Spyder headlamps.....my take on 'em...and LIGHTING in general

[shovelbill]

Virgil at the CP forums advises against that, citing internal reflectivity on the lens... and other factors resulting in a non-compliant beam.

against what? please explain.....what's a CP forum?

 

[df2x4]

take this one....it's a flush mount assembly.....and it's going to go in a stock 88-89 quad light unit.

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http://www.rallylights.com/hella-60mm-projector-headlamp-module.html
http://www.myhellalights.com/index.php/products/auxiliary-lamps/modules/60mm-module-low-beam/

make a mounting plate the size that could be captured by the outer ring....it would actually be same size OD as 150mm X 92mm sealed beam. you have to build it up to make up the difference in thickness...i'd use some 1/8" aluminium flat stock to start. bore a hole in it, drill 4 little holes and bolt it together..........the lamp behind the plate.

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and put the bolted together setup right in the head lamp bucket......space the projector unit in the plate back according to depth and or aesthetics.......you can use the stock adjuster screws to get the thing set correctly.

i was inspired by this gents craftsmanship:

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that's here:
http://www.gmt400.com/threads/lets-talk-headlights.6688/page-20

^ I remember that thread! @ccreddell did a really cool retrofit. First one I ever saw on these trucks that was done properly.

 

[michael hurd]

against what? please explain.....what's a CP forum?

Why, the candlepower forums... for all sorts of lighting, they have a special section for automotive lighting.

ANY talk of illegal activity re: using off road light bars while driving, LED drop in 'bulb' etc is Verboten.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?87-Automotive-Motorcycles-Included

 

[shovelbill]

Why, the candlepower forums... for all sorts of lighting, they have a special section for automotive lighting.

ANY talk of illegal activity re: using off road light bars while driving, LED drop in 'bulb' etc is Verboten.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?87-Automotive-Motorcycles-Included

oh great.....something else to weed through, LOL...........i'll be lost in there for a spell i guess.....i think candlepower.com is where i first learned about the HIR's.

 

[shovelbill]

^ I remember that thread! @ccreddell did a really cool retrofit. First one I ever saw on these trucks that was done properly.

yea...that looks like some thought went into it.
the Hella's i'm thinkin on are DOT and ECE compliant.

Specifications:

• Voltage: 12V
• Light Source: HB3 / 9005 12V/65W Bulb
• Power Consumption: 65W
• Housing Material: ABS Plastic
• Optics: Lens
• Lens Material: Glass
• Connection: Bulb Plug
• DOT/SAE Certified
• Die Cast Aluminum Housing and Reflector
• Very Sharp European Style Cutoff
• Can use the 9011 & 9012 HIR bulbs.
• Simple mounting

 

[shovelbill]

gotta go join another forum.......

because of you df2x4 i found the harness by gmachinz........hehe.

 

[df2x4]

CandlePower Forums are awesome, lots of good info on there. Both about lighting in general and semi-related stuff like Lithium Ion batteries.

Not sure how you found his harness because of me, but I'll take it! The first time I ever saw that he was offering them for sale was in this thread I think.

 

[shovelbill]

BAM! first thing i read...........really LOL.

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Re: What's wrong with projector retrofits?

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Originally Posted by splew

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So what exactly makes HID projector retrofits so bad? The projector is basically a self contained unit, so as long as one places it in a clear lens headlamp, in a position reasonably close to what it would have been in on the donor vehicle, then it should perform just fine, no?
No. In just your two sentences here, you've explicitly skated right past three major problems, and that's not even the complete list. One at a time:


The projector is basically a self contained unitMost projectors aren't self-contained. None of the ones found in original equipment headlamp assemblies are self-contained (that is, they're not sealed from water/dirt entry and they're unshrouded so they emit stray light in directions other than through the condenser lens; for these reasons they require being inside a housing. If the housing's not designed to hold a particular projector, in most cases the "alien" projector cannot be acceptably mounted in the "surrogate" housing. Certainly this is the case whenever the housing must be hacked in any way (cut, drilled, lens removed, etc); once that's done an acceptable environmental seal is never re-achieved. More about this alien/surrogate mounting issue below.

