H8 bulb upgrades, if any...

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: meep
^^^ if you are getting flashed by some "numbnut" "once a week" as you say, then I doubt you can make this claim: "NO glare, NO "beam scatter""

I can't get to the pics from here.... can't really assess.

maybe this is part of it? "The fogs put NO light above the projector cutoff on the lows." --- at what distance? fogs could be aimed high but at 10' still be below the low beam cutoff.... but at 60 be above it. may want to check that.


Some people can't be convinced. Even when they do get flashed, as evidenced in this thread. I quit flashing folks. It doesn't matter anyway, because they clearly don't get the picture. I just wince as they pass, think to myself, "man that looks terrible", and continue on with life.

You are very correct about the photos. You can't assess a good beam pattern with pictures. A cutoff can look nice or poor, but a beam pattern is so much more than a photo against a wall.

But still again, it doesn't matter what is said. People will swear by their HID kits and that's fine. I no longer waste my energy flashing my high beams at them, but I will always point those who are interested in learning about it to appropriate resources (like the Candlepower forums, etc).

 

[LineArrayNut]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Originally Posted By: meep
^^^ if you are getting flashed by some "numbnut" "once a week" as you say, then I doubt you can make this claim: "NO glare, NO "beam scatter""


As before, it's only old shriveled up people who hate HID of ANY type. I have had one septuagenarian silver hair biddy complain bitterly to me at work that my lights are too bright. Out of ~500 people; 4 others have asked me where I got my HID's to get some for themselves, many others say they like them. I pass HUNDREDS of people each day on a 2 lane road, nuke plant under construction and outages, one flash a week is that person who needs their license yanked for age, IMO.


I can't get to the pics from here.... can't really assess.

maybe this is part of it? "The fogs put NO light above the projector cutoff on the lows." --- at what distance? fogs could be aimed high but at 10' still be below the low beam cutoff.... but at 60 be above it. may want to check that.


Some people can't be convinced. Even when they do get flashed, as evidenced in this thread. I quit flashing folks. It doesn't matter anyway, because they clearly don't get the picture. I just wince as they pass, think to myself, "man that looks terrible", and continue on with life.

You are very correct about the photos. You can't assess a good beam pattern with pictures. A cutoff can look nice or poor, but a beam pattern is so much more than a photo against a wall.

But still again, it doesn't matter what is said. People will swear by their HID kits and that's fine. I no longer waste my energy flashing my high beams at them, but I will always point those who are interested in learning about it to appropriate resources (like the Candlepower forums, etc).


You asked for the photos, are you really that far into alzheimer's that you forgot?


Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd


I would love to see a picture of the beam pattern of your fog lamps against a flat surface, like this:

I will be duly impressed if you have no stray light above the cut-off.

 

[LineArrayNut]

pic

 

[meep]

LineArrayNut,

Granted that it's really hard to tell with a camera since they auto-adjust iris, exposure time, etc., but on face value this is probably the cleanest implementation of a HID in stock housings I've ever seen. No doubt the focus is tight and i can see why you'd think (!) if anyone questioned the results.

It looks like there is just a touch of "fee" or "ambient" light escaping from the fogs to the middle/upper door in the lower pic. you can tell by how the dark part of the door isn't as dark and sort of has a ruddy brown glow. Depending on how much the camera has pulled back on the exposure time due to the light from the lows against the white door, it could actually be a non-trivial amount of light, but it's hard to really tell from the armchair... and maybe that's why you get flashed on occasion, but I must admit that per the photo it really doesn't look that bad, and frankly, I've seen plenty of halogen setups and even unshielded oem setups do the same if not more.

I'll echo something said above.... your vehicle seems to have a design that works for this. It's not very common... I've never seen another that could pull it off. The OP's may not turn out anything like this.

M

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: LineArrayNut
You asked for the photos, are you really that far into alzheimer's that you forgot?


No, I remember quite well. And as I stated before, pictures can tell you some about a cutoff, but they don't measure glare, they don't assess the light IN the beam pattern (under the cutoff), and they don't justify or rationalize an illegal modification.

