Buy a set of good quality Kaixen HID Kit that is ISO certified and has a glare cover built into the bulb. I do not have this issue of glare on either one of my cars (2010 Element SC/2011 Honda Fit Sport).

 

The above may reduce the amount of glare produced but they still produce more glare than a set of upgraded bulbs while costing more. This glare also creates additional illumination in the wrong areas which reflects off of all sorts of things like signs in turn reducing visibility.

End result is that there is very little gain (if any) in visibility over purchasing higher end bulbs running the same Kelvin rating.

As for reflector housings, there may not be a ton of difference between ones designed for HID or halogen but the difference is there and definitely noticeable. My Previous vehicle (Nissan Altima 3.5SE) came with optional HID in reflector housings from the factory. Putting a "drop-in" solution in the Halogen housing produced more glare than the reflector HID housings. There wasn't much difference between the housings but there was enough to make it quite noticeable. enough of a difference that this discussion was had many times on other forums as well.

~SB

 

I don't know about you ...but I enjoy the illumination of reflective surfaces (for instance the eyes of the 4 deer standing next the the road last night while I was driving by) Saved me from potentially hitting one.

The gain is as long is it is still concentrated below the height of the headlights (which most shields do) it may be the same Kelvin rating as a higher performance halogen but the lumen's output isn't even comparable.
Silverstar Halogen 4500K puts out about 1000 lm's where as a 4500K HID puts out 3200 lm's. I have 5000K HIDs and they are rated at 3000 lm's. 3x more than the best halogen bulb out there. This makes it very nice to see pot holes and little bunnies on the side of the road which I couldn't see with Silverstar's.. Now obviously when idiots put 8000K-10000K HID bulbs... their actual usable Lumen's dwindle down to 1500-2000 lm's then yes, it is pointless not to use a Silverstar halogen bulb instead. I laugh when people say you don't get usable light out of quality pnp kits properly aligned and w/ shield because that would mean every OEM HID that used a reflector bowl never had usable light even though it puts out 3X more light than a halogen bulb.

 

Now this disscussion is irritating me. Be ignorant with your rice ass pnp HID kit since your ignorance is beyond everything we all say. Just stay the hell away from my county so I don't have to be blinded by your pnp righteousness.

 

Facts and photographic proof irritate you? I'm not stating projectors aren't the best way to go...I'm just stating proper shielding and alignment is also a choice and there is a lot of ignorance when it comes to shielding and reflector (parabolic) bowls. Please remember just because you have drop in projectors with your drop in PNP kit you aren't high and mighty and you are still illegal.

 

It's no wonder there are people that are passionate about this topic when people like the OP say they basically don't care what impact it has on others, as long as it's good for them. Analogous to the thief/vandal mentality that they're somehow entitled to burden others with their actions.

Sorry, but you can't have it both ways. You can't realistically argue that a bulb that produces 3x the output isn't going to produce significant additional glare in what's supposed to be the cutoff area. And there's no way that a generic shield is going to perform the same in various housings of different geometries/vehicles. Not to mention that the HID light source itself is a different shape. I guess we can argue how much is too much extra light above the cutoff: +25%, +50%, 2x, 3x.

In short, any recommendation that someone use a drop-in HID kit is suspect. Depending on the kit, vehicle, after-install adjustment, etc, the results can be anywhere from maybe ok to hideous. If any one of those items is messed up, either by dumb luck or lack of knowledge/caring, results will be poor illumination for others on the road and possibly the driver as well. Not to mention that too many people don't care what the impacts are to others.

 

Being legal is a different story but having glare and not caring about it are what people are clambering about here.

IMO and experience, PNP will give you light but not where it's effective. With the Fit, headlamps are huge and with the bixenon shield or even a Casper shield, there is still tons of glare. I don't believe the pictures because I've seen them in person and I've tested a few myself for a few days before I ripped them out and went back to stock.

Still wanting performance, I ended up going with a drop in projector in the Fit. Still some tweaking here and there to get it optimized but still no glare and light is right on the road. Had a PNP setup in my gen8 Civic too but ended up retrofitting for the performance aspects of projectors because PNP just wasn't cutting it.

 

All parabolic lens are the same basic shape for automotive use. Why can't you make a shield specifically made for an H4 style bulb in HID form if that is the only type of bulb application it can be used for?





I repeat again...I do not recommend using a generic drop in kit without the proper shielding and especially no higher kelvin rating than 5000K. The bluer the light the more reflective the light becomes and that is where you get the glare issues (or like JJIN likes to call it "ricey").. I'm just stating there is ways to utilize less glare in a parabolic lens with proper shielding (like many auto manufacturers have done before and continue to do). Even retrofit projectors emit glare...but since its a projector people don't say anything.
For example...




How are these projector's better than aiming and utilizing a proper shield.
Like....


Just stating drop in projectors can be just as "suspect". Any aftermarket headlight system can be suspect...it just depends on the person and vehicle. This debate will continue to go on way after we are gone. I am just stating some observations. I'm not against projectors in any way (my other car has projector HID's) I just believe the whole pnp is blown way out of proportion sometimes.

 

Don't believe the pictures...fine...believe the video. Took the pictures straight from the video. Fast forward to 5:12 if you don't believe the pic!

YouTube - V-HIDS 35W 5000K HID

 

You're kidding me right? Street signs are glowing and lit up at times they're not supposed to be.

This topic has been covered plenty of times on this forum so no sense on beating a dead horse. Keep on researching there my friend as there are informative people on one sides and plenty of misinformed people on the other. At least you won't be blinding me where I'll be driving.

