Replacing Headlight lens
04-04-2009, 12:53 PM
#17
Burning Brakes
04-04-2009, 01:01 PM
#18
Nordschleife Master
Thread Starter
Can't figure out how to use the 'quote' button ...
Anyway, where do you get the Sylvania bulbs, any parts store or online?
Thanks,
JP
Anyway, where do you get the Sylvania bulbs, any parts store or online?
Thanks,
JP
04-04-2009, 01:10 PM
#19
Drifting
Here's some info on the Silver Stars:
http://www.bmwmoa.org/forum/showthre...m+silver+stars
The U.K. source is in Deilenberger's post #12.
http://www.bmwmoa.org/forum/showthre...m+silver+stars
The U.K. source is in Deilenberger's post #12.
04-04-2009, 01:40 PM
#20
Three Wheelin'
I tell you, I went through a bunch of bulbs before I just went to HIDs. they're so cheap these days (less than $100 a pair) and such a good upgrade, it's worthwhile.
when you buy aftermarket halogen H1s, compare using some measure of light output (in lumens). The package will say it is "effectively" a 110 w bulb but that's not true. The bluer bulbs are typically coated and sometimes use some trace of gases in the bulb to give them that color. I think it fools your eye into thinking it's brighter when it's not.
Generally anything you can buy will be 55 watts - I haven't seen 80-100W H1 bulbs around for a while. I would like to find some 80W h1s for my high beams but for regular beams I'd be worried about melting/discoloration of the plastics in the light housing since they are definitely hotter - definitely with the 100W units. All of these options (bluer bulbs, higher wattage) will burn out faster than a regular replacement.
At the risk of sounding contradictory, the PIAA H1s appear brighter than the others.
dave
when you buy aftermarket halogen H1s, compare using some measure of light output (in lumens). The package will say it is "effectively" a 110 w bulb but that's not true. The bluer bulbs are typically coated and sometimes use some trace of gases in the bulb to give them that color. I think it fools your eye into thinking it's brighter when it's not.
Generally anything you can buy will be 55 watts - I haven't seen 80-100W H1 bulbs around for a while. I would like to find some 80W h1s for my high beams but for regular beams I'd be worried about melting/discoloration of the plastics in the light housing since they are definitely hotter - definitely with the 100W units. All of these options (bluer bulbs, higher wattage) will burn out faster than a regular replacement.
At the risk of sounding contradictory, the PIAA H1s appear brighter than the others.
dave
04-04-2009, 02:05 PM
#21
I agree with just going with HIDs. In the end it's worth the relatively low price. I got 4300K and they look exactly like most new model car OEM HIDs. With some aftermarket bulbs they just look too 'Ricer' and blue, etc.. And black ice is correct, the coating to make the color look 'better' means reduced lumens.
I've always found this vendor to be extremely knowledgeable about lamps: http://www.danielsternlighting.com/p.../products.html
I've always found this vendor to be extremely knowledgeable about lamps: http://www.danielsternlighting.com/p.../products.html
04-05-2009, 06:30 PM
#22
Track Day
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 21
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Has anybody ever tried to adjust the leveling bulb. When I replaced my headlights lenses I noticed that on the passenger side the leveling bulb was not centered and noticably pointing to the one side. It doesn't appear to an adjusment for this that I can see. Does anybody know how the leveling bulbs are inserted? Glued or threaded in maybe? Can they be adjusted?
04-06-2009, 02:43 PM
#23
Nordschleife Master
Thread Starter
Thinking man's light guru
Thanks for all the help, guys. Just took Canyon56's tip and e-mailed Daniel Stern as to what is the best solution. Wow, what a resource! I sent for a pair of Osram night-breakers at 1780 Lumens for $50 shipped. For what it's worth, here's his reply to me. No offense ment to anybody or any products use that he discusses here, just passing on the info....
Jon Paul Phillips wrote:
> Hi Daniel,
> I got your information on Rennlist. I have a '95 Porsche 993 with U.S. spec standard headlights (not HID or Litronic). I am replacing my worn/pitted lens covers and I want to upgrade to a bulb that will provide more light as well. I've been told that Sylvania Silver Star is good and also that PIAA makes a very good replacement bulb as well.
Daniel Stern Replies:
Both of those would be very poor choices.
