Xenon H1 headlight upgrade

[Sprint88qv]

Anyone tried upgrading their headlight H1 bulbs with Xenon H1 bulbs?

Found these Osram Silverstar 12V 55W “straight swaps” from Vehicle Wiring Products. I think I’ve added the url correctly?

http://www.vehicle-wiring-products.eu/product.php/861/

It says they are a direct swap and the wattage is the same. So in theory they should give more light but not draw anymore amps than the standard halogen ones.....and therefore not spontaneously combust the wiring.....but is that right?

Anyone got any experience with them? Ok to do?

Cheers.

[Spacenut]

Yes, it should be OK - the new bulbs will draw the same current as the standard halogen, but there are some advantages to going for these types of premium bulb as they do seem to burn brighter and whiter than cheaper brands. As long as your wiring is in good condition they should work fine.

Lauren

[dave.armstrong]

I put similar Phillips ones in mine and they do seem brighter

[PETROLHEAD]

If I'm brutally honest, I'd say save your money and dont bother with them.

What these are is a halogen bulb, with a traditional tungsten filament installed, but with xenon gas rather than halogen, and so the claims of up to 60% brighter are utter hocus pocus if you ask me.

What i would expect from them is a whiter colour temp, and a small perceived improvement in actual light output.

The only way to make proper gains in actual light output, in my opinion, is a proper High Intensity Discharge Xenon lamp and ballast kit, and to be honest, the latest 55watt kits are now available for about 30 quid, so why wouldn't you?

The old 35watt kits would make your halogens look like a candle in a storm, but these newer 55's are simply fantastic value for money.

I've retrofitted lots of these over the years, all cheap online stuff, the very stuff that gets bad press, and yet time and time again, my kits pass mot, dont spot helicopters at night, and do give out a phenomenal gain in usable light.

Clearly,, thats what I'll keep doing, and would recommend that you do the same.

At today's prices, wheres the harm in trying?

[Sprint88qv]

Thanks all, certainly interesting stuff.

Shrew, the high intensity kits you mention, do they fit the standard headlamps? Any chance of a url to one, so I can have a butchers.

Cheers. Ed

[dave.armstrong]

I got some HID's for my Sud after putting some on my 159.

I wired them in but had inconsistent results on the Sud as sometimes they lit and sometimes they didn't.

I also couldn't find a neat place to hide the ballasts so decided to put in better quality brighter bulbs and it seemed a reasonable compromise.

I am now thinking about researching LED's

[Mufasa]

I had wondered about the wiring Dave.
Very interesting thread guys!

[PETROLHEAD]

I'll point to a kit shortly, but to answer a few points first,

yes, the dedicated kits include lamps (bulbs to the leyman, although i would argue bulbs are what daffodils grow from! ) that fit in exactly the same way as your existing halogen lamp does, so h1, h3, h4, h7 etc are all replicated in the appropriate kit.

some kits can be a little temperamental, particularly cheap ones, but not all cheap kits are destined to give you any trouble or issues, its a little bit of a gamble but i do not advocate spending over the odds for the sake of it, as they're very likely a repackage of the same chinese components anyway.

The only kits i've had any reliability issues with were the H4 hi/lo kits. These have a shunting reflector to immitate a traditional lamps two elements and beam aim, and on occasion these have given trouble, but i've not experienced any issue with h1, h3, h7 etc etc.

That said, a few things are supercritical for these to work successfully, and that is your battery must be strong, your wiring tip top and your contacts within the loom, and grounds/earths in particular must be clean as a whistle. Any weakness at all in any of those and you WILL get issues for sure!

The digital ballasts are smaller than ever now, about the same size as a regular smartphone with a case fitted! Shouldn't be too bad nowadays to find a nice dry spot, but invisible might be a compromise too far.


As for led, the kits available right now may well appear to be a visual improvement over the original Sud lights, but that isn't very hard to top, and is maybe a little misleading, just looking impressive because it a good strong localised bright white light, BUT, actual depth of penetration into the black of night is comparatively a little weak.

On par with the halogens, maybe, but certainly not as good as the 35w HID kits light outputs, and miles away from the latest 55w HID kits.

The led's have a lot of catching up to do, but the way that trade moves, it might only be a couple of years away before they are blazing the trail!



Does that answer the points? i forget a lot these days!

[PETROLHEAD]

Have a butchers at this chaps.

I have fitted a couple of H3 type of boxed/brand kit previously, and they've got even cheaper since then!


For the price of a pair of "Blubs" can you think of any reason why not to give them a whirl?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/55W-HID-Xeno ... bg7LHMVdLQ


incidentally, the colour temp most commonly chosen is 6000k, a typical ice white like the late Audi type Xenon's, choices above or below start to take on a hint of the red or blue end of the spectrum.

