How NOT to install HID's

[Empty V]

Well I ran across this video and it really pissed me off. Some of you won't like my objectivity to this video because you've done this mod, but most of you that have at least pointed your lights down. This is shotty work, check out how dude tapes the wires to the connector, clown!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBItNnBp1m0

Billy

[fueler]

looks like he did everything right... not sure where u goin with that... didnt you just win HID's like a day ago ?
Modified by fueler at 9:24 PM 10/20/2009

[W O T]

Looked like he installed it the way it was meant to be for me, what did you mean?? Coulda shrunk wrapped and tucked the wires a little nice but that looks like an above average install for a shop

Ive seen some HORRIBLE wiring in my day tho

[Empty V]

It's not all about the wiring, it's mainly about using the wrong lamps with the wrong reflectors. Plus he should have cut the connector and soldered them opposed to using electrical tape.

Billy

[Empty V]

looks like he did everything right... not sure where u goin with that... didnt you just win HID's like a day ago ? Modified by fueler at 9:24 PM 10/20/2009

I've got lots of experience with lighting. I've got a 50w HID dive light that I built and have also built some serious 100w HMI lights for film. I take it seriously especially when someone is showing the public how to blind people. You don't hear him mentioning anything about beam pattern, reflectors and how to position the lamp.

Billy

[slickroger]

personally I suggest doing what he does to preserve the connector. Ive had HID's fail on me all to often but with the connector preserved I can just pop in a halogen and worry about it later. The kit he has should have definitely had a proper connector mine did.

As for your point with the lights and reflector situation he should have mentioned something for sure especially if hes going to show you how to do it. he even mentions how bright they will be but says nothing about proper aiming.

What they need is a tutorial on how to seal housings after in stalling aftermarket lights like this. My fogs always fill with water, but does anyone have any water sealing techniques?

[fueler]

i find my universal HID kit inside my "wrong reflectors" are incredibly useful offroad, dont make much difference onroad since i live in a pretty well-lit city. Yes they are brighter and yes youre gonna find some online sissies that have been blinded and/or believe/reguritate everything they read! Trust me, i admit that i was one of them! I told qxxx4 the same things until i actually tried a kit for myself and love it! All the garbage about how dangerous these kits are, is totally exagerrated. Empty V i didnt expect it from you though!

[korbeano89]

what is your deal man? im sick of hearing you whine about people putting hids in headlights that arnt made for them. saying that they're ricey and that they blind you come on, i suggest you not look into the light when people with hids drive by and plus what, you only see them for like 7 sec at the most, and then they're gone, i kinda wish i lived in Thousand Oaks CA so i can drive by and blind you with my 10,000k lights, and probably the reason for him using electrical tape which isnt harmful at all in this kinda application, is for if the light burnt out you wouldn't have to deal with some soldered up mess. you'd just simple unplug them and tapem back up. my name is korbin pedrini and i have HIDs in a vehicle that is not supposed to, along with thousands if not tens of thousands of others......
Modified by korbeano89 at 5:23 AM 10/21/2009

[korbeano89]

and plus that is exactly how you install them. If he wanted to show you how to aim your head lights he would probably make a video of it. and that is a mustang, not in any way a Nissan. so stop writing bull S H I T. and if you didnt let guys cum in your eyes so much they probably wouldnt hurt so much when you see the lights, becuase I know hid lighs dont hurt mine, plus they're supposed to be easier on the eyes.

[Natedogg1701]

Hey im new to this forum,but for your question about sealing your fog lights try this. I took a die grinder and just made a notch in the plastic housing of the fog light, put the factory cover back on the housing because it has that rubber gasket to seal the housing, then filled the hole the wires for the hid bulb goes into with silicone. I done get any water in mine, and if u ever had to change the bulb its easy kuz silicone will come off easy with a razor knife.

[Qxxx4]

everybody calm down!!

First of all, the guy shouldnt just tape those wires in, you need a solid connection and if they buy a kit thats so cheap it doesnt even come with proper connectors, they should then solder a connector in. The guy is obviously a typical tv show host...just read a quick start guide and regurgitate it as if they are experts.

