trillobite
Active Member
So my original Halogen headlights were not cutting it, as I could not see whenever headlights from oncoming traffic came at me, so I decided to hunt for better headlights. I searched around, and found that the good Halogens were around $60, and in my view, I thought I should be able to find a better alternative.
At first, I wanted LED's, although they typically required cooling fans that would clog with dust, and were of questionable quality. So, I figured that I would take another look at HID's to see if the tech has become better over the years. And to my surprise, they have, as I was able to obtain a 35W 5000k kit by OPT7 for $30.
It turns out, there are a few problems with HID's, and that is glare, and I discovered this AFTER installing them, as I did not fully research HID's. After doing more research right now, it seems the california laws and restrictions behind HID conversions is unclear, and information on the topic seems to be quite old.
Are there even any projector headlamp housings available on the market, that are DOT approved for an HID conversion? Last thing I want is these headlights to end up costing me in tickets!
View of what the headlights look like here, and they don't seem to produce too much glare, although I'm the one behind the wheel, so it's difficult for me to know.
http://imgur.com/P0ozH7w
Edit:
I haven't found a forum that collects all of the California codes into one location yet, so I think I will make it a goal to collect a bunch of them, if possible, all of them here. This is mostly for my own personal gain while researching, but I figure that many others will be interested in this topic. Please use this for research purposes only.
About headlight positioning, and max number of beams in use:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&group=24001-25000&file=24400-24411
Color, and positioning if headlight is over 300 candle-power:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&group=25001-26000&file=25950-25952
Federal Headlight Codes:
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2004-title49-vol5/xml/CFR-2004-title49-vol5-sec571-108.xml
At first, I wanted LED's, although they typically required cooling fans that would clog with dust, and were of questionable quality. So, I figured that I would take another look at HID's to see if the tech has become better over the years. And to my surprise, they have, as I was able to obtain a 35W 5000k kit by OPT7 for $30.
It turns out, there are a few problems with HID's, and that is glare, and I discovered this AFTER installing them, as I did not fully research HID's. After doing more research right now, it seems the california laws and restrictions behind HID conversions is unclear, and information on the topic seems to be quite old.
Are there even any projector headlamp housings available on the market, that are DOT approved for an HID conversion? Last thing I want is these headlights to end up costing me in tickets!
View of what the headlights look like here, and they don't seem to produce too much glare, although I'm the one behind the wheel, so it's difficult for me to know.
http://imgur.com/P0ozH7w
Edit:
I haven't found a forum that collects all of the California codes into one location yet, so I think I will make it a goal to collect a bunch of them, if possible, all of them here. This is mostly for my own personal gain while researching, but I figure that many others will be interested in this topic. Please use this for research purposes only.
About headlight positioning, and max number of beams in use:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&group=24001-25000&file=24400-24411
Color, and positioning if headlight is over 300 candle-power:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&group=25001-26000&file=25950-25952
Federal Headlight Codes:
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2004-title49-vol5/xml/CFR-2004-title49-vol5-sec571-108.xml
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