• Would a H4 HID conversion kit work on NC24

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 3:00 pm**

Hi Neo

I'm afraid your line drawings are just too simplistic, it fails to consider even the most basic things like, positioning of the light source, I'm sure manufacturers will have spent a hefty amount on research into the shaping of reflectors long before 'projector' lenses came along, I don't doubt for a moment their inherent efficacy or ability to focus a beam, for that is exactly what a 'projector' lens does, the clue is in the title

And I'm sorry but I'm clearly a little bit more sceptical upon what/how manufacturers spend their money to provide what I want/need. I'm not belittling the science behind it, just whether or not I need it. BTW you can put a square peg in a round (indeed a triangular too) hole, the name of the shape eludes me at present.

Insurance companies eh? Try reading my post properly

It's there, they were informed by e-mail and it's there for me to review electronically. Now I'm not saying they haven't screwed up, but as of this moment I'm covered.

The DfT stuff is really quite compelling, but while it remains Policy, guidance and research that's all it is, it's not legislation, it'll remain guidance, even when emboldened, until legislation is amended or it becomes precedent in the courts.

Look again at your BMW brochure, the self levelling bit is optional, as indeed are the HIDs but neither are dependent on having the other. BTW the "requirement for self levelling rules only apply to four wheeled vehicles upto 3.5 tonnes. Vehicles falling outside this do not need them. Look at any new National Express coach and you will see HID's without a cleaning system", these aren't my words, but some I copied and pasted from a senior VOSA engineer on another site

Do you really believe I haven't tried the alternative incandescent solutions.

I'll reiterate what I said before retro fit HIDs aren't legal it's just that they're not illegal either

Cheers

Ian

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 3:17 pm**

Neosophist wrote: You only need to pop over on the chav-cruisers websites and ask for their experiences of crashing with HID kits in only to find out their insurance is invalid so they end up with no money to replace their shitbox.

Well that's really just agreeing with me, they would be in contravention, even a super-lightweight chav-mobile would have 4 wheels and be less than 3.5 Tonnes. Now, do you know of any chav-bikers (like me

) that have been nicked?

Ian

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 5:02 pm**

Terri400 wrote: The DfT stuff is really quite compelling, but while it remains Policy, guidance and research that's all it is, it's not legislation, it'll remain guidance, even when emboldened, until legislation is amended or it becomes precedent in the courts.

those words are often over looked by normal folk.

i work within the electrical industry, more of the Health & Safety side,

and you may or may not be aware that the terminology of guidance, or regulations etc may appear to be NON LAW

however you still wouldnt have a leg to stand on in court.

let me give you an example, the BS7671:2008 IEE Wiring Regulations, "requirements for electrical installations"
is what all decent electrical workers wether qualified or unqualified are "Recomended" to follow, THIS ISNT LAW

no lets say Mr cowboy ELECTRICAL killed someone because they didnt follow, or take advice from what the "REGS" sugested, what do you think a judge and or jury would think of this guys negligence?

just because something isnt law doesnt make it ok to by pass a sugestion, advice, guidance or whatever else you want to call the terminology that falls between the lines of right and or wrong.

its as common sense thing, i think aston villa football club are the best team in the world, (when they are not) and others will and wont disagree,

just like your vfr and your HIDs are OK to YOU, but what about others the people your shinning them into there eyes?, and would it be that you insurance will payout ((maybe) (there are clauses)) but then when it came down to why that person was killed, because your bike and you didnt follow legislastion doesnt mean you are safe.
and on the other hand, your never going to see the negative affect of your HID installation your the other side of the lights, and its never going to effect you.

Rick

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 5:53 pm**

Rick, I'm an engineer/surveyor in the construction industry, so yes I do know about best practice and codes of practice, I deal regularly with Housing Acts and the schedules within them that aren't parts of the actual formal legislation, where you cross them at your peril , but that cut and paste from Neo is not that. What it is, is the research that civil servants (and industry experts I'd add) put together to advise politicians on the way forward. I'm not dismissing it, far from it, but it isn't (presently) formal legislation, nor is it what you're implying either.