I also think he should have commented on aiming the lights, since it caused me from getting flashed every 2 mins on the highway, to never getting flashed at again after the adjustment, yes their still bright, lots of glare, but its not piercing into your eyes, so people tolerate it. I have terrible vision at night so this is a huge help for me.

Connectors should always be waterproofed.....i fortunately had access to all sizes of heatshrink and heatshrinked all my HID connectors.

EmptyV, i understand you think were morons for installing these kits with no modification to the lights, but I want better light output, and I dont want to spend $1,000 to order used terranno regulus OEM headlights from japan or do a front end conversion to your year of vehicle. Its $100, or $1000. if i could spend $500 and get the job done right, I WOULD but $1000....yikes, for headlights? id rather have a little more glare.

Theres a video I once saw on youtube of a guy making his own acrilyc headlight projectors, it was truly amazing and if i had an extra pair of headlights id totally try it.

EmptyV, its not fair that you get to complain, you have a perfect OEM HID setup, we got GOOSE-EGG. you come roll with dim dull halogens and tell me you wont be crying for a somewhat HID setup.

And silverstars are just as blinding, people just tolerate them more because their white and not "Blue"

whats great is half the people call HID lights LED......Brian, I can tell it was you two cars behind me with your LED lights, they look cool...

LED...HID....totally different people!!!!!

[sicwitit]

wow, I wondered into this pissing contest late...

I'm not sure where to begin, I think people should do things right, whether it be on the low end of the spectrum (wiring) or the high end (proper lighting media)

For the people that don't know how to wire, they need education. If they are misguided in thinking they know what they are doing and try to pass off bad input on people and people buy into it, then they are equil to or greater then the level of inteligence of said idiot.

as far as the proper headlights, conventenial headlight housings are not designed to correctly disapate the light from a HID bulb. Period! there is more going on in there then just reflecting light.

I understand people want HID's (stock) I have them on some of my cars, and I would love them on my Pathy too, but it has to be done right to net the best gain from such an upgrade. You can find Hella, or TSX, or FX projectors out there for less then $200. So buy a set, learn how to dissassemble your headlights, learn how to retrofit, learn how to properly wire, and make a write up about it that people can use if you feel the need to share your work with the world. If you don't feel you want to do this, then fine. Its your decision. as long as people know they chose the incorrect way to complete a set task.

I know this concept is hard for people to grasp, it involves thinking. people dont like to do that nowadays. we want something easy. I can attest to this with some things too. Or maybe people are intimidated when it comes to complicated projects. I've been there to. I think what Empty is stressing the most here is the quality of workmanship shown by this person.

so I hope that helps, or just adds some fuel to the fire. either way, I'm going back in my cave now.

[W O T]

My pen15 is HUGE

True story

[Natedogg1701]

wow who thought that the way people put in their hid's could cause such a huge argument. lol however i do agree, i am an electrician by trade so i take proper wiring very seriously, and yes these warnings about the danger of hid kits is exagerated, they can still harm you, the ballast still increses the voltage greatly, and if someone cant angle their headlights their a complete f***ing moron, 2 effing adjustors on a headlight housing and some people cant even figure that out.....wow, they must be inbread retards. also does anyone know if projector headlights are made for the R50? preferably ccfl angel eye projector headlights? there ic a company claiming a product they make replaces the headlight of 01-04 frontier and pathfinders, which an idiot can tell ar completely different. but if anyone has any information on projector headlights for an R50 it would be greatly appreciated.

[Empty V]

Well first off I don't think anyone is a moron just for doing this mod. I do think certain people are morons because they sound like they wear a helmet on the short bus to school *cough korbeano89 cough*. But those people *cough korbeano89 cough* do a good enough job when it comes to bringing attention to their ignorance. So there's no reason to point or call out names *cough korbeano89 cough.*

The point of this is to educate and maybe inspire someone to attempt to do this the right way.

Fueler you're lights are sick offroad because you now have a less focused and probably wider beam pattern i.e. better visibility and more light output. Yeah I just scored big with my new lights but I've built 50w HID dive lights and 1000w HMI studio lights so I somewhat know what I'm blabbering about.