[KevJTD]

re the LED kits I've seen on rally cars, purely from an outside perspective they look very much brighter to look at but way less powerful to look with, if you see what I mean.
when a car comes past with some proper big old school cibies or whatever you can see miles ahead, when a car with an LED lightbar comes along they look way brighter....until it comes past and the light doesn't go half as far forward, if that makes sense?

[PETROLHEAD]

Yep, completely concurr mate,

that what i was trying to say with the Depth of Penetration thing!

It looks bright and white whilst facing it, but usable light as the driver is weak


One more thing i meant to put in the longer post, was that a HID conversion kit, is actually less current draw on your aging wiring and switches etc, because the ballast does all the work.

True Xenon gas, whilst from the same family of inert gases as halogen, neon, etc takes a lot more oomph to excite, so the ballast takes your regular 12v+ dc electrical supply and ramps it up within the region of 20.000volts!

The latest digital ones do this quite cleverly, and are designed to be the same or more commonly less of a current draw than the original lamp set up (55w /12+v supply = 4.5amps approximately).


Ive yet to check back to back with my ammeter whether that is the case, it should be, but i've never had any hot or worse wiring issues even on aging curcuits

[Spacenut]

It makes sense to me - the HID "bulb" is in effect an arc lamp and the "ballast" (I never know why they call them that) is a switch-mode power supply with a step-up transformer to get the necessary voltage to strike the arc.

Switch-mode power supply takes 12v dc and chops it up into squarewave ac so that the transformer can do its thing (they don't work with dc). Just like the points do on an ignition system actually...

I would definitely concur with Shrew that the LED technology isn't quite mature enough yet for road use, particularly the aftermarket. I would also agree that for brightness and power efficiency HID has a lot going for it. But, as also stated, condition of wiring, battery and earth connections are paramount, not necessary things you can rely on in a 30 year old Italian car!!!

[PETROLHEAD]

Thank you lauren, much appreciated

everyday is a school day!


So fella's, i think that concludes that HID Xenon conversion is by far the best way to go, on all performance related queries for sure, BUT, if you have weak or untrustworthy circuits and wiring for your stock set up now, then you will need improvements to make HID work to its best and reliably, but that said, if you have weak circuitry already, you might as well improve to it best potential anyway and give HID a whirl!

[Sprint88qv]

Excellent debate all, many thanks for all the information.

Shrew, I’ll think I’ll give those HID kits a go.

Let’s see what happens. I’m planning on spending the next few weeks sprucing up the electrics anyway.

[lee16v]

I'm not totally sure on the facts of HIDs but I've been hearing things about the new MOT rules and that there's new guidelines on their use. If they are fitted to a car without the proper headlight i.e projector lenses, then they will be classed as a fail. Possibly something to think about if this is indeed true.

[dave.armstrong]

When I tried mine it seemed like they needed a 'spike' to get them to light up when you switched them on.

Sometimes they did sometimes they didn't.

Put them back in the box

[Spacenut]

There are legal issues with retro-fitting HID lamps - compulsory power washers, self-levelling etc. Probably best to read this before deciding to fit them...

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... -headlamps

That said, like illegal number plates there are an awful lot of said conversions around, and apart from a brilliant blue-white light, which switches on instantaneously (assuming it switches on in the first place), who's going to notice???!!

Lauren

[PETROLHEAD]

These are all valid points, and sadly they came about along with a rather sweeping movement towards making illegal all aftermarket parts or modifications.

Specific to hid's, I'm afraid the corsa boys who fitted them with no regard to beam cut off and height, blinded so many folk they became a notable nuisance, and so vosa, dvla etc and the major manufacturers unsurprisingly, sat around a table and decided to make it very difficult to fit and use these.

Id not heard that projector lenses were mandatory, but beam cut off is the same concern as always of course, and if the car is fitted with headlamp washers they must be fully functioning and effective, also to help eliminate beam stray from dirty lenses, which is quite frankly, pathetic!

Ive never known a headlamp wash system yet that works effectively!

What i can say is that ive had many vehicles mot'd with these kits installed, and because the headlamp lense is responsible for the beam cut off, i can see no reason why a different source if light in tbe correct position would be anything other than a delight to the tester!

My black/white sud barely lit up the test machines back plate, they were terrible with the original bulbs in, so what would they prefer i wonder?


All that said, because the kits do not require any change to the lamp fitting, or the wiring itself, the kit can be be left installed, halogen lamps put back in, then reconnect the original lamp sockets and voila, 5 minutes and back to standard,

Then of course 5 minutes after your mot pass, you can be back to having lights again!

[Sud 145]

I try not to drive in the dark.....Problem solved...