Hi guys,
Please, I need help with my decision.
1. What is the HID kit for, or the HID light?
2. What about just xenon lights 35w or 55w without the HID kit? Will that melt down my wires or housing for my existing lights?
3.I found on ebay an HID kit from $45 all the way to $300... what is that for if you can just install xenon lights without the kit.....can I???
Please, if someone can explain to me with what I'm dealing with hear. I want to install some better light bulbs but I don't know which way to go.
Thanks,
Tony

 

Tony, first, before you get going too far, xenon lights and HID lights are the same thing. xenon and halogen are not though. In short, if you look at the light bulb and it is only talking about a bulb, that is a halogen bulb. If it requires the use of a ballast, then that is a HID bulb/system. Saying HID is kinda like the difference between a standard headlight and a halogen headlight. They both output light, but they do it by different means. In the case of halogen bulbs, the electric filament inside of the headlight is heated hot enough that it starts to glow and through the use of a halogen gas (hence the name of the bulb style), the filament can't burn, therefore promotes long life. The hotter you can get the element, the more light it can give off, but at the same time, causes the bulb to be hotter and requires more electrical power. In contrast, HID bulbs work on the idea of turning a gas into plasma. This is done by heating a very small spot of gas to extreme temperatures (ie, 6000K relates to about 5600 degrees Fahrenheit). But, because it is such a small spot, the heat put out by the whole bulb is actually pretty low. When the gas is turned to plasma, it releases extreme amounts of light. By controlling the impurities in the gas and using slightly different gas mixtures, it takes a different temperature to get the gas to go plasma. Also, the different gases give off different colored light. Now, keep in mind that the initial spark to get the gas to a plasma state requires in the neighborhood of 23,000 volts!!!!! Yes, 23,000 volts. But this only lasts for about 1 second. The rest of the time it is at a much safer 85 VDC (vice the 12 VDC of a standard halogen bulb). So, please, don't be messing around with the bulbs with the headlights on. It can lead to a shock of your life (or loss there of, not to scare you, but that is the facts). For your X-Type, the wiring harness was designed to handle the use of HID bulbs. This is not true for probably 95% of the cars on the road. So, what I am saying about the wiring harness can only be applied to the X-Type unless I say otherwise. When an HID bulb starts, it will pull about 20 amps for a 35W bulb. This means that when you turn on the headlights, you are getting a 40 amp load placed on those wires. A lot of vehicles (ie, non X-Types) have this power going through the headlight switch. That is only designed to handle about 15 amps max. So, it will work for a short period of time, but you will find over time that you will suffer a lot of electrical issues. One the HID bulb is up and running (in the plasma stage), the current drops to under 3 amps per bulb (less than the 5.5 amps of a standard halogen bulb). Along these same lines, because the HIDs operate at a lower power, they generate less overall heat and therefore are easier on the headlight housings.

As for why the prices vary so much with HID bulbs, a lot of it has to do with whether you are getting a single HID bulb or a bi-xenon(HID) bulb. The difference between the two is that the single HID bulb is exactly that, a single source of light. So, for most applications, it would only be your standard low beam features. So, if you installed these into other cars that have a single lens for the headlight, you would loose the ability to use your high beams (the halogen bulb has 2 filaments inside of it, one for low beam, the other for high beam). This is where the bi-xenon bulbs come into play. They have 2 small HID bulbs built into the same housing. This will allow you to use both your low and high beams like most cars are set up for. Hopefully this answers your questions on this topic. If you need me to explain it more, let me know.

As for whether you need the 35W or 50W HID bulbs/kits, you only need the 35W systems. To put things into perspective, a standard halogen bulb (not HID) only outputs like 1300 lumens (a measure of light intensity). One of the "ultra white" or high power halogen bulbs is up around 1600 lumens. But, now you take a 35W HID bulb (using the most common bulb people use, 6000K), and you are looking at 3100 lumen (almost 3 times the light). You get up to the 50W HID bulbs and you are up over 4000 lumen. Unfortunately, cops can actually pull you over for outputting too much light and for good reason. So, 35W bulbs/kits are what you are after.