You said "just because something isn't law doesn't make it ok to by pass a suggestion, advice, guidance or whatever else you want to call the terminology that falls between the lines of right and or wrong." and I'd agree with you entirely, which is why I've qualified everything I've said...it's not legal but it's not illegal... I'll even add at this moment. Both you and Neo though, are stating that it is illegal, quoting things (self levelling, high powered washers) that apply to four wheeled vehicles upto 3.5 Tonnes, by definition not bikes, your assertion is therefore incorrect.

You said "you're never going to see the negative affect of your HID installation you're the other side of the lights, and its never going to effect you." well how would you know, it might be that my partner rides the NC24 mostly and when out together (me on my RC36) I do get to see the effect of the HIDs. In fact that is exactly the case! I said before, but it's obviously worth repeating, if I though (even slightly) that they were causing a problem then I'd remove them, they're not, if they do become illegal, again I shall remove them.

Blimey I wish people got as evangelical about loud cans, now they really do annoy other road users, but so many bikers (not necessarily yourself as I don't have any idea of your view) come out with this bull that they're a safety measure that they become acceptable. Better lights are a safety measure and until they are no longer allow I will continue to use them and I'll continue to dispute their so called 'illegality' at least as far as bikes are concerned.

Ian

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 6:23 pm**

I'm not sure why there isn't an explicit law banning HID's yet, but based on interpretation of existing law by the DFT, Hella and many otheres I could dig up it isn't legal.

If it comes to it, and it probably will sooner or later, I don't think it will take a court of law very long to infer that is illegal.. of course you could try and convince them.

But fact that the beam pattern will never be right, your playing with a 37000v invertor and bypassing lab testing done by manufacturers to make sure their headlamps work (and costing them a lot to get approval stamps)

you never know!

Personally, I think the police are probably having too much of a field day fineing people for unroadworthy cars tbh, as most of them wont' pass an MOT for beam pattern alignement.

As for the HID lamps, I spoke to a friend earlier on today who works at an inruance broker, he said you would have to have it explicitly on your insurance certificate that you have modified headlamps to be covered by them, which will probably sting you for another £50 or so, an 'email' wouldn't cover it.

You then face all the challanges of getting the veihcle MOT'd (beam alingnment) (which still doesn't mean it is road legal

)

And the fact that new legislation might be passed that explicitily bans the use of them outright anyway,

The problem is greyed by the fact that HID are illegal in the UK under BS law (road lighting 89 comes to mind) for any vehicle, but allowed under euro ECE 98 law.. which is what they headlamps are marked as.

As you can see from my original picture of how HID's work, if you want to build a reliable system yourself you need to use projector housings, not reflectors.

I'm afraid your line drawings are just too simplistic, it fails to consider even the most basic things like, positioning of the light source

Positioning of the light-source is irrelevant when the light is generated in a different way!

A halogen bulb has a cylindrical light source: the glowing filament. The space immediately surrounding the cylinder of light is completely dark, and so the sharpest contrast between bright and dark is along the edges of the cylinder of light. The ends of the filament cylinder fade from bright to dark. An HID bulb, on the other hand, has a crescent-shaped light source -- the arc. It's crescent-shaped because as it passes through the space between the two electrodes, its heat causes it to try to rise. The space immediately surrounding the crescent of light glows in layers...the closer to the crescent of light, the brighter the glow. The ends of the arc crescent are the brightest points, and immediately beyond these points is completely dark, so the sharpest contrast between bright and dark is at the ends of the crescent of light.

This diagram shows the very different characteristics of the filament vs. the arc:

When designing the optics (lens and/or reflector) for a lamp, the characteristics of the light source are the driving factor around which everything else must be engineered. If you go and change the light source, you've done the equivalent of putting on somebody else's eyeglasses: You can probably make them fit on your face OK, but you won't see properly.

It is not only beam pattern but dispersion of light that is important. There have been DIY posts in the pasts about people creating a metal mask over parts of the bulb to correct beam patterns, and have actually produced a stable beam.

The dispersion of light isn't correct though, you can see above how the two bulbs glow differently, the tungsten bulb glows very uniformly, which is why the light can be reflected equally by a set of mirrors to the road.

If you reflect an HID bulb this way you will get hot and cold spots in the beam as different parts of the bulb are brighter / duller than the rest of them.

This is why the HID lights focus all light to single point, which is sent through a projector, this gives you uniform lighting.

