HID Projector Housing

[IanDMacDonald]

I have an HID in two other bikes, and love them. Never been flashed. However, I do know that the intended use of the stock headlight shell is for halogen bulbs only. So, this year I want to do things right. The Trucklite LED headlight "The Rev" has bought looks tempting, but @ almost $200, I shrink a little. For those whom want to convert to a better headlight, via HID, here is an alternative: http://uniqueautostore.com/index.php...roducts_id=393

From my understanding though, Steve's headlight mod still has to ne done, which I don't look forward to. And, you also have to buy an H4 kit. It comes with two headlights.

[IanDMacDonald]

The only issue I have with this is when I google "H6052", it comes-up with 7x6 headlights. This is the only site I found with these. Seems kinda fishy . . .

[crazy steve]

The headlight mod is easy; the first one took less than a full day and that was starting at zero. Once I had measurements, I did three in a day. You'll spend more time gathering parts than you will doing the mod.

To be honest, I think you're chasing a very small return on investment. My new Mustang has HID lights, and while they're very good lights, they only seem to have one minor advantage over a high-performance H4. Because a 'real' HID works with a fixed-focus lamp and 'creates' the low beam with a solenoid-operated shield that is dropped into place for the low beam cutoff, the 'light fill' close to the vehicle is the same on both high and low beam. At speed, your reaction time will be longer than the area this covers.

Being 'bluer' than a H4, color rendition is terrible, and I get flashed in the Mustang on a regular basis (and yes, the adjustment is correct).

Installing a HID in a cheap plastic lens with mediocre optics will be about the same price as a top quality Cibie lens and probably still won't equal the 'light on the road' the latter offers. The best lighting I ever had in any vehicle was the four 5.75" Cibies installed in a '70 Mercury which on high beam would light road signs out to nearly a mile... something the HID in the Mustang still can't do....

And you can now buy H4 lamps pretty much anywhere.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Ian,

Did you see this link/thread I posted a while back??

http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...=hid+projector

On the first page I show those CHEESY Pseudo-HID type headlight reflectors, but they don't really work...see the subsequent pages in the thread and the photos where I did some testing of them with actual HID type H-4 Bulbs!

You will want to put a real HID PROJECTOR type lens on there to get the real HID type peformance.

Hey Steve, you can get other HID bulbs with different COLOR ratings to get rid of the BLUE HUE.....ie. the 5000 K or lower range vs. the 6-8+K range.

T.C.

[crazy steve]

Hey Steve, you can get other HID bulbs with different COLOR ratings to get rid of the BLUE HUE.....ie. the 5000 K or lower range vs. the 6-8+K range.

T.C.

I asked about this, and the ones I have are as 'white' as they get according to both the dealer and aftermarket suppliers. The light on the ground looks white, but reflection off signs, etc have weird colors. Some car colors really change too; a dark moss green metallic looks like bright candy green at night, and a dark metallic gray looks like light blue. Being around this sort of lighting during my whole working career (HID, HPS, MV), you quickly figure out that you just won't get an accurate color rendition with any of them.

I'm not unhappy with them, but I was less impressed than I thought I would be...

[Eveready1100]

Steve, what is the colour rating of your bulbs? I've got the 4300k ones in mine and there's no trace of blue in them at all.

[TopCatGr58]

I asked about this, and the ones I have are as 'white' as they get according to both the dealer and aftermarket suppliers. The light on the ground looks white, but reflection off signs, etc have weird colors. Some car colors really change too; a dark moss green metallic looks like bright candy green at night, and a dark metallic gray looks like light blue. Being around this sort of lighting during my whole working career (HID, HPS, MV), you quickly figure out that you just won't get an accurate color rendition with any of them.

I'm not unhappy with them, but I was less impressed than I thought I would be...

Steve,

The 6K color is considered the PURE WHITE, but it does still give you a bit of a blue type reflection/hue. Like Everyready stated, getting the bulbs in the 5k or 4300k range will have a bit more YELLOW in it which will eliminate the annoying BLUE shade/cast/hue! And it will also penetrate light fog and such better than the higher frequency white.

T.C.

[IanDMacDonald]

Hey Ian,

Did you see this link/thread I posted a while back??

http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...=hid+projector

On the first page I show those CHEESY Pseudo-HID type headlight reflectors, but they don't really work...see the subsequent pages in the thread and the photos where I did some testing of them with actual HID type H-4 Bulbs!

You will want to put a real HID PROJECTOR type lens on there to get the real HID type peformance.

Hey Steve, you can get other HID bulbs with different COLOR ratings to get rid of the BLUE HUE.....ie. the 5000 K or lower range vs. the 6-8+K range.

T.C.

Hi TC- Just read through that whole thread again, and you made no mention of the results using the 5x7, only the Cat-Eye. Nobody really sells a 5x7 HID projector. Jeep Cherokees use a 5x7. I guess it's the LED light then.

[natemoen]

Hi TC- Just read through that whole thread again, and you made no mention of the results using the 5x7, only the Cat-Eye. Nobody really sells a 5x7 HID projector. Jeep Cherokees use a 5x7. I guess it's the LED light then.

The projectors are always that small round lens. The rest is just to fill in the space basically.

[Hak]

Anyone know how much more amperage the HID's require over a halogen? I was thinking about designing a retromod old school looking lense with some real serious projector inside of it (similar to the one linked) but I always wonder about the charging system on older bikes if they can handle the wattage. There's always LED's but I never really like the way they look, usually just housed in rectangular or square boxes with 6 or more LEDs inside. A good projector would have some serious improvement and have a cutoff built in so you wouldn't be blinding everyone like putting an HID in a standard reflector housing.