On the top picture, titled "Night time", what is shown here? It looks like a Sonata on the left side with its low beams on, and a Mazda 3 on the right side with its low beams on? I will say that the Hyundai's projectors appear to have better control of stray light than do the Mazda's. That said, that's about all you can say here; all you can do is make a subjective assessment of the cutoff. That doesn't make it safe or legal.

The second set of pictures appears to show the Sonata, both with and without fog lamps on? The fog lamps appear to have a very weak output, because it's difficult to tell the difference between the two photos. Are they halogen bulbs in the fog lamps in those pictures? It really doesn't matter if they're halogen or HID; they're being overpowered by the head lamps, so assessing their cutoff can't be done.

I thought we were discussing HIDs in Sonata fog lamps?

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Originally Posted By: LineArrayNut
The fogs put NO light above the projector cutoff on the lows.


I would love to see a picture of the beam pattern of your fog lamps against a flat surface, like this:

I will be duly impressed if you have no stray light above the cut-off.


This is where the cutoff discussion started. You said that the fogs put no light above the projector's cutoff. As Meep posted, this depends entirely on the measurement distance, which is why it's really irrelevant anyway. Your fog lamps should put no straight light above THEIR OWN cutoff.

I will remain impressed if you post a picture of just the fogs demonstrating that the straight and flat cutoff is retained with HIDs in the housings. I have seen current-gen Sonatas on the road with HIDs in their low beams and fogs, and I have seen the glare. That said, I do recognize that you appear to have put yellow HIDs into your fogs (if the picture above is your car), which would be less dazzling to oncoming drivers than the blue HIDs that I have seen in Sonatas around here.

 

[LineArrayNut]

If you won't even read my (previous) posts to adequately understand what's been posted I can't see what is left to discuss with you. That said, I have bought a better camera,

http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/z/finepix_z90/
and when it arrives, I'll find some place to do some pics with a couple black towels.

 

[meep]

@LineArrayNut: hey I know it's off topic but your handle--- are you an audio guy?

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: LineArrayNut
If you won't even read my (previous) posts to adequately understand what's been posted I can't see what is left to discuss with you.


The post you made on 11/18/12 is the first time I noticed pictures from you. I went back to the previous page and saw that you posted them at an earlier date. I guess my page length settings in my profile are such that I only saw the 3rd page of this thread and I didn't realize you had posted links to the images on the 2nd page. My apologies for that.

Having said that, there probably isn't much left to discuss. We disagree on the topic and that's probably where we should leave it. We both agree (or should agree) that the modification is illegal, and there are a variety of technical reasons for that.

In the end, discussion of HID retrofit kits into halogen housings may be against BITOG's terms of service anyway. Read the forum rules, and specifically #5. It's against forum rules to discuss anything which violates "ANY law". I am not a forum administrator, so I am not in the position to judge whether this discussion violates that rule, but HID retrofits are in fact in violation of FMVSS 108, so I'll just leave it at that.

Have a happy holiday season.

 

[LineArrayNut]

Optima (same car, different sheet metal/options) has HID in the same housing, lens. LOL law. I'll wait for the cuffs. Yes, I'm an audio guy. I like building speakers and restoring vintage tube gear. My 2 channel only system has 236 tubes, 8 amplifiers, close to 2000 watts of tube power, 4400 altogether, 80 drivers and does 117dB at 22 hz, in house, un-weighted far field. Infinite baffle on twin manifolds in the crawlspace and Line Arrays (lol, what else)! I only run it during the winter. The Suuround sound for the TV is all Solid State. No kids, no wife. 2 Cats. Indoor one MUCH prefers the tube systems (more in bedrooms, shop, etc. Outdoor cat doesn't care for anything LOL!

 

[LineArrayNut]

Some older pics from a different house and whatnot

.

I run a 37KVA 270# transformer on an 80 amp 240 volt circuit for balanced power at 120 VAC for the amplification. Each upstream component has it's own balanced power transformer, 4 of them.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: LineArrayNut
Optima (same car, different sheet metal/options) has HID in the same housing, lens.


It's a different projector system, with different optics internally.

 

[LineArrayNut]

I had read different, can you point me to a url which points this out? thanks! I admit, I haven't seen an HID optima opened up, but it looked the same from the outside to me.

