Thinking of Converting to HID?

So you've read about HID headlights and have it in mind to put your car. A few clicks on the web, and you have found a couple of outfits offering to sell you a "conversion" that a car will fit a certain type of halogen. STOP! Put away that credit card.

An HID kit consists of HID ballasts and lamps for the "alignment" in a halogen headlight. Often these products are advertised with the name of a reputable lighting company ("Real Philips kit! Real Osram kit! Real Hella kit!") To seek the potential buyer to give the illusion of legitimacy. Fact: While some of the components in these kits are sometimes manufactured by these companies, the parts do not bring their designed or intended use. Reputable companies like Philips, Osram, Hella, etc. Never again with this kind of "retrofit" the use of their products.

Halogen headlamps and HID headlamps require very different optics to produce a safe and effective non-legal-bundle call. Why? Because of the very different properties of the two types of light.

A halogen lamp has a cylindrical light source: the glowing filament. The area immediately around the cylinder of light is completely dark, and thus the sharpest contrast between light and dark along the edges of the cylinder of light. The ends of the filament cylinder fade from light to dark. An HID bulb, on the other hand, has a crescent-shaped light source - the arc. The crescent-shaped, because passing the space between two electrodes, the heat to try to rise. The area immediately surrounding the crescent of light glows in layers ... the closer to the crescent of light, the brighter the glow. The ends of the arc crescent are the brightest points, and immediately after these points is completely dark, so the sharp contrast between light and dark at the ends of the crescent of light.

When designing the optics (lens and / or reflector) for a lamp, the characteristics of the light source * the * driving factor that everything must be designed. If you and change the bulb, you've done the equivalent of raising someone else's eyeglasses: You can probably make them fit on your face OK, but you will not see.

Now, what about those "retrofit" jobs in which the beam cutoff still appears sharp? Do not be fooled, it's a mistake to judge a beam pattern solely by the cutoff. In many lamps, especially the types of projector, the cut-off will remain the same, no matter what light source behind it. Halogen lamp, HID capsule, cigarette lighter, Firefly, keep it up to the sun-whatever. That's the way a projector lamp works. The elimination of the projected image is simply a piece of metal running side to side behind the lens. If the lens is coming in distributing the light under the cutoff. And, as with all other automotive lamps (and in fact all optical instruments), the optics are calculated based not only on where the light is in the lamp (focal length), but also the specific photometric characteristics of the source. .. which parts of the brighter, which parts of the darker, where the borders of the light source, or sharp or blurred the boundaries, the shape of the light source, and so on.

As if the optical mismatch is not reason enough to the idea of "retrofitting" an HID bulb where a halogen one belongs-drop and it's reason enough!-There are other reasons why not to do. Here are some of them:

The only available arc capsules have a longitudinal arc (arc path runs front to back) on the axis of the bulb, but many popular halogen headlamp bulbs, such as 9004, 9007, H3 and H12, use a bulb that transverse (side - right) and / or compensate (not on the axis of the bulb) central axis of the headlamp reflector). In this case it is impossible even for the position and orientation of the filament around an approach to "retrofit" HID capsule. Just because you may have a head lamp axial filament are using it, does not mean you've selected the hurdles the laws of optical physics jump even bow to the cleverest marketing department, nor for the catchiest HID "retrofit kit box.

The latest gimmick is HID arc capsules in an electromagnetic base so that they shift up and down or back and forth. These are sold as "dual beam" kits that claim that the loss of beam with fixed-base "retrofits address" instead of dual-filament halogen lamps. (A cheaper variant of this is that a fixed HID lamp with a halogen bulb strapped or glued to the side of it ... yikes!) What you do with the wind two poorly-formed beams, at best. The reason for the original equipment market has not adopted the movable-capsule designs they are playing with since the mid 1990's because it is impossible to control the arc position, so the wind in exactly the same position every time.

In the original equipment field, there are some capsule dual-beam systems appearing ("bixenon", etc.), but these are all on a movable optical shield, or movable reflector-the arc capsule stays in one place appeals. The Original Equipment engineers have a lot of money and resources at their disposal, and if a movable capsule were a practical way to do the job, they would do it. The "retrofit" kits certainly no solution to this problem anywhere near satisfaction. And even if they did, remember: Whether a fixed or moving-capsule "retrofit" is contemplated, solving the Arc-position problem and calling it good is like going to a hospital with two broken ribs, a sprained ankle and a broken toe and the nurse say, "Well, you're free to go home now, we have your ankle in a sling!" Focal (ARC / filament positioning) is just a matter of several.

The most dangerous part of the attempt to "retrofit" Xenon headlamps is that sometimes you get a deceptive and illusory "improvement" in the exercise of the headlight. The performance of the headlamp is perceived as "better" due to the much higher level of foreground lighting (on the road in front of the car). However, the beam patterns produced by this kind of "conversion" virtually always give less distance light, and often an alarming lack of light, where a relative maximum to be understood in the light intensity. The result is the illusion that you can see better than you can, and that is not safe.

It is difficult to evaluate headlamp beam performance without much knowledge, training and much much special equipment, because subjective perceptions are very misleading. After a lot of strong light in the foreground, which is on the road near the car and to the sides, is very comforting and reliably produces a strong impression of "good headlights". The problem is that not only alleviate the foreground clearly incidental to travel much over 30 km / h, but with a very strong pool of light near the car causes your pupils to close the deterioration of your sight in the distance ... all the time to give you this false sense of security. This is not the massive amounts of glare to other road users or back dazzle you tell the driver that the results of these "retrofits".

HID headlamps also require careful water resistance and electrical shielding because of the high voltages. These unsafe "retrofits" make it physically possible to insert an HID bulb where a halogen bulb belongs, but this practice is illegal and dangerous, whatever the claims of these marketers that their systems are "light distribution corrected" or the fraudulent use of the established brand names to try to trick you into thinking the product is legitimate. In order to properly and safely operate, HID headlamps must be designed from the start as HID headlamps.

What about the law, what does it have to say about this matter? In virtually every first world country, HID "retrofits" in halogen headlamps are illegal. They are clearly illegal in Europe and in all of the many countries that the European ECE regulations headlights. They are illegal in the U.S. and Canada. Some people dismiss this because North American regulations, particularly in such a way as written a number of really good lighting to reject. Yet the particular count of HID "retrofits" in halogen headlights, the world of engineers and regulators agree: do not!

The only safe and legitimate HID retrofit is one that the entire headlight replaced, it is objective, reflector, lamp ... all-shemozzle with optics designed for HID use. In the aftermarket, it is possible to be clever with the growing number of available products, such as modular projectors Hella available in HID or halogen, and produce your own hooks and edges, or an original-equipment halogen headlamp housing to alter contain optical "guts "designed for HID use. But just an HID bulb where a halogen one belongs is bad news all around.