 

No, I don't appreciate everything alongside the road and above and even the road at the base of the nose of the vehicle being lit up. I enjoy light output where it should be, in front of the vehicle. Also, all of that extra lighting has constricted your pupils which means you don't see as much. with a regular builb in there, you'd have the light in front of you with less reflected back into your eye so your pupil will be more dilated (which means I'd likely still see the deer just as easily as someone with relfect-everywhere HIDs.

Also, when you put a shield on the HID, you LOSE lumens so that 3200 number drops. Then add in the fact that a lot of that light is mis-directed PLUS your pupils being constricted and VOILA... you've you see just about the same. sure, take a light meter out and measure the light directly in front of the vehicle and yes, you'll measure more. But that doesn't mean you'll actually see more.

Any light modification is illegal but using a matched set of projectors and HID bulbs/ballasts/etc... is the safest & best way to go with lighting. $100-$200 drop in kits are never the way to go for actual decent USABLE light output.

BINGO
The picture above is EXTREMELY MISLEADING. The problem is it assumes that all of the light comes from that one point on the bulb. It DOESNT! the light comes from the front, the middle, & the back of the bulb and everywhere in between which means the reflective angle will change at an infinite ratio. Move the beginning point of that red arrow further forward or rearward and your end point (the actual arrow) will move up or down.

I agree partially here. Generic drop-in kits have problems no matter what the installation but are notoriously worse in reflector housings. Projector is a Much better choice than reflector when paired with any HID system but a matched setup is much better.

I agree again that with proper shielding you can reduce glare but you also reduce lumens, and you still have glare/reflection issues. this is the nature of a parabolic lens. Now a parabolic lens designed for HIDs further reduces glare because it is designed correctly.
Most retrofits are done with higher end proectors (TSX/TL/FX/G35) which are designed properly from the factory. Using these (while still illegal) negates any of the issues that a cheap projector retrofit would involve.
There's a difference between signs being lit up with a normal amount of reflected light, but double, triple or quadruple that output creates a nasty reflection which for many (including myself) requires squinting to see the road properly (and this is at night) To use the same logic, I guess there is no need for Day/night mirrors because reflected light from the headlights behind you shouldn't matter as it is reflected light.

Human stupidity, ignorance, and entitlement however will always be at the forefront of the problem.

~SB

 

No, simple parabolic reflectors have fallen out of use for headlamps since about the early 90s. You can easily tell which cars use those type of reflectors as they fluted lenses on the headlamp. Note that it is lens on these type of headlamps that determines the beam pattern, not the reflector.

Modern vehicles use complex surface reflectors, reflectors whose shape has been designed in a CAD program such as CATIA to use a particular light source. First mainstream car to use such headlamps was the 4th generation (90-93) Accord. Here's a paper that details exactly how such headlamps are designed.

Note how all the calculations in that paper are based upon a light source at a particular point in three dimensional space -- the origin. If the position of the light source changes, say by swapping one type of light bulb for another, all the calculations done for the reflector is now incorrect. Light reflects in ways the original design was not meant to accommodate.

Blocking portions of the light source does not adequately prevent glare as all the optics of the headlamp are compromised. You can prevent all glare if you completely tape up your headlamp, but then you won't be able to see very far, will you?

The color temperature of an HID lamp is fixed at about 4300K due to how the particular gas fill and salts within the discharge lamp give off light. The different color temperatures you see advertised by HID kit vendors are a result of applying a tint to the HID lamp envelope. Since tint works by filtering out light, the higher color temperature products filter out more and more useable light. If anything, higher color temperature HID lamps should produce less glare simply because there is less light being output.

It is true that shorter wavelength light is a poor choice for headlamp illumination but it is not because of glare. Have you ever tried looking a blue lit sign at night and realized how much more difficult it is to focus on that one compared to others? It is because of how the optics of our eyes diffract different wavelengths of light. Blue-to-violet wavelengths focus ahead of the retina instead of on the retina.

The only shielding that is present is at the end cap of the bulb. This is due to the fact that on axis light from the filament is not reflected and thus cannot be controlled by the design of a reflector.

Many halogen projectors have holes in the projector shield to allow more overhead lighting to better illuminate such things as overhead signs on the highway. This becomes a problem when people shove in HID lamps in projectors meant for halogen lighting. The increased luminous intensity of the HID lamps makes such provisions for overhead illumination become a source of glare.

The debate basically boils down to use the light source your headlamps were designed to use. Using shielding to prevent glare on reflector based headlamps is a kludge. If it works, you are blocking so much light that you are better off just using a standard halogen bulb.

If you want to retrofit projectors, use the light source they were designed to use. Not all projectors are inherently HID lamp compatible.

 

Ok, I see your point and agree. But one last honest question.
If you look at the projector illistration above wouldn't the shielding on the standard HID projector headlight lower the lumens for that as well? Essentually that shielding blocks almost half the projector light. That means stock projectors only put out 1600 lumens? Hard to believe.

 

Dude what the heck are you blabbing about? Half the stuff you just talked about I already stated. Thanks for nothing.

 

You said a lot of incorrect things about HID lighting. Trying to clear the air from your misinformation.

 

Yes... and No. If you were discussing Reflectors, I'd say yes as there is less of a focused beam. With a projector lens controlling most all of the output, much of the scatter (not all) is redirected to a useful place limiting much of the reflection. also, I wouldn't say it's a 50% loss as much of the front portion of a HID bulb isn't directed at the road but outwards as glare.

I'm also not debating that there is more lumen output from an HID setup, what is evident is that the Usable light output is often times not any better without a proper projector retrofit than a decent set of high quality halogen bulbs. It is also detrimental to other drivers on the road and can actually lower the visibility of the driver itself due to reflected glare, etc... mentioned above.

~SB