Brian - I'm sure that almost everyone would go with projectors or retrofit housings if they could afford it. One of the reasons why I got the 01 was because it had stock HID's and I completely understand everyone's want to have HID's. My old exploder had halogens in it and I hated them. If I still had that POS I'd probably do a full retrofit with some junkyard housings. I also think that everyone should solder and heat-shrink any electrical connection where a wire is touching a connector or another wire. That's not having a high standard of work, it's common sense. It's a shame so many people lack that common sense.

As far as using electrical tape for easy access maintenance that's BS, you shouldn't have to maintain an HID kit. I've still got my original globes and my Q has 199, 285 miles on it. Would you put a cheap MAF in your car? How about a cheap O2 sensor? NO then why put something else that has an extremely high potential failure? If you tape up your connectors because it the parts you purchased could fail then you've bought the wrong parts, end of story. Plus if you're of sub-average intelligence you don't have what half-a-tard referred to as "some soldered up mess."

EDIT: Sicwitit very well put.
Modified by Empty V at 4:30 PM 10/21/2009

[sicwitit]

My pen15 is HUGE

True story

You to? here I was thinking I was the only one....I don't feel so lonely now.

[Empty V]

I pulled this info from this site Retrofitting Xenons (HID) Lighting to Reflector Housings

Retrofitting Xenon or High Intensity Discharge (HID) lights to replace the standard halogen reflector setup may seem like a good idea and a whole lot cheaper than paying the $1000-2000 premium for the factory Xenons / Bi-Xenons but in reality not only is it illegal but not a very wise move.

Firstly there are a number of different ways to deliver light, lens optics, reflector optics and projector (polyellipsoidal) however only the latter two are still used.

Reflector lamps which are used by the majority of cars and the other is a projector lamp which are used by cars with Xenons and some cars with Halogen globes. Projector housings have a few drawbacks and one is that there is a very sharp cutoff of light and the other is that due to the optics used some light is lost so using them with Halogen can result in a drop in light output. Some older cars came from the factory with Xenon’s fitted to a reflector housing but they used a bulb designed for this application and the reflector shape was designed for the Xenon however they still suffered from some light scatter.

Problem 1. Light scatter

The biggest problem is glare and blinding oncoming traffic, the reflector is designed for use with Halogen and not Xenon and you end up with a lot of scatter as the diagram below demonstrates. You could have a light source that measures 10,000 lumens but it would be useless because of poor reflector design, to utilise Xenon correctly you need to use a projector lense hence why every car on the market with an OEM Xenon / Bi-Xenon option uses projectors.



Xenon globes can output up to three times the light of a Halogen globe, this is a key issue with these retrofit kits as the reflector on the left is a standard reflector and the design is to send the light in one direction with some scatter whereas the projector housing on the right is designed to focus all the light on the projector lense, a cut off shield prevents most of the glare and gives the sharp cutoff.

With much of the light being scattered the performance of Xenon’s is generally nowhere as good as that of Halogens, the improvement that is seen is a lot more light in front of the car but a lot less in the distance on the road where you need it. Daniel Stern sums this up well “It’s tricky to judge headlamp beam performance without a lot of knowledge, a lot of training and a lot of special equipment, because subjective perceptions are very misleading. Having a lot of strong light in the foreground, that is on the road close to the car and out to the sides, is very comforting and reliably produces a strong impression of “good headlights”. The problem is that not only is foreground lighting of decidedly secondary importance when travelling much above 30 mph, but having a very strong pool of light close to the car causes your pupils to close down, worsening your distance vision…all the while giving you this false sense of security. This is to say nothing of the massive amounts of glare to other road users and backdazzle to you, the driver, that results from these “retrofits”.” (see link below)

At this point hopefully you’re having second thoughts about fitting that cheap chinese Xenon kit you won on the online auction site but don’t dispair because purchasing a projector housing could give your Xenon/HID lighting without blinding other users.

Problem 2. Colour of the globe

The colour of the globe (known as the kelvin) is often marketed as the bluer the better by the sellers of the kits, nothing could be further from the truth as the following shows.