PIAA's entire line of bulbs, lamps, wipers, and everything else they sell
is of mediocre quality, performance, and durability. PIAA is a
marketeering company, plain and simple. They appeared clear out of the
blue about 15 years ago. They spend all their money on sexy packaging and
breathless hype; their actual product is crap but they price it
stratospherically so people will think "Wow, for this much money it's
*got* to be good!". Unfortunately, it works. Marketing psychology 101 --
that's where those rave reviews you hear are coming from. I call it the
"Slick-50 Effect".
The French Government did an experiment some years ago in which they got a
bunch of cheeses, all the same, and divided them into two groups. One
group sold for 33 centimes per kilo, the other for 66 centimes per kilo.
Same cheese offered the same shoppers at the same stores. The 66-centime
cheese sold much more briskly; the lesson is obvious.
Xenon and halogen headlamps are two completely different technologies.
They look different because they're supposed to look different. Trying to
match the color of a Xenon headlamp with a halogen bulb is pointless and
counterproductive. It'll never look the way you want it to, and in the
meantime all you're doing is wasting money, reducing your seeing ability,
and creating glare.
Unfortunately, the "whiter light" and "high kelvin" verbiage that's being
used to sell lighting is essentially a marketeering scam. There is no
light that is "whiter" than that from a properly-powered halogen bulb with
colorless clear glass. All of the so-called "extra white" bulbs, including
the ones we have, use blue or purple glass to tint the light. This does
not make the light "whiter", but it does make it significantly less
intense; the colored glass steals a great deal of light that would
otherwise reach the road. There is no seeing advantage to so-called
"whiter" light from bulbs with colored glass; in fact such bulbs put you
at a distinct seeing disadvantage because of the reduced intensity. In
addition, these bulbs have a very short lifespan because the filament must
be driven very hard to get minimally legal levels of light through the
light-stealing colored glass.
There is also no such thing as "cleaner" light. The High Intensity
Discharge headlamps available on many European and Japanese vehicles and a
few American models produce light by means of a wholly different
technology. The colored-glass bulbs imitate the color, but not the
performance of the HID ("Xenon") headlamps. There is no advantage to the
color of light produced by HID headlamps, it is just an artifact of the
technology used to produce the light. So-called "HID kits" with HID bulbs
modified so as to fit in place of halogen bulbs are illegal and unsafe;
the whole headlamp must be designed for HID usage.
"Color temperature" / "Kelvin rating" (correct terminology: CCT) is a real
phenomenon, but its use in the advertisement of automotive lighting
products is almost entirely fraudulent. Higher-CCT light, contrary to
misinformed and disinformed advertising hype, is not "closer to natural
daylight" and does _not_ help you see better in any way, and it produces
significantly worse seeing performance in any kind of bad weather. All
higher-CCT light does is change the appearance of the operating headlamp
and, outside of a very small range created by different surface luminance
characteristics of different legitimate bulb designs, increase glare and
reduce total and usable light output.
If you are trying to see better, what you need is _more_ light, which will
look whiter *because* there's more light (not because it's tinted to try
to fool you into thinking there's more).
For reference, here's manufacturer data for output and lifespan at 13.2v for standard-wattage H1 bulbs. The numbers here are a composite of values applicable to the products of the big three makers (Osram-Sylvania, Philips-Narva, Tungsram-GE). Each manufacturer's product in each category is slightly different but not significantly so. I picked H1-type bulbs for this comparison, and while the absolute numbers differ with different bulb types, the relative comparison patterns hold good for whatever bulb type we consider (H4, 9006, whatever). Lifespan is given as Tc, the hour figure at which 63.2 percent of the bulbs have failed.