 

[meep]

OffTopic,

That's beautiful. LA design makes some things easy and some things hard! I don't think I've seen your work showcased on PartsExpress-- that'd be a neat read, especially the LF drivers in the floor. (I've always wanted to do that!)

That's also crazy power from tubes---- never seen anyone push those levels, even the older pro rigs from that era!

The amp "stack" is beautiful. hat's off man!

Mike

(sorry for OT--- we at BITOG have to look outside of the car thing sometimes!)

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: LineArrayNut
I had read different, can you point me to a url which points this out? thanks! I admit, I haven't seen an HID optima opened up, but it looked the same from the outside to me.


There will be only subtle differences externally. At the very least, the lens on the lamp housing will say D2S on the Optima (or whatever HID bulb is used in that application) and will say H11 on the Sonata (or whatever halogen bulb is used in that application). Additionally, because the HID bulb and the halogen bulb mount into the housing in fundamentally different ways, the rear of the projector itself will be shaped and keyed differently to accept the different type of bulb.

The differences internally are tied to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 (or FMVSS 108). This is codified in 49 CFR 571.108, and is available here. Of particular interest are the figures about halfway through the PDF document. For example, check out figure 27-2 on page 62 of the PDF document. This figure applies to four headlamp systems (with separate high and low beam segments), like what the Optima and Sonata both employ. The table lists various photometric test points, given as degrees Up or Down (from the on-center horizontal plane) or degrees Left or Right (from the on-center vertical plane). For these various photometric test points, the table gives maximum and/or minimum candela (or intensity) values. In the "lower beam" table, notice how the brightest minimum can be found 1.5 degrees Down, and 2 degrees Right; this makes sense for Right Hand Traffic countries such as the United States. It also lists maximum values for points above the horizontal.

Lighting engineers aim, pardon the pun, to design optics that produce the minimum values, but that also produce close to the maximum values where given, especially in this day in age of high performance head lamp systems. A system designed for a halogen source (such as an H11 projector) will fail the photometric tests (on the high side) if an HID source were installed. HID systems are designed to disperse the light over a very wide field so as to not overwhelm any one photometric test point. Likewise, a system designed for the intensity of an HID source very well could fail the photometric tests (on the low side) if a halogen source were installed, because the halogen source doesn’t have enough intensity to meet the minimum photometric values after being dispersed over such a wide field.

There may be other nuances as well. Most modern headlamp systems, including those in the Kia and Sonata, use visually-aimable optics. That is, there is a defined cutoff in the beam pattern, allowing the lamp to be aimed visually (with a beam setter or against a wall). There are two types of visually-aimable optics: VOR and VOL. There’s actually a third, VO, but this is very infrequently used. VOL and VOR can differ in the appearance of the cutoff, but always differ in the way that they’re aimed. A VOL lamp has a flat cutoff on the left side, and either a stair step up or an angular sweep up (or both) on the right side. These lamps are aimed by placing the left side of the cutoff 0.4-0.6 degrees below the horizontal. A VOR lamp has a flat cutoff on the right side, and can continue that flat cutoff to the left, or can stair step down on the left side. These lamps are aimed by placing the right side of the cutoff ON the horizontal. This is another aspect of meeting photometric measurement goals; different cutoff patterns can change photometric values at certain measurement points.

Most HID systems that I have seen use VOL optics. Some halogen systems also use VOL optics, but many use VOR optics. And there’s little rhyme or reason…just whatever the manufacturer wanted at the time. For example, our MDX uses H11 projectors that are VOL. Our CR-V uses HB2 reflectors that are VOR. The new Honda Pilot uses H11 projectors that are VOR. My brother-in-law’s 2005 Accord uses HB4 reflector low beams that are VOL. This also (VOR or VOL) will be imprinted on the front lens of the headlamp housing, and this also may differ between the Optima and the Sonata.

 

[meep]

Ok so if I read that right,

1. the OP has a projector assembly for the fogs? I missed that before.

2. an HID in a halogen housing may retain the cutoff but won't have an appropriate distribution.

so here's a question---- AFA blinding others, would the OP be ok? the cutoff would be tight, until the road undulates or the vehicle bounces....

in which case, halogen is focusing a lot of light beneath the cutoff to make minimum requirements, without much beam spread....

