Having had HID in 'reflector' lights and now having them in projectors, there is no way i'd go back to halogen in relfectors or HID in reflectors and there is no way i'd use halogen in projectors. My dads X-type Jag is an early 04 model and came with projector lenses but fitted with halogen bulbs - the lights were so poor he'd been driving around with mainbeam on, since fitting the HID kit to his car, he hasn't had to main beam for anything other than flashing people. Bearing in mind a decent halogen bulb can cost £15 each here, an HID kit that costs £47 delivered in 3 days from China is a bargain, if it only lasts as long as a pair of halogen bulbs at almost the same price, it;s still a bargain. Funnily enough the set I bought 2 years ago from China is still working fine.
1. Beam scatter in lenses not designed for HID is attrocious, dazzling and dangerous for oncoming traffic.
2. Beam pattern is all over the place.
3. Halogen in projectors is nothing short of dangerous, the lightoutput is far too weak.
4. HID in projectors is the way forward - the lightoutput and beam quality has to be seen to be believed.
5. I have had mine through the MOT ( strict UK test to ensure the car is road legal) which passed the car with flying colours, i asked them to concentrate on the headlights to make sure they were aligned correctly, had good beam pattern and to check them to ensure they were not illegal. Needless to say, the car passed.
I would guess that all 'Eastern' brands of these use the same component parts inside, whether they're inside a $600 'US' made set or a $200 Chinese made set is quite possibly a moot point.
I have two sets of lights that i'm making into one
( doing a little project to make dual projector and HID lights) and have a pair of lights by FK and another set made by ULTRA, both contain the same projectors despite the other internals being slightly different - it's plain to see two different manufacturers are using the same supplier.
Ok the above pic doesn't show a high quality reflective coating on the back of the projector unit. For that reason, I wil be sending all of the projectors in my project off for recoating to make sure the reflective surface is of a standard i'm happy with. Anyone who has seen the low quality 'silver' plastic reflector coating used by MG on the MGF would be more than happy with the quality above in comparison to the pic below! See
here for the full text
Personally I have to wonder whether the scaremongering is employed by people in the motoring trade who are trying to convince us that headlamp washers, slow self levelling and a price tag of almost £1000 on a new vehicle for OE Xenon kits is good value just because the kits are E marked, I would be interested to take a Hella ballast to bits to see just what is inside. I would suspect that it's the same components that are inside the 'elcheapo' Chinese kits - since China supplies a scary amount of what we think are major branded names, I would not be at all surprised.
Just my two cents
