vs a heated filament, this results in light being emitted from a different physical location in the bulb, with a different style of diffusion, if this was predicted, and the reflector made accordingly, sure it could work just as well as a normal halogen in a reflector housing, but 99% of people don't make reflectors for HID's... projectors however are 99% of the time, designed for HID's and are by far the most efficient way to handle the light output... an incandescent bulb can be placed in a projector, but you will have a similar issue as the hid in a normal reflector

simply put, even if putting HID's in your vehicle isn't illegal where you live right now, if you travel you may enter a jurisdiction (such as the majority of canada, and i'm sure many states) that it is illegal, regardless of your home jurisdiction. if you are pulled over here, and found to have HID's in your reflectors, if the cop who pulled you over wished to pursue it, your vehicle would be impounded for having defeated safety features.

 

[gribly]

The whole halogen blinding you - yes, an improperly aimed one will. But NO halogen can come close to the insane, intense light of even a properly aimed, properly installed factory HID when it's in an oncoming car in an area with tons of hills - or worse, an improperly aimed one. I've had purple spots, like from a camera flash - last for several seconds. Shit is scary when you're on a narrow road.

And yes, no matter what any of you kids might think about your lights not being blue - weezl is 100% scientifically correct. Blue headlights alone make me think the guy driving it must be some white kid who thinks he is black, with a sideways hat, listening to dubstep or something at insane volume, who thinks the "hellaflush" fad is cool. Sorry, I can't help but think that every single time.

 

[--weezl--]

as far as what color is best to see, essentially, look at it like this, white IS essentially blue light, it is also yellow, and red, and what ever else... so the thought that "blue lets you see better" is, for the most part pure crap! though everyone's eyes are different, the pure white is sometimes just too bright for some people's eyes, the blue TINT might take the edge off... additionally, a tint of another color lets certain aspects of things show up more (think of it as pink snowboarding goggles for night time, or yellow glasses for shooting) that being said, we, as humans, have evolved to look at things with white light, because of our sun... the colored tints are only going to help in certain circumstances, and will hinder you in others, where as white won't hinder you in any aspect.

gribly, you should clarify, but i assume you mean hid bulbs? they should not be confused with a full retrofit, or a custom projector install, which is possible on our trucks!

 

[gribly]

I have eBay 6k without digital ballasts which you can't find anymore and the crystal cut conversion housings. I don't get flashed to often and yeah the housings scatter the light pretty bad. You can get kits on eBay projector housings and HIDs for around $100 shipped. Wiring is very simple and mostly plug and play except the cheaper kits you have to insert the tabs into the plugs. I buy my HIDs from HIDExtra.com cuz I like their wiring more.

For those of you bitching about HIDs you obviously haven't driven a vehicle with them. Yeah they are annoying to look at oncoming but are unmatched to anything when driving with them. Recently we had very thick fog and I work swing shift so i get off at around midnight. HIDs put out light closer to sunlight and makes all the lines on the road and signs actually light up IMHO making it safer for me to drive. Don't knock it till you try it.

You obviously don't know shit about lighting and how your eyes react to light. You lose your light sensitivity quicker than you get it. In my training, we were taught to avoid use of light at night. Learn to work without it. You'll find you can see excellent, then some douche flashes a light and you lose it. I bet I can see more with my lowbeams on an average night than you can with your HID setup. As for bad weather, that is what proper fog lights are for. In fog and snow, a low wide beam is best, and bright light lights up the falling snow itself, and makes everything else harder to see. Also, you must be a gambling man running any sort of HID on a stock harness. You really, really should run relays to the battery direct, and use the existing circuit as a control circuit. You're apt to damage wiring or switches if you don't on many, many vehicles. Oh, and yes, I've driven vehicles with HIDs, factory and aftermarket. Don't care for 'em, don't need 'em. I ain't that old yet.

 

[gribly]

Yeah, I mean HID's weezl. But the regular blue tinted bulbs still make me think people are punks. And, no, a full retrofit, custom projector setup is NOT possible on our trucks. Legally.

EDIT - or if you are referring to the blinding flash - yes, even a factory ANYTHING will do it. And I mean factory, as in the car had HID's off the dealer lot. They are a nuisance in any form. I mean, duh, you people like 'em cuz they are brighter and "help your geriatric selves see at night" so think about the receiving end. To fully understand, go turn your HID's on, park your truck on a hill, and walk downhill of it and look back up directly at it as if it was oncoming traffic in a twisty, hilly area - like where I live.

 

[--weezl--]

Yeah, I mean HID's weezl. But the regular blue tinted bulbs still make me think people are punks. And, no, a full retrofit, custom projector setup is NOT possible on our trucks. Legally.

well yeah, hid's but hid/reflector and hid/projector are 2 different animals...

and i disagree about the legal part, but i'm not going to argue with you about it... it's really not worth it... there are DOT approved hid PROJECTOR "plug and play" kits

though honestly, it's no more illegal, than painting the non reflector portion of the inside of my headlights...



agreed 100% about the bleached retina effect though, that being said, it's all or nothing, if you glance at your low beams, bam, bleached retina... if you're going to go with "night vision" and just try to watch without high beams, you're better off using your driving lights...