To sum up, it is easy to see how it could be illegal if you read existing legistlature, even if there is nothing (yet) explicit covering HID's. I see very little evidence to support that it could be illlegal? Care to venture any instead of saying it's neither here nor there... as I don't think that would stand up well against the stack of info that suggests it isn't.

If you were in an accident and the other driver said I was dazzled by the beams, even if they were ok for you and they were just making excuses I can't see it going well in a battle of courts.. they produce lots of information about shoddy HID kits and you say 'but they were ok!'

But to the original poster. If you must convert your headlights to HID you should use a proper HID projector, housing. These can be had fairly cheaply now, you will have to cut apart your headlights to fit them but with a little patience you will get a stable beam that is reflected properly.

As for exhaust systems.. i'm on the Kawasaki today.. it has the Standard can on it, quiet as a mouse.. race can is for track days.. but i've never heard of anyone being dazzled by an exhust before...

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 6:49 pm**

Neosophist wrote: As for exhaust systems.. i'm on the Kawasaki today.. it has the Standard can on it, quiet as a mouse.. race can is for track days.. but i've never heard of anyone being dazzled by an exhust before...

ROFL,

i give up Terri / Ian, you win, your points out way mine, neos, the goverment, and anyone else who fancies jumping in on the safety of dodgy retrofrit/aftermarket HID Xenons.

you remind me of my teenage daughter, shes never wrong.

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 7:09 pm**

Neosophist wrote:I'm not sure why there isn't an explicit law banning HID's yet, but based on interpretation of existing law by the DFT, Hella and many otheres(sic) I could dig up it isn't legal.

If it comes to it, and it probably will sooner or later, I don't think it will take a court of law very long to infer that is illegal.. of course you could try and convince them.

But fact that the beam pattern will never be right, your playing with a 37000v invertor(sic) and bypassing lab testing done by manufacturers to make sure their headlamps work (and costing them a lot to get approval stamps)

you never know!

Personally, I think the police are probably having too much of a field day fineing(sic) people for unroadworthy(sic) cars tbh, as most of them wont' pass an MOT for beam pattern alignement(sic).

As for the HID lamps, I spoke to a friend earlier on today who works at an inruance(sic) broker, he said you would have to have it explicitly on your insurance certificate that you have modified headlamps to be covered by them, which will probably sting you for another £50 or so, an 'email' wouldn't cover it.

You then face all the challanges(sic) of getting the veihcle(sic) MOT'd (beam alingnment(sic)) (which still doesn't mean it is road legal )

And the fact that new legislation might be passed that explicitily(sic) bans the use of them outright anyway,

The problem is greyed by the fact that HID are illegal in the UK under BS law (road lighting 89 comes to mind) for any vehicle, but allowed under euro ECE 98 law.. which is what they headlamps are marked as.

As you can see from my original picture of how HID's work, if you want to build a reliable system yourself you need to use projector housings, not reflectors.

I'm afraid your line drawings are just too simplistic, it fails to consider even the most basic things like, positioning of the light source
Positioning of the light-source is irrelevant when the light is generated in a different way!

A halogen bulb has a cylindrical light source: the glowing filament. The space immediately surrounding the cylinder of light is completely dark, and so the sharpest contrast between bright and dark is along the edges of the cylinder of light. The ends of the filament cylinder fade from bright to dark. An HID bulb, on the other hand, has a crescent-shaped light source -- the arc. It's crescent-shaped because as it passes through the space between the two electrodes, its heat causes it to try to rise. The space immediately surrounding the crescent of light glows in layers...the closer to the crescent of light, the brighter the glow. The ends of the arc crescent are the brightest points, and immediately beyond these points is completely dark, so the sharpest contrast between bright and dark is at the ends of the crescent of light.

This diagram shows the very different characteristics of the filament vs. the arc:

When designing the optics (lens and/or reflector) for a lamp, the characteristics of the light source are the driving factor around which everything else must be engineered. If you go and change the light source, you've done the equivalent of putting on somebody else's eyeglasses: You can probably make them fit on your face OK, but you won't see properly.

It is not only beam pattern but dispersion of light that is important. There have been DIY posts in the pasts about people creating a metal mask over parts of the bulb to correct beam patterns, and have actually produced a stable beam.

The dispersion of light isn't correct though, you can see above how the two bulbs glow differently, the tungsten bulb glows very uniformly, which is why the light can be reflected equally by a set of mirrors to the road.

