mcgilles

I love lights and I enjoy working on them. The Light Cannons are the best projector headlight kit you can get for the C5, but even so nothing is so good it can't be improved. from the time I first put the light cannons on I was pleased with the improvement over stock but disappointed in the light pattern and color. I'm just not seeing a sharp cutoff line and I found that the projectors produce far too much yellow in the light it outputs. with 8000K HIDs there shouldn't be any yellow in the beam!

I did a lot of research on projectors and what affect making some changes would be. I removed and took apart one of the projectors. here are my findings as to why the light cannon projectors didn't give me quite the light I was hoping for.



the Fresnel lens causes a blurring of the cutoff and also leads to a reduction in the amount of light that makes it out of the projector. think about it, you're passing light through here, anything other than clear is going to reduce the output.

also these projectors are equipped with a standard straight light shield.





in projectors a curved shield creates a wider and sharper beam pattern

here is the light output from the cannons as they came out of the box. keep in mind the wall is about 10 feet in front of the car. the pattern looks a little better from a distance, but not much better.







as you can see the light pattern is not even but has hotspots in the middle. not a big deal however. the light beam is yellowish and the color varies alot. there is a good strip of blue on the lateral parts of the cutoff but the diagonal line has an ugly yellow band. the beam also fades and falls off to the left and right very quickly. there's only a narrow range in which you're getting good light.

so time for some adjustments.

I spent my evenings after work for almost an entire week playing with different settings on the light cannon projectors trying to get some better light out of them. I built my own custom cutoff shield out of aluminum sheet. I increased the height of the step just alittle and made the shield curved. I built my new shield as a 2 piece design (I'm sure I've got some pics of it here somewhere...) this design gave me 3 degrees of freedom to adjust the sheild where as the original shield only had 1, and you could only move it on one direction. my new one would allow me to tilt side to side (not a desired effect though) up and down, or forward and backwards.

I experimented with moving the cutoff shield and moving it up and down. I added spacers and moved the focusing lens farther from the light source. I also found a huge improvement by moving the light source farther back into the parabolic reflector with several custom built spacers giving me 0.6mm resolution on its position. I built those out of extra pieces of aluminum sheet metal.

alittle adjustment goes along way, but here are the results





old beam pattern vs. new the picture distorts the color of the beam some, but you can tell by this that the new light is a cooler light, in person this light looks whiter than the original light.



and both with adjustments



as you can see I still have some work to do. the driver's side light ended up not producing quite as much light as the passenger's side. I put them back together so I could try them out for a while but I need to make some further adjustments.



unfortunately there's nothing I can do about the lens. no aftermarket manufacturer makes a lens for these projectors since they use a 2" focusing lens. all standard HID projectors use 2.5 or 3" lenses. not 2".

As a result I'm not really going to be able to get perfect light out of these, but I think I made them better. I was disappointed to find out that the light cannons are not DOT legal and that these projectors are actually designed for halogen bulbs and not HIDs, I think this contributes to the difficulty in getting the beam just right.

I've been looking at other options and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be replacing the projectors with a true HID system using D2S bulbs, clear lenses, curved cutoff shields etc. The light canon bracket should make it pretty easy to accomplish. Until then I'm happy with the new results.

karateboi87

I thought I saw D2S bulb as an option

jdmvette

good job on improving them.

0TheRadioFlyer97

you know you can't leave out the new shield pics.

mcgilles

its an option now, which is good! but I was part of the first GP so the H9 versions were the only ones.

hmm. I was sure I got a few pics of the new shield. its similar to the original shield up to but it doesn't extend down to complete the triangle. I drilled 2 holes there and hole it together with a rectangular piece with a couple of screws/nuts. this way I can insert washers in between the mounting piece of the shield and the curved part of the shield allowing me to move the shield closer to the light source. the original one could be moved away with some washers for spacing, but it could not be moved closer. the rectangular piece which is attached to the curved part of the shield mounts it at a single point to the bottom mount for the original shield. this mount uses a slotted design so I could move the shield up and down to experiment with placement.

I must have some more pics somewhere, maybe I need to take a few more.

jrc27

Every thread i have seen on these do far has said they were DOT legal?????

0TheRadioFlyer97

Let me clarify the meaning of DOT legal: The DOT as seen on the lens of each of my headlights indicates the output patten has been aproved for DOT use. The DOT pattern differers from the ECE (euro export) pattern in that the DOT is a stepped cutoff and the ECE is a sloped cutoff:

DOT pattern:


ECE (e-code) pattern:


Hella's 90mm line consists of 3 different projectors: H9, H7 and D2S. The d2S is the only one that's officially designed for HID use.....HOWEVER the H9 and H7 use the exact same optics (main lens, focal lens, bowl, and cutoff shield) with the only difference being the bulb mount itself. The price of the D2S module is twice that of the H7 and over 3 times the H9.

The intent of NHTSA's regulations on HID lighting is to prevent people from using HIDs in headlights that were never designed for them. The Hella 90mm series was designed for HID optics but the bulb mounts later revised for halogen use.

I'm currently researching the exact laws regarding HIDs and headlights on the federal level. As of now, my understanding is that each state makes it's own decision on their transportation code and restrictions o headlight use.

mcgilles

yeah. I didn't want to make a big deal about this although I sure thought they were DOT legal when I bought them, that was one of the reasons that I bought them.

the difference in price could be because you are paying for the cost of having the housings approved for HID use. who knows. I got a much more HID like pattern out of these projectors with those adjustments.