H1 (regular normal):
1550 lumens, 650 hours
Long Life (or "HalogenPlus+")
1460 lumens, 1200 hours
Ultra Long Life (or "DayLight")
1430 lumens, 3000 hours
Plus-30 High Efficacy (CPI BrightLight, Osram Super, Sylvania Xtravision, Narva Rangepower, Tungsram High Output, Philips Premium):
1700 lumens, 350 hours
Plus-50 Ultra High Efficacy (CPI Super Bright Light, Philips VisionPlus, Osram Silverstar, Narva Rangepower+50, Tungsram Megalicht, but not Sylvania Silverstar):
1750 lumens, 350 hours
Plus-80/90 Mega High Efficacy (Philips Xtreme Power, Osram Night Breaker):
1780 lumens, 340 hours
Blue coated 'extra white' (CPI Bright Light Blue, Osram CoolBlue, Narva Rangepower Blue, Philips BlueVision or CrystalVision, Tungsram Super Blue or EuroBlue, Sylvania Silverstar or Silverstar Ultra, also PIAA, Hoen, Nokya, Polarg, etc):
1380 lumens, 250 hours
So that's the pattern for how lifespan and light output are related. It's worth noting that the lumen differences are not the extent of the performance differences. The filament changes required to make a long-life bulb tend to reduce the beam focus, which shortens seeing distance. And, the light color is less white and more brown. But lifespan is lengthened. The opposite filament changes are made to create the "Plus" (+30, +50, +80, +90) or Osram "Hyper" type bulbs: Lifespan is reduced, but the beam focus is better so seeing distance is longer. Light color is whiter and less brown. The takeaway message here is that even if all the filaments put out exactly the same amount of light — the same lumens from a long life, a +30, a +50, a regular, an ultralong-life, etc. — the headlamp performance and appearance with the long-life bulb would still be inferior compared to the same headlamp performance and appearance with a regular, or +30, or +50, or +80, or Hyper bulb.
Your low and high beams take H1 bulbs. All the H1 options are available at http://store.candlepower.com/h1bulbs1.html
DS
Jon Paul Phillips wrote:
> Hi Daniel,
> I got your information on Rennlist. I have a '95 Porsche 993 with U.S. spec standard headlights (not HID or Litronic). I am replacing my worn/pitted lens covers and I want to upgrade to a bulb that will provide more light as well. I've been told that Sylvania Silver Star is good and also that PIAA makes a very good replacement bulb as well.
Daniel Stern Replies:
Both of those would be very poor choices.
PIAA's entire line of bulbs, lamps, wipers, and everything else they sell
is of mediocre quality, performance, and durability. PIAA is a
marketeering company, plain and simple. They appeared clear out of the
blue about 15 years ago. They spend all their money on sexy packaging and
breathless hype; their actual product is crap but they price it
stratospherically so people will think "Wow, for this much money it's
*got* to be good!". Unfortunately, it works. Marketing psychology 101 --
that's where those rave reviews you hear are coming from. I call it the
"Slick-50 Effect".
The French Government did an experiment some years ago in which they got a
bunch of cheeses, all the same, and divided them into two groups. One
group sold for 33 centimes per kilo, the other for 66 centimes per kilo.
Same cheese offered the same shoppers at the same stores. The 66-centime
cheese sold much more briskly; the lesson is obvious.
Xenon and halogen headlamps are two completely different technologies.
They look different because they're supposed to look different. Trying to
match the color of a Xenon headlamp with a halogen bulb is pointless and
counterproductive. It'll never look the way you want it to, and in the
meantime all you're doing is wasting money, reducing your seeing ability,
and creating glare.
Unfortunately, the "whiter light" and "high kelvin" verbiage that's being
used to sell lighting is essentially a marketeering scam. There is no
light that is "whiter" than that from a properly-powered halogen bulb with
colorless clear glass. All of the so-called "extra white" bulbs, including
the ones we have, use blue or purple glass to tint the light. This does
not make the light "whiter", but it does make it significantly less
intense; the colored glass steals a great deal of light that would
otherwise reach the road. There is no seeing advantage to so-called
"whiter" light from bulbs with colored glass; in fact such bulbs put you
at a distinct seeing disadvantage because of the reduced intensity. In
addition, these bulbs have a very short lifespan because the filament must
be driven very hard to get minimally legal levels of light through the
light-stealing colored glass.
There is also no such thing as "cleaner" light. The High Intensity
Discharge headlamps available on many European and Japanese vehicles and a
few American models produce light by means of a wholly different
technology. The colored-glass bulbs imitate the color, but not the
performance of the HID ("Xenon") headlamps. There is no advantage to the
color of light produced by HID headlamps, it is just an artifact of the
technology used to produce the light. So-called "HID kits" with HID bulbs
modified so as to fit in place of halogen bulbs are illegal and unsafe;
the whole headlamp must be designed for HID usage.
"Color temperature" / "Kelvin rating" (correct terminology: CCT) is a real
phenomenon, but its use in the advertisement of automotive lighting
products is almost entirely fraudulent. Higher-CCT light, contrary to
misinformed and disinformed advertising hype, is not "closer to natural
daylight" and does _not_ help you see better in any way, and it produces
significantly worse seeing performance in any kind of bad weather. All
higher-CCT light does is change the appearance of the operating headlamp
and, outside of a very small range created by different surface luminance
characteristics of different legitimate bulb designs, increase glare and
reduce total and usable light output.