If you reflect an HID bulb this way you will get hot and cold spots in the beam as different parts of the bulb are brighter / duller than the rest of them.

This is why the HID lights focus all light to single point, which is sent through a projector, this gives you uniform lighting.

To sum up, it is easy to see how it could be illegal if you read existing legistlature(sic), even if there is nothing (yet) explicit covering HID's. I see very little evidence to support that it could be illlegal(sic)? Care to venture any instead of saying it's neither here nor there... as I don't think that would stand up well against the stack of info that suggests it isn't.

If you were in an accident and the other driver said I was dazzled by the beams, even if they were ok for you and they were just making excuses I can't see it going well in a battle of courts.. they produce lots of information about shoddy HID kits and you say 'but they were ok!'

But to the original poster. If you must convert your headlights to HID you should use a proper HID projector, housing. These can be had fairly cheaply now, you will have to cut apart your headlights to fit them but with a little patience you will get a stable beam that is reflected properly.

As for exhaust systems.. i'm(sic) on the Kawasaki today.. it has the Standard can on it, quiet as a mouse.. race can is for track days.. but i've(sic) never heard of anyone being dazzled by an exhust(sic) before...

So you're agreeing that it's not illegal (or you just can't lay hands on the relevant legislation) to fit an after-market HID replacement unit but that you think it will be in the near future or when a precedent is set, curious that, I heard that somewhere before, oh yes I said it. As for my light, I've clearly stumbled upon a happy coincidence whereby my reflector and light source combine to create an exact copy of the standard light spread, but brighter and doesn't annoy the hell out of other road users. Fine works for me. But please rest assured, the moment it becomes illegal I will consign the unit to the bin.

It all well and good being flipant (it's easy, look how I've highlighted you grammar/syntax and spelling errors above) about the exhaust, but there again I wasn't the one telling someone that the fitment was illegal, based on some errant information.

Ian

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 7:25 pm**

Mist All Chrucking Fighty

pal its friday, have a beer and 4get abowt the speeling "mystakes"!

didnt realise it was a competition.

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 7:27 pm**

Fitmant is a grey area.

As you can see from the information above Reflectors do not produce a proper beam pattern, no matter what you or the chinese manufacturers of kits say.

I've clearly stumbled upon a happy coincidence whereby my reflector and light source combine to create an exact copy of the standard light spread,

Improper headlight beam can be dangerous, like when driving with the foglights on in a car.. your eyes become focussed on the immediate area and not the hazard up ahead.

While you may have a correct beam pattern the intensity of the beam wont be uniform due to the nature of the light source.

This might not affect you, but could affect other users. Like how some people can see magic eye pictures and other people can't.

Recommending something that can be very unreliable, which you've even admitted that you may have stumbled on a happy medium, without advising the original poster of all of the grey legality, insurance issues and potential hazards of the kits is more irresponsible than advising the original poster not to use them at all, even if the reasoning was incorrect.

I tried a HID 'H4' kit in my NC35 and found the results AWFUL, the beam pattern was jagged, there were bright spots in the immediate area.

Clearly didn't work for me.

Have you ever wondered why Halfords don't sell HID kits, it is only back street auto shops / chinese ebay sellers that do?

The fact that retrofitted HID kits have been banned outright in other countries?

If the original poster wants to go for HID kit then I would recommend getting these.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HID-Projector-Hea ... 53e3bc3483

And retrofitting them into their existing enclosures.

At least with a proper proejctor you will have a fairly safe beam pattern that you can align.

-edit-

was NC35 not 24 I tried it in...

Posted: **Fri Sep 24, 2010 7:37 pm**

Would a H4 HID conversion kit work on NC24

Re: Would a H4 HID conversion kit work on NC24

Re: Would a H4 HID conversion kit work on NC24

Re: Would a H4 HID conversion kit work on NC24

Re: Would a H4 HID conversion kit work on NC24

Re: Would a H4 HID conversion kit work on NC24

Re: Would a H4 HID conversion kit work on NC24

Re: Would a H4 HID conversion kit work on NC24

Re: Would a H4 HID conversion kit work on NC24

Re: Would a H4 HID conversion kit work on NC24

Re: Would a H4 HID conversion kit work on NC24