I came across an interesting post on another forum a while ago where someone talked of putting HID's even into halogen designed projectors and there have apparently been studies on how the critical the placement of the light on the pavement is. Where if it's too bright, too close, you will actually see the surroundings less because the light reflecting back into your eyes will cause your pupils to dialate, even if it would appear to be a really bright headlamp.

[DGXSER]

Over the years several of the members here, myself included, have tried installing the HID bulls in the stock halogen fixture. It works, and puts out a TON of light. However, it is not properly focused. And therefore I found I was not comfortable with the light and location of the light for oncoming traffic. There has been many a discussion about the legality of them, and I do not care to revive the debate. Like any modification to your bike, it is your decision to make. Me, I had one installed. Loved the light it gave me to ride with. But, when I parked the bike at one end of the driveway and sat in my car at the other end, all I could see was the light from that headlight. So, I took it out and went back tot he stock setup.

Until TC documented the HID upgrade linked above. Then I added some detail when I did my own install of it. I love the light it gives me, and I am comfortable it is not blinding to oncoming traffic.

[Hak]

Cool. Good to know. Yeah the HID in a halogen housing becomes a very heated topic most often haha

[crazy steve]

Steve, what is the colour rating of your bulbs? I've got the 4300k ones in mine and there's no trace of blue in them at all.

I haven't pulled the lamps to look (they're not all that easy to get at...) but I've been told I have the 4300K units. Again, the 'color on the ground' is white and I don't see even a trace of color when looking directly at them, it's when the light is reflected back off of anything reflective (signs, items with gloss finishes particularly metallic paint) that the color 'shift' occurs. I don't see it as harmful, just disconcerting.....

One thing I keep mentioning and almost everyone ignores is the importance of the lens quality; the light loss through plastic is much higher than most people realize. Even 'average' grade glass will transmit more light than all but the best 'optical grade' plastic, so there's little point in 'upgrading' the lamp if you downgrade the lens. Glass is seldom seen these days except on high-end assemblies or 'old style' OEM type replacements, but losses of 5% would probably be the minimum and up to 20% possible. These losses are difficult to see as the light doesn't disappear, but instead shows up as scatter close in, leading to the perception that you have 'better' lighting but in reality it's failing to focus the light where it's really needed. One thing I have noticed with the HIDs in my Mustang is the lo-beam cut-off isn't as 'sharp' as what I saw with the Cibies I've owned. I have no doubt that's due to the plastic lenses the Mustang uses.

I came across an interesting post on another forum a while ago where someone talked of putting HID's even into halogen designed projectors and there have apparently been studies on how the critical the placement of the light on the pavement is. Where if it's too bright, too close, you will actually see the surroundings less because the light reflecting back into your eyes will cause your pupils to contract, even if it would appear to be a really bright headlamp.

That's true, as several white papers have determined. Same effect as standing in a brightly-lit room and looking out the door into the dark. Even shining a moderately bright light from inside the room to the outside won't allow you to 'see' as much as you would if your eyes were in a darker environment.

As to power consumption by a HID conversion, that information is hard to come by. Lamp wattage doesn't tell the whole story; while a 35W HID would appear to use less power than a 55W halogen, it doesn't operate on 12V DC like the halogen. The ballast takes the 12V DC and creates high-frequency, higher voltage AC to operate the lamp and that circuitry will consume power. Very few HID ballasts I've seen have the electrical characteristics listed, the few I've seen that show anything merely say '< 6A' which means that power used is less than 72 watts; which is not a savings, so I suspect that a HID conversion is a wash at best.

One thing everyone needs to remember; the human eye has evolved to work at it's best in natural sunlight. I was in the electrical industry for 30+ years and saw a lot of 'next great things' come down the road for improving lighting efficiency but in terms of duplicating 'natural' light you still can't beat the incandescent lamp. Halogen is simply a variation of that, and both come closest to duplicating sunlight. With the possible exception of modern fluorescents (and it took 60 years to advance past the cool white/warm white choice to a lamp with 'good' color rendition), virtually all of the gas discharge type lamps with better efficiency made those gains by narrowing/concentrating the reproduced spectrum, and the same thing is true of LED lamps. You'd hear all sorts of talk about how 'great' a new lamp is in terms of light output vs power usage, but unless you knew the right questions to ask it was hard to determine if that light was really the best choice for a specific use. I could tell multiple stories about changing out new lighting systems that looked good on paper but failed miserably when people actually had to work/live under them....

[TopCatGr58]

Hi TC- Just read through that whole thread again, and you made no mention of the results using the 5x7, only the Cat-Eye. Nobody really sells a 5x7 HID projector. Jeep Cherokees use a 5x7. I guess it's the LED light then.

Ian, ??

Right in the beginning, and again on page 5 I describe using the true 6054 6x7bulb housing that is the size that fits the XS standard rectangular shell with the Steve Mod. I didn't use a 5x7 housing.

And you say "Cat Eye"? If you are meaning the combined reflector/HID type central lens "el Cheapo" housing....those psuedo lenses/reflectors don't work.
The Real Projector has an Angel Eye.....just a fluorescent ring around the projector lens.

Steve, I mentioned the all steel/metal housing of the mini Projectors, but I forgot to mention that it had a GLASS lens. AND the cheap pseudo-HID type reflector housings that I used to mount the projector in ALSO had real glass lenses....no plastic lenses, so no loss of light from any plastic lenses.

T.C.

[crazy steve]

OK, I'll note that when I drove my Mustang last night (I don't do a lot of night driving anymore), the color rendition has actually gotten better. After I thought about it a bit, it's likely due to the lamp 'burning in' with use which is a common phenomena with all metal vapor type lamps. You'll get one output when new, a different one after some use which will stay pretty much the same until end-of-life when output will drop off.