I hear this all the time on advertisements for this car, and want to know if it's true and if anyone has tested these lights. I have the car and think they are great. They are as good or better than the S2000 Hid's. I've yet to make a direct comparo at night with both cars. Thoughts?
Some cool pictures:
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They say the Q's hid's are about 25% brighter than the LS430's hid's.
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video 1- 150kb [url=<embed src="<embed src="
This message has been edited by Qship on Nov 25, 2003 1:08 AM This message has been edited by Qship on Nov 25, 2003 1:06 AM
they say that it is 30% brighter but no one here or anyone pretty much has gotten a measurement of the light emmittance compared to others. From other's personal experiences I can tell you they say they are the brightest, but thats all sibjective. As for S2000 they arent the brightest in my opinion. Ecodes outshine the S2000 and the hellas should outshine them based on pure size (size matters in brightness)
The second video shows a preogressivly brighter beam as u approach cutoff, which is something I dont see too often. A much more common beam pattern is a wide oval (or circular for halogen headlights) hotspot that are cut off in the top. The intensity inside hotspot is more or less the same, making lower part (area 20-30 meters in front of vehicle) over-illuminated in comparison to the upper part (70-90meters in front of vehicle).
(btw.. usually no need to insert html tags in the forum here. Depending on prefix and extension of link/image/object, forum will automatically add html tags.)
i honestly don't know... I have never gotten the chance to study one (Q45 projector) so i won't make any final judgemnts for now. though I only saw it once for a 10 mile stretch of road, compared with the S4 retrofit i had at the time, it was only marginally better in terms of output. it is a very unique projector to say the least.
are you talking in terms of overall brightness or hotspot type brightness..
didn't the LS430 claimed that it was the best hid system when it came out? that claim didn't go very far did it.
size does matters but relative to everything else about the projector.
those of you who have messed around with the Hella 90mm Halogen H7 ECE projector should know. it puts out as much light, if not more light then it's counterparts (and even hid projectors when it was fitted with an hid bulb) and having been only half the size(the reflective bowl and the lense). that just goes to show you that you can't always just say that a larger projector is brighter. (that particular projector is used in this example, even though it is an ece and i'm comparing it to dot projectors, only because many of us have seen/used it. another canidate could have been used but it's anominity would not have made as effective of an example)
that projector managed that with a mirror-like finish on it's reflector and a crystal clear lense. you can have a large projector with a 40% reflectivity/frost lense and a medium projector with 50% reflectivity/clear lense and both would be about the same. you can have two projectors with 50% reflectivity, with one large and one medium (both with frost lense) and the larger one would win. now put those same projector together but this time with the medium projector having clear lense, the larger projector would still win but the margin of difference would be less then before.
an easy test/experiment that you can do right now is..
take a laser pointer(would work best since it shows how much of the dot gets reflected intact or at all) or flashlight and shine that onto something with a silver finish, then a chrome finish, then a mirror finish (or a mirror).... see any differences?
the point that i'm trying to get at is... when it comes to the projector housing (assuming that identical/equivalent light source were used) you have to consider not only size, but reflector finish as well as lense clarity. you can take the largest projector mate it with a foggy lense and extremely low reflectivity reflector and it would still not be much of a match to a smaller projector with a mirror reflector and crystal lense.
so... HIHID, seen/played with any S2000 projectors lately?
"hellas should outshine them based on pure size (size matters in brightness)."
there is much more reflective surface on the DOT S2000 projector then is on any DOT Hella projector I've seen (E39 [old and new style], A6 bixenon). not to mention that the reflectivity is much higher as well as a crystal lense. (yes, I have done side by side comparisions)
After seeing what that Hella H7 could do, i agree that the S2000 projector isn't the brightest out there... but from what I have seen... it's the brightest projector overall (not hotspot type brightness) available in the STATES.
This message has been edited by pliepl on Nov 25, 2003 11:36 AM
I think the H9 90mm from hella are a good projector. The bulb has some to do with it (its 65watts). Even thought the halogen 90mm H9 aren't HID, they are somewhat comparable as far as lumens. I noticed that the new Chevy Malibu uses the H9 bulb for its lows, but it has reflectors instead of projectors.
From the pictures that I've seen (on the faq) of either the S2000, the 90mm H9(retro'd to hid), or the S4/90mm H7 (ece, retro'd to hid), I'd have to say that the S2000 has the best spread, and the sharpest cuttoff.
The retro'd H9, in my opinion, would rank right after the S2000 in terms of eveness of the spread of the beam, although it has a little more light concentrated in the middle. The retro'd H9 seem to have a very uniform color on the cutoff and beam (referring to the pic of the 98 accord in the FAQ of the beam against the brick wall/garage), though not as blue or as thick/wide as S4/90mm H7.
The H7 has a thick/wide blue cutoff, whereas the S2000 has more of a "twinkle" factor (interesting to note that the H7 on the newer Passats and the H7 on the Hyundai Sonata have a nice "twinkle" effect for being a halogen).
I do agree with Liep that the way the lens and reflector are designed on the projector has a lot to do with how much light from the xenon bulb actually gets put on the road. Clear lenses are obviously going to have a lesser loss of the light being transmitted through, and a "shinier" reflector will scatter less light. However, I do like the idea (or the function behind the idea) of having a "frenseled" lens to help in lighting overhead signs (like in some of the newer bi-xenon projecotrs).
With a very clear lens like the S2000 has, and the cutoof it produces, it becomes limited in lighitng anything above the cutoff. I wonder if it would be possible to make a hybrid lens for both a sharp cutoff and overhead signs to be lit. The Toyota Celica remides this not by frenseling the lens, but by modifying the cutoff shield itself, by making those two "ufo" holes. There have been some variations of the H9 90mm from what I understand; both a clear lens and frenseled lens have been made (I could be mistaking this for the H7).
If a lot of light is making it to the ground by means of a clear lens, in hopes by the manufacturer of it reflecting off the ground back up to signs, it might not be a good tactic in the long run because many of the roads are now being paved with the blackest asfalt I've seen; it absorbs a lot of light (or seems to do so).
any reason you guys point to me when it comes to beam pattern pics?
Yes there's one major reason,you've done a Q45 retrofit!
There's also the guy in Japan with the Aristo,but it's RHD and I don't speak Japanese
I guess if I take his photo:
And mirrored it,this would be the LHD pattern:
Is that what a DOT-spec Q45 looks like?
PS you all have a Happy Thanksgiving,don't eat too much.
Yea it basically looks like that. THe cutoff is pretty nice, slightly sharper than the 5 series, but not an ecode for sure. The primary reason I chose to use the q45 though was simply due to its size. It just gave a much better fit than any other projector could have.
Yea it basically looks like that. THe cutoff is pretty nice, slightly sharper than the 5 series, but not an ecode for sure. The primary reason I chose to use the q45 though was simply due to its size. It just gave a much better fit than any other projector could have.
Thank you I hear ya about fit on a Tundra,I'm still working on mine
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