Alfisimo, a very interesting dissertation on HIDs and Halogens. I have no doubt the author knows whereof he speaks. But as with most things in life, the theory and physics of it are sometimes confounded by reality. An HID kit does not, as the author states, contain the bulb and ballast, but should also have an ignitor. Yes, the reflective lens is of concern in terms of focusing the beam, but there are new anti-glare HID bulbs (which cost a few bucks more) that take most of the guesswork and problems out of it.
No, The basics regarding HID technology regardless of what type of HID we are talking about is the same. D2S, D21, DS4, D2R etc... There are several generations of HID bases.
No matter how you look at it a drop in kit regardless of clever advertising and "anti glare bulbs" (LOL) cannot properly work in a halogen based reflector. A halogen bulb is a filament, HID is a arc type of light which has a different alignment and axis. HID is an expensive upgrade to most vehicles due to the R&D that goes into the lamps let alone the equipment. They need to figure out how to dispearse the emense amount of light in the proper areas without putting too much in front, too much at the 75m mark, to much up high/low etc...
HID is not guesswork. You either have them or you don't and with HID drop in kits into halogen reflectors, you don't have it.
The author is not some yahoo writing about lighting. I know him well as I have worked with him several times. He is a lighting scienetist and consults for the NHTSA, Automotive manufacturers, lighting companies such as Hella, Narva, Osram/sylvania and more.
It's clear that a cheap kit off e-bay or from some cut rate re-seller (been there and done that) is not going to work. Neither will getting a blue colored or ultra white bulb come close to producing the light (lumens) that a proper HID will provide.
My point is clear, any and I mean any HID kit for drop in into a halogen based lamps is garbage. HID only comes in D21, D2S, D2R, DS4 and so on. There is no such thing as a HID H4 lighting. Sorry. H4 is clearly Halogen base 4. Blue color bulbs will never in a 100 years come close to producing the lumens Factory HID's produce which is around 3200 LUMENS(H4 clear European halogen bulb- 1700 lumens, H1 bulb is about 1800 lumens, for reference) , Blue colored bulbs produce maybe 600-800 lumens at best. You loose up to 40% of lumens from a low quality blue colored bulb. The white is light from these is deceiving.
If you get a good kit and install it properly, paying close attention to the bulb orientation when fitting into the assembly it works.
Sure it works. But not properly. I can put a 500 Watt bulb behind anything and make it look OK! It has been proven time and time again that this drop in kit stuff is and never will be good, legal and or safe for you nor the oncoming drivers. It can't is is physically impossible. It can seem to work OK but over all you have too much light in front of the vehicle, blackholes in the beam pattern, glare which is impossible to avoid even with "anti-glare bulbs" (LOL), and low life span due to improper mounting, improper wiring, improper or low quality Chinese ballasts, capsules and igniters. Any capsule over 5000K is junk.
It took us (Depiry and I) several tries and several sellers to get the right kit (I ordered mine from Europe) and the difference between the old H7 and the HIDs is stunning.
Stunning I am sure. But again not physically correct. I just cannot be. It can come slightly close to the untrained eye but over all it is a terrible beam pattern and would fail any UK or EUROPEAN MOT test, in 2 seconds.
Buying retro fit kits from Europe does not mean a thing, they are all garbage.
Re-read his information, watch the video. The information is clear as factory HID's on a moonless night.
Retrofits work, but you gotta know what you're doing, what you're buying and how you're installing it.
No, sorry they don't. They seem to work if you don't know what your doing. In the end you do get what you pay for. Illegal, unsafe, improper lighting that would never pass a test in Europe nor in the US if all states had headlamp aiming tests yearly!
The Govt. and the NHTSA is cracking and has been cracking down on all HID retro fit companies. Have shut them down, made them take back their products and pay back the customers as well as HUGE fines. They have not got them all but I have seen tons disapear without a trace. One comes to mine HIDs4less. Gone! Why because the govt knows they are dangerous and the stuff should not be used.
The only way to properly have HID headlamps is the remove the halogens and replace with factory VW HID headlamps complete. Or as some have done, use a HID reflector unit and retro fit it into your current lamps to make use of the proper reflector and lens. otherwise anything else is sorry just not right. But if your Ok with that then theres no way to educate you on this. Most of the time it is hard to educate folks on this product once they bought them, installed them and saw all the wonderful light coming out of their headlamps. Not to mention the great advertising and before and after photo's right??? Right, another thing is you can never ever show proper headlamp beam patterns using a camera, I can adjust aperture and other settings to make it look much brighter, another clever tactic.
My suggestion is to re-read it. He is a lighting expert, not a automotive journalist with heavily biased opinions. He states the facts and thats it.
In the end you get what you pay for.
siberian
Sorry I disagree with you 100% as all you have said is incorrect and misleading to other readers. I have seen your post on this as well.
I have been working on lighting in the industry for a long time as well. HID is HID and one cannot be swapped for the other unless a complete headlamp is changed to a Gas Discharge headlamp. No other way!!!! Simply put!
Jason
), and there is nothing apparent, other than the vertical and lateral adjustment hex lugs for high and low beams.