Here are some light outputs of some common Xenons and a standard halogen for comparison purposes.

4300k D2S Philips = 3200 lumens4300k D2R Philips = 2800 lumens4800k D4S/R Osram = 3800 lumens – Best performing globe on market5800k D4S/R Osram = 3300 lumens7000k D2S Chinese = 1790 lumens7000k D2R Chinese = 1390 lumens8000k D2S Chinese = 1180 lumens8000k D2R Chinese = 780 lumens

Standard OEM halogen 55W H7 = 1500 lumens

Just because this hid conversion appears to put out more light doesn’t mean that it does, the scatter makes you think there is more light and you loose depth perception and night vision the higher the colour temperature of the globe.

Under 4500K you get more yellow, between 4500K and 6500K you get more white and over 6500K you get more blue.

No OEM globe is 8000K and generally OEM is 4300K to 4800K because this gives out the most light. And there are no 10000+K globes either, these are globes that are ~8000K with a coating over the globe that further reduces the light output.



Problem 3. Quality of the components

And how good are these “german designed and chinese made” kits? The decent Osram/Philips globes sell for around $200+ each online. The cheap chinese made kits comes with a pair of globes, ballasts and installation kit for around $150 so quality has to suffer, components to put together a decent OEM kit will come to $2000 and this doesn’t include the cost of the projector lamp.

Other then poor quality, high failure rate and poor performance the cheap ballasts can catch fire, your insurance may not pay out when your car burns to the ground or your wiring loom gets melted. Example 1, Example 2.

To summerise, the higher the kelvin (temperature) the less light output you get (lumens) so stick around 4300K, if you must go for a retrofit get a projector light housing (oem where possible) and buy a good quality kit with brand name globes and avoid fitting Xenons to reflector lamps.

A few videos on why retrofitting Xenons should be avoided.

Video 1 Video 2

Daniel Stern is one of the worlds foremost experts on automotive lighting and has written an excellent article

Tests by the DOT and CalCoast Labs on Halogen headlights fitted with Xenon’s.

Test 1 Test 2 Test 3

Nearly every country in the world has banned retrofitting Xenons.

NHTSA CrackdownNHTSA 1NHTSA 2NHTSA 3Banned in EuropeBanned in Hong KongBanned in New Zealand

[Natedogg1701]

The QX4 comes from the factory with hid lights and a projector housing? the headlight looks very similar to that of a pathfinder from what i can see. do you have a close up picture?

[Empty V]

The QX4 comes from the factory with hid lights and a projector housing? the headlight looks very similar to that of a pathfinder from what i can see. do you have a close up picture?

Ask and ye shall receive. You can see in the pics that the globe(lamp) is not visible from the front of the housing. They did a similar thing with the fogs which kinda makes sense and is obviously. The high beams are "projector" style which is nothing more then a lens that directs light in a certain pattern/angle, and it looks cool. Ohh yeah, welcome to NICO!

Billy

[korbeano89]

dude thats the best you got, your such a douche. and obviously im not a retard, im 20 and working at a vary nice auto body shop, what do you do photography hahaha f***ing loser. people will buy those hid kits and install them the way they want and if anything happens its their problem not yours. you make it sound like you have to fix their headlights. i used electrical tape on my hids and ive had them for a year now and i havnt had even the slightest of problems.

[Densetsu]

dude thats the best you got, your such a douche. and obviously im not a retard, im 20 and working at a vary nice auto body shop, what do you do photography hahaha f***ing loser. people will buy those hid kits and install them the way they want and if anything happens its their problem not yours. you make it sound like you have to fix their headlights. i used electrical tape on my hids and ive had them for a year now and i havnt had even the slightest of problems.

His original post had a douche-y tone to it, but he backed up his opinion quite well with facts. Your posts, on the other hand, have just been flamebait. Guess who I and probably everyone else on this board respects more?

And don't try and flaunt your age to get respect, it doesn't work.