Now, please note that I specified that the bulb was rated at 6000K. The 6000K is simply the color of the bulb. The nice thing with HIDs is you can vary the light output to a certain extent based on the temperature rating (the 6000K, or 6000 degrees kelvin). In the case of say 6000K, this is a very white light that has a slight blue haze/halo to the light. Most people like this because of the very white light with decent light intensity. If you step down to say the OEM bulb of 4300K, these are slightly brighter (3300 lumen) and they output a pretty white light, but they also have a slight yellow halo/haze to them. Some people don't mind, others want the blue color. You can even step down to 3000K, but this will be a definite yellow color (not recommended unless using for your fog lights, ticketable offense in most states if used as your headlights). Then you can go the other way going to 8000K, 10000K, 15000K, and 30000K. The further away from 4300K you get, the more blue/purple the light gets and the less light you will output (about 200 lumen loss per step away from 4300K, so 10000K bulbs are 3 steps from 4300K, so, you are down 600 lumen; 200x3; to 2700 lumen and the light color is a definite blue). The 30000K bulbs are a very definite purple color. Again, if you start getting into the blue/purple colors, this is a ticket waiting to happen (in the case of the blues, can be perceived as trying to impersonate a cop which normally has a 4-5 figure fine associated with it).

I don't mean to information overload on you like this, but there's a lot of stuff that needs to be considered when doing an HID upgrade if you want to make sure you are not going to hurt your vehicle. So, keep the questions coming.

 

If you don't have HID's (Xenon lights) you need to buy a kit, I would recommend 5000k-6000k temperature.

You can buy a kit from here - http://www.ddmtuning.com

You can see info and pictures here - https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...t=28907&page=2

 

IMO, even the kits are not enough. To do the job correctly, one needs the the xenon specific headlamp assembly. These units have different lenses and reflectors because their light source is different than an halogen bulb.

Putting a HID lamp in a non-xenon housing will give you a brighter light, but it will not be properly focused for the HID lamp. There is also the issue of self leveling. Standard or non-HID assemblies do not have the ability to adapt to the self leveling mechanism needed by a xenon headlight.

 

thanks for thread. BUT that is to cheap---$50 for everything
what they say on the back MADE IN.....???
LET ME KNOW PLZZZ.

TONY

 

Probably says China on the back, but i just got the same kit as wankel and it works great. Lifetime warranty too

 

Tony, the standard 'replacement' HID kits have come along way over the last 4-5 years, and with there popularity comes increased manufactures and competition for sales...thus prices are affordable.

There's a vendor on this forum that can answer any more questions you might have, and we've had some successful installs using their product. Check it out here.

I'm certain that with your projector headlamps that house a halogen bulb can be swapped with an equivalent 'type' bulb without any negative affects.

As Gordo pointed out, putting in an HID kit in a reflector housing is a poor choice, but you should be ok with your setup.

 

How do you know the projector lens is not the same? Auto leveling headlights are not necessary, its an added bonus... thats what manual adjustments are for. My cutoff pattern is very nice and crisp and doesn't glare whatsoever. Some cars use the same lens whether its xenon or non.

Tony, these have a lifetime warranty and almost all the BMW and Audi owners use them, dont be fooled by high priced kits, I dont think you will find a smaller, better quality kit than DDM anywhere.

 

TOny, I bought one of the $60 kits for my car. Had it installed for going on a year now. No problems. A lot of times, the quality of the install will directly affect how many problems you will have in the future. You do a good install and take your time making sure everything is good, you will have years of flawless operation. If you need some pointers for what to do to make good electrical connections, let me know. I work around instrumentation that is designed to survive a nuclear reactor meltdown and also other circuitry that has to survive in saltwater environments. You can't get much more abusive to electronics than those two conditions.

 

OK, OK GUYS lol... I got that
thanks, I'm enyway tired of the names (philips....) and killing with
the price just because of the name...

I appreciate... good point.
PS. B xenon or low bim bulbs???????


TONY

 

you don't need bi, you've got a separate hi beam which works pretty well.

 

yeah, I see...

thanks