BUT in a fog application which has a sharp cutoff and wide beam... that sounds closer to the design changes for an HID assembly... which means... if it were MY car... I'd be willing to try it because it might just work (and I'm pretty picky on this topic, so that says something), slap selective yellow on it (hope it doesn't turn green), and save it for nasty days.

This is different than slapping an hid capsule in a low beam.... projector being one big reason....

My only observations were that there did seem to be a small bit of stray light on the upper door, but not any streaks or strong reflections, just ambient... almost.

So--- as we like to DIY--- what would tighten it up?? I'd say matte black paint on all internal non-reflecting assemblies?? is it even that bad?

He's getting flashed once per week.... maybe even just checking elevation /from a distance/???

@LAN--- you do audio work, ever see a pro LD (light designer) do a focus? Park the car 10-30 yards out, all lights on. stand in front of each beam and stare straight at it. drop to the ground, watching each lamp the whole way down... see at what height the full reflector floods with light. you can find the cutoff and hotspot much more accurately than the quick wall test. May find that over a distance, taking the fogs 2° down may be all you need?

 

[Hokiefyd]

The OP is sciphi with a Cruze, and I don't think the Cruze uses projector fog lamps. LineArrayNut has a Sonata, and I'm sure it does not use projector fog lamps either.

HIDs into halogen projectors, regardless of where they are mounted, present a few challenges. First, if it's a typical projector with a typical pattern of controlled glare above the cutoff, this will likely be overwhelmed by an HID source and will produce too much glare for oncoming drivers, and additionally, too much backscatter for you as the driver in inclement weather. There can be a way around this, by actually closing the lower shutter in the projector that allows for this controlled amount of glare, but then you as a driver don't get the benefit of it for roadside and overhead signs. The amount of glare above the cutoff in an OEM lamp is relatively small, but it only takes a small amount to really light a reflective sign. Take that small amount of glare away and many of the signs go dark.

And then the additional point about HIDs in halogen projectors is that the light distribution within the beam itself, below the cutoff, can be all messed up. It can be blotchy, not enough in some areas, too much in other areas, etc. You may find that you have so much foreground light, and not enough scattered to the sides as a true HID system would do, and your pupils constrict actually reducing your distance vision. The eye can be a remarkably poor judge of its own capability.

HIDs in fog lamps are generally inappropriate under all circumstances, regardless of the lamp type (projector or reflector). There's just too much light down close to the road. This can reduce your distance vision as noted above and can also produce tons of reflected glare to other drivers on wet roads. I don't think there's a single vehicle out there that uses fog lamps that are that bright (3,000+ lumens).

 

[meep]

gotcha-- yes the thread is so long i'm getting it all mixed up.

have personally witnessed splotchiness with earlier HID retrofit "play" - made great 4x4 flood lights but useless onroad.

that's interesting about controlled glare to illuminate signs. sounds to me like a shutter that is intentionally not in the proper focus plane... bending/adjusting/shifting that shutter would be required to tighten it up to reduce the stray light... bench testing!

 

[Hokiefyd]

Yes, there is a shutter in many projector systems:

This illustration is why retrofitting HIDs even into projectors can introduce dangerous levels of glare to oncoming drivers. You CAN close this shutter manually. People sometimes stick the eraser end of a pencil into the back of the projector to push the shutter closed. That SHOULD eliminate the problem with glare above the cutoff, but as discussed in previous post, still leaves other problems unaddressed.

This shutter produces the "light box" effect seen in many projector systems. Some are more pronounced than others. This is a photo from a 2004-2006 Acura MDX projector:

Interesting, but true, anecdote. I used to own a 2011 Camry, and it used H11 projectors with a fairly bright "light box". I swapped in some modified H9 bulbs to see what the effect would be. Same filament location as the H11, but still technically an illegal change. Anyway, I took them out after one drive at night because the roadside signs were actually glaring back at me -- they were too bright. The extra light, from even the H9 halogen bulb, made the reflective signs pop out too much. So I put Sylvania Xtravision H11s in it and they were in there until I traded the car.