There is such a thing as a self-contained projector. Hella, for example, has an extensive range of 50mm, 60mm, 90mm, and 120mm units. Low beams, high beams, low/high beams, fog beams...halogen, HID, LED...Right-traffic, left-traffic, etc. However, these don't erase the problems, they just change to a different set of problems. A headlamp is type-approved or certified to the applicable regulations in the form it's produced. Putting a projector, self-contained or not, behind a lens it wasn't specifically designed to be behind (as in an aerodynamic composite front light assembly from whatever vehicle you have in mind) means you no longer have a certified/type-approved lamp, you have an assemblage of parts that very likely does not perform the way the regulations require. This is not intuitive, but those lenses are not 100% transparent, and their surfaces are reflective. It is a very, very common occurrence during the design and engineering phase of an OEM headlamp that changes must be made (and remade multiple times) because while the optical package -- projector or reflector -- meets the requirements without the front lens, when the optical pacakge is put into the housing package including that front lens, the lamp doesn't comply. And an optics package that complies in one housing doesn't necessarily (often doesn't!) comply in another housing package, just because of differences in the size, shape, angles, and distance of the front lens and other elements of the housing. Typically the problems are insufficient intensity in the low-intensity zones (above the cutoff) due to less-than-full transmission through the front lens, and reflections within the headlamp bouncing stray light all over the place where it doesn't belong and isn't allowed. Highly trained and very well (and expensively) equipped engineers spend a lot of hours fixing these problems on each and every new project, because that is the nature of the job. It is not something that can successfully be tackled in a homeowner's garage, on a hobbyist's workbench, or behind the Retrofitz-R-Us website.


in a position reasonably close to what it would have been in on the donor vehicle"Reasonably close" doesn't even begin to cut the mustard. Not only are there beam alignment issues (the high beam must be properly placed with respect to the low beam, and either it's right or it's wrong -- there is no such thing as "reasonably close"), but there are also center-of-mass/center-of-gravity issues. It is a lot harder than it might seem to devise a mount for a projector so that it stays put, doesn't shake, doesn't lose its aim, doesn't detach from its mounts. This, too, is something that practically cannot be done on a by-guess/by-gosh basis.


it should perform just fineHeadlamps are life-safety equipment. All aspects of their performance -- not just the beam patterns they produce, but also their mechanical and environmental robustness and, with HIDs and LEDs, electrical and thermal safety -- are specified in detail, objectively, by the applicable technical regulations. A wide range of performance and design are permitted, but the basic requirements are stringent and exacting. None of it can be assessed by eye. "Gosh, it looks good to me!" or "Wow, look at that sharp cutoff!" or "Nobody ever flashes me at night" or "I drive past cops every day and I never get tickets" just are not relevant responses to the real safety and reliability issues involved.

It takes an enormous amount of money and a long time to design, engineer, tool, and test/approve/certify a legitimate headlamp. It's not because the people doing the work are slow-paced or lazy!

 

[shovelbill]

CandlePower Forums are awesome, lots of good info on there. Both about lighting in general and semi-related stuff like Lithium Ion batteries.

Not sure how you found his harness because of me, but I'll take it! The first time I ever saw that he was offering them for sale was in this thread I think.

hmmmm, you're right....i went back on a quest and found it on page 5........i see that it was actually all deejaa's fault!

....well i forgot exactly what without reading the whole thing again(that fu@kin CRS again), but in the link he posted i found another link to another forum i had to join and that's where i found gmachinz....i PM'd him on there and bought a harness.....a few days after that he joined this forum and made his intro on the hi4 thread.

so HE actually pushed the first domino, damn, sorry for the confusion.....you're absolved of all culpability.....................and i'm becoming a senile citizen.

 

[shovelbill]

well....so far Michael, it seems i made the right choice on the Philips X-treemVisions.....based on what Virgil says. he's a character too from what i've read so far......cool stuff