[KyooX4]

dude thats the best you got, your such a douche. and obviously im not a retard, im 20 and working at a vary nice auto body shop, what do you do photography hahaha f***ing loser. people will buy those hid kits and install them the way they want and if anything happens its their problem not yours. you make it sound like you have to fix their headlights. i used electrical tape on my hids and ive had them for a year now and i havnt had even the slightest of problems.

Just let it rest. You may call him over-zealous, but he makes valid points.

[korbeano89]

i wasnt flaunting my age, its in our profiles your says your 27. i was just stating how well im doing at the age of 20. what was he doing then? living with his parents.

[Qxxx4]

settle down guys! Dont be dissin eachother were all rollin in the same cars so were clearly WELL OFF in life. LOL im 21 and I live with my parents..and my gf is moving in with us soon too...im saving for a down payment on a house and buying all my furniture...hey call me a baby but i think im very fortunate to have parents that want me AND my girlfriend to stay...rent is rediculous around here! So relax korbeano! And when somebody dynamats UNDER THEIR HOOD and their headliner. you know their doing pretty well for themselves.....Just sayin man, LOL

Anyways, can we just end this HID thing? we all know how to properly wire stuff, and yes, some of us are out there blinding others with glare, but heck...we probably wont even see eachother face to face ever....so let it be. Yell at the people you see in person with the blinding HID's.

all this retrofit nonsense....Ive seen slick rogers setup IN PERSON with the tint and aimed low lights.....It was very easy on the eyes walking towards it and plenty of light output on the road.....just pull out the 20% and hope the cops dont pull you over

[fueler]

yes Empty V did post up a lot of facts (if you wanna call everything on the internet, factual) but let me ask you this: when was the last time someone with HID's has blinded YOU ??

because (now that i have HID's myself) i have begun to notice all other vehicles with upgraded lighting. But NEVER have i been blinded by chinese HID's.

If anything, i get blinded when i see a domestic truck flauntin' 20+ inches of lift. Regardless of what bulbs they run, THOSE blind me. Or when im driving a lowered car, then practically everything is blinding. What these guys daniel stern and such, have done, is make a big deal out of the extra glare when really the glare is just urine in the wind. If daniel stern had it his way, all cars would have reflectors glued all over them and candles in the headlights.

[fueler]

oh and planet HID likes to rag on these kits because: 1) they are so cheap 2) They all spent thousands on retrofitting the same thing with slightly less glare3) who the hell focuses their life on automotive lighting ????? guys with no girlfriends and heavy balls

bottom line is this is a hilarious thread. somehow some of you turned it into an age thing, or who lives where. thats ridiculous!! EMpty v lets go to baja ill show you whats up with lighting!!!! We still have yet to go, bro!

[Qxxx4]

hahaha exactly. its actually the difference in colour..i.e blue/purple that gets people to pick on HID's all together..nobody yells at the foreigner in a corolla rolling down the city streets at 8pm with his high beams on and no running lights....

go yell at that guy people!

Off topic...anybody notice the trend in semi truck lighting..here in canada its totally taking off, those things are so distracting..my eyes get glued to them driving on the highway....they look so damn cool and i try to roll right next to them to show my appreciation!

Or how about those dudes with the glowsticks on their pillars.....kinda gay, but hilariously cool

[slickroger]

Ill blind the s*** out of whoever I want to blind People who simply leave high beams on bug me that's half the reason I don't use my high beams because after a couple tokes I know I'll become a jackass and forget them on.

Anyway I know what your talking about when it comes those semi's, my cousin has a semi and he through spinners on the rear wheels it looks pretty good I thought it would be hilarious but there decent. That truck lighting is crazy expensive though

[W O T]

after a couple tokes I know I'll become a jackass and forget them on.

I smoke and forget to turn my lights ON lol, been pulled over a few times for that

[sicwitit]

this has got to be one of the funniest posts I've read this year! I'm seriously sitting here having a good laugh right now.

back on subject, I think some headlights that are non HID are worse then others, EG Civics, 03+ Chevy 1500's, and MX6's come to mind. I've yet to see a R50, I did get to see an R51 with HIDS in the fogs, and headlights, and they did look good, not as good as say a X5, but thats apples and oranges.