If you are trying to see better, what you need is _more_ light, which will
look whiter *because* there's more light (not because it's tinted to try
to fool you into thinking there's more).
For reference, here's manufacturer data for output and lifespan at 13.2v for standard-wattage H1 bulbs. The numbers here are a composite of values applicable to the products of the big three makers (Osram-Sylvania, Philips-Narva, Tungsram-GE). Each manufacturer's product in each category is slightly different but not significantly so. I picked H1-type bulbs for this comparison, and while the absolute numbers differ with different bulb types, the relative comparison patterns hold good for whatever bulb type we consider (H4, 9006, whatever). Lifespan is given as Tc, the hour figure at which 63.2 percent of the bulbs have failed.
H1 (regular normal):
1550 lumens, 650 hours
Long Life (or "HalogenPlus+")
1460 lumens, 1200 hours
Ultra Long Life (or "DayLight")
1430 lumens, 3000 hours
Plus-30 High Efficacy (CPI BrightLight, Osram Super, Sylvania Xtravision, Narva Rangepower, Tungsram High Output, Philips Premium):
1700 lumens, 350 hours
Plus-50 Ultra High Efficacy (CPI Super Bright Light, Philips VisionPlus, Osram Silverstar, Narva Rangepower+50, Tungsram Megalicht, but not Sylvania Silverstar):
1750 lumens, 350 hours
Plus-80/90 Mega High Efficacy (Philips Xtreme Power, Osram Night Breaker):
1780 lumens, 340 hours
Blue coated 'extra white' (CPI Bright Light Blue, Osram CoolBlue, Narva Rangepower Blue, Philips BlueVision or CrystalVision, Tungsram Super Blue or EuroBlue, Sylvania Silverstar or Silverstar Ultra, also PIAA, Hoen, Nokya, Polarg, etc):
1380 lumens, 250 hours
So that's the pattern for how lifespan and light output are related. It's worth noting that the lumen differences are not the extent of the performance differences. The filament changes required to make a long-life bulb tend to reduce the beam focus, which shortens seeing distance. And, the light color is less white and more brown. But lifespan is lengthened. The opposite filament changes are made to create the "Plus" (+30, +50, +80, +90) or Osram "Hyper" type bulbs: Lifespan is reduced, but the beam focus is better so seeing distance is longer. Light color is whiter and less brown. The takeaway message here is that even if all the filaments put out exactly the same amount of light — the same lumens from a long life, a +30, a +50, a regular, an ultralong-life, etc. — the headlamp performance and appearance with the long-life bulb would still be inferior compared to the same headlamp performance and appearance with a regular, or +30, or +50, or +80, or Hyper bulb.
Your low and high beams take H1 bulbs. All the H1 options are available at http://store.candlepower.com/h1bulbs1.html
DS
04-07-2009, 11:50 AM
#27
Nordschleife Master
Thread Starter
Yeah, it's interesting. He's obviously opinionated but there's a thread of logic and science there that makes good sense. I'm sure his comments about HID conversion have to do with the design of the reflector housings and lenses on standard headlamps being specific for Halogen light sources, the materials, shapes and angles being used to maximize and focus that particular type of reflected light. I'm still somewhat confused by the design of the bulbs I bought, however. They are Sylvania-Osram 'Hyper' type +90's and in his list are the most Lumens output at 1780 with the tradeoff being 340 life/hours (about a year's worth at 1 hour per night). If you go to the candlepower store and look at them, the bulbs mid section is clear glass, but the tip and base of the bulb are tinted blue. I can only assume after reading Dave Sterns comments that it's an unneeded addition designed to again try and mimic Xenon/HID headlamp color without reducing Lumen/light output. I've got an e-mail out to him asking about it...
JP
JP
04-07-2009, 02:51 PM
#29
Drifting
I still cant figure out why people just wouldnt put in an after market HID slim ballast system. They fit in the headlight unit on the 993 and there is no arguing that the light output is vastly superior to the standard units. Also I still dont understand why someone would pay $2000 for the OEM litronics (older technology, needs to go outside the headlight unit) when you can get a decent aftermarket HID set for well under $200 (and mine have a lifetime warranty on all parts including the bulbs - no brainer to me)??
04-07-2009, 06:54 PM
#30