I questioned it when I found that moving the bulb back farther into the reflector resulted in a much more even, brighter, and higher quality beam pattern. it looked like they were just designed wrong, the light is in the wrong place. I couldn't believe that Hella would have made such an error, this is German engineering after all.

I contacted a company that specializes in HID retrofits and Hella themselves. both confirmed to me that these are halogen projectors, not meant for HID use and not legal for HID use (straight from the manufacturer)

The light cannons still produce a good beam pattern (although it turns out they can't rival the output and pattern of a true D2S HID setup) they don't blind other drivers and they do produce good light. you shouldn't have to worry about getting pulled over for them. however if you were ever to get pulled over for them for some reason or got flagged during a "safety" inspection and were in a position of having to defend the legality of the light cannons...you'll lose, plain and simple, this is not a DOT legal setup.

this is why I'm looking into replacing the projectors with a D2S setup. I didn't realize this at first but apparently HID is only legal if its done with a D2S bulb or another bulb in the same family. that's probably why they are more expensive, you have to pay your share for the costs of approval.

I bought the light cannons to make my car legal. at the time I knew I was going to be moving and afraid I would move to a state with inspections as bad or worse than VA, or cops as bad or worse than VA and I might have a big problem with my reflector HIDs, which I was perfectly happy with except for worrying about being pulled over or failing inspection. there are many benefits to the light cannons but legality was the argument I had with myself that pushed me over the edge. so I'm not too happy to find out about all this, especially since whether or not they were legal was brought up during the first GP thread and we were told in no uncertain terms that they were 100% legal, the CP round 2 thread also addresses this issue and legality is heavily implied. turns out that is not correct in any way shape or form. even though these (with some work) put out the same light pattern as the legal variants, technically they are illegal in all 50 states. Unfortunately some cops tend to ticket based on technicalities...

I don't want to get upset about it now or get into it. if you're interested in the e-mails directly from Hella or TheRetrofitSource PM me I'll be glad to share.

for now I got better light and I like the improvement. the high beam reflectors work great and the bracket that came with the light cannons will be a perfect thing to mount a D2S projector to. and there are adapter kits available for low prices to adapter aftermarket AMP ballasts to D2S ballasts. I'm looking forward to improving them farther. I wish that the kit could have been available with just the reflectors and high quality aluminum bracket. ready for fitment of any D2S setup. of course I didn't know about all this at the time. I'm thinking about bi-Xenons...more threads to come, but it will probably be a while before I pick the parts and get this implemented.

karateboi87

Would cops ever be able to tell though? From the photos of the light cannons they look like other HIDs (I'm talking at night, when all you see are the lights, you don't see the headlight shrod and etc. which is obviously not OEM).

Technically, wouldn't HID in fog lights be illegal too? I'm pretty sure no manufacturer puts HID in fogs... even high beam HID only exists in the form of bi-xenon, right?

jrprich

I guess it boils down to where you live and if your State requires annual inspections that include lighting.......all they check for in Oregon is your emissions. No inspector has ever opened my hood much less looked under the car or at the lights.
If you live in a close inspection state your going to have issues with thinks like no cats, after market air filters, non OEM mufflers......etc

0TheRadioFlyer97

Your average Leo would not be able to tell the difference between light cannons and any other HID kit. In fact the razor sharp cutoff of OEM headlight on BMW, Mercedes and others is more likely to attract attention since there is a blue tint to the headlights just above the cutoff.

The Corvette uses projcetor style Blazer foglights that don't glare when used. As long as they're aimed correctly, I doubt you'd be questioned, however I'm not certain on the laws for this.

There are HID high beam reflectors, but they are rare and rather expensive. Hella makes a ECE Xenon version of the 90mm module that retails for $680 PER MODULE!! (this is $100 more than the Xenon projector)

Jistari

Please excuse me for asking, but the discussion has already branched to whether other HID implementations would be "legal", so . . .

Are the ACA's technicaly DOT approved ("legal")?

The light cannons are an outstanding product and they are on my list ahead of the ACA's (if I ever get them done), but the question above has weight on that for me anyway.

I would also like to thank th OP here for clearing up a few points I have been wondering about.

c5mtl

0TheRadioFlyer97

From what I understand, "DOT approved" refers to the stepped cutoff pattern and not it's legality for street use.

jdmvette

ACAs use a D1S bulb in D1S projectors and come with a certificate of DOT approval.

karateboi87

I looked at the foglight pattern (stock halogen at the moment) and the cut off is really good.

Would it be possible to use these foglights and modify them into headlights?

mcgilles

possible but not worth it in my opinion, there are much better projectors out there. one thing to notice though, the fog lights don't have a stepped cutoff pattern, so you would have to aim them low enough to keep the entire beam out of other drivers' eyes. they make great fog lights but go with a true low beam projector for your headlights.

karateboi87

Well I'm not insane like radioflyer so I wouldn't know how to make it into headlights anyway.

I don't have extra money laying around to buy those $600-700 headlights. They look nice though.

I wish there were more economical versions.

0TheRadioFlyer97

In texas, the law indicates that headlights must be a minimum of 24" from the ground. The reason for this is to get a decent amount of projected distance, the lights have to be aimed straight outward (0 degress elevation) Even with a the sharp cutoff of the blazer fogs, the beam is likely to bounce in the face of other drivers and your pattern will have too much foreground intensity to be effective at long range.

karateboi87

No no, I meant using the projectors as the headlights, as in moving them into the headlight housing (kinda like what you have for the light cannons).

I understand the fog housing is sitting too low on the ground.

I just meant that fog light projectors are pretty cheap. But I guess it won't work because it doesn't have a "stepped cutoff"?