Dark Spot in Pattern with HID's

[Karson]

Had my first chance at a evening ride yesterday with my new 35w HID's from ddmtuning. The left projects fine and has a great pattern, however the right side has a noticeable dark spot near the center of the pattern.

Any idea on what might be the case? I'm pretty sure I've got the little plastic tab in the right way pointing to the bottom left. I never touched the bulb either, so there shouldn't be any issues with that.

Cheers -k ::003::

 

[~TABASCO~]

More than likely that is one of your bulbs that has been pulled down slightly because of the install and the extra wires that head out the back of the new drilled hole. The retaining spring cant (or not easily) hold the new HID bulb in there if its not 100% straight. Its important do push on the bulb slightly and make sure that when you remove your fingers the bulb is then not moving after wards... Once you know that the bulb has not moved, carefully re install the back plastic cover and don't put any pressure on the new HID wires...
When I installed mine I found that the wires slightly pulled on the back of the bulb and found that the retaining spring held the bulb in, but not strong enough to hold it straight. (because I had a little pulling from one of the new wires). You can also start the bike and rock the bulb back and forth and see what im talking about with the bulb fired on.. All this happened to me as well............. Once I got it straight it has been fine. Works great and super bright ! Let me know if this fixes you up..................

 

[Karson]

More than likely that is one of your bulbs that has been pulled down slightly because of the install and the extra wires that head out the back of the new drilled hole. The retaining spring cant (or not easily) hold the new HID bulb in there if its not 100% straight. Its important do push on the bulb slightly and make sure that when you remove your fingers the bulb is then not moving after wards... Once you know that the bulb has not moved, carefully re install the back plastic cover and don't put any pressure on the new HID wires...
When I installed mine I found that the wires slightly pulled on the back of the bulb and found that the retaining spring held the bulb in, but not strong enough to hold it straight. (because I had a little pulling from one of the new wires). You can also start the bike and rock the bulb back and forth and see what im talking about with the bulb fired on.. All this happened to me as well............. Once I got it straight it has been fine. Works great and super bright ! Let me know if this fixes you up..................

right on man - my LEFT, not right, bulb was in just a little cockeyed and probably contributed to the inconsistent beam pattern. had i taken a bit more care after stitching it back up and looking at it right above the cutoff line, i probably would have noticed the brightness difference.

in response to the earlier thread, running HID's and the Denali D2's people actually notice you on the road. at a long stoplight, often times i can't count on one hand how many oncoming drivers turn their heads.

thanks for chiming in dude, hope all's well!

 

[macca]

I've had a single Hid fitted to my S10 for a while now (lhs HiD, rhs stock oem halogen) and when I 1st tried this mod I a had a huge darkspot, caused as found later by the wrong length Hid bulb. This had the effiect of not having the light source in the right spot for the projector lense to work, ps this was a short hid bulb. A longer one cured it though as already suggested if this is slightly cocked when fitted it can cause beam dropout too. I suspect some of the aftermarket hids designed for reflector headlamps may also have drop out issues as they are masked in spots to alledgely reduce glare and odd beam patterns.
One other aside I have just "uncovered" I was never that sure if the HID (35Watt)was giving the same/more or less light than the halogen (55watt?) other than one looked bluer and the other yellower, so I carried out an unscientific experiment where I measured the light output from each and the HiD came out as giving off the most light. As said it wasnt scientific as I just used a free iphone app for measureing light levels and the numbers given were variable but always higher for the Hid than the halogen. Technique used was start bike in my dark garage (turn off via kill switch to avoid monoxide poisoning and to keep the lamps lit) cover each light in turn and measure with iphone camera lense in the main beam path I also kept a battery tender plugged in just in case the lights pulled the voltage down to low for the HiD.. next job now is to fit the 2nd HiD bulb to even up my light colour

 

[Snowedin]

Macca, who did you use for the HID? I'm UK based....

Cheers,

Mike

 

[macca]

Just trawled my ebay history and I think it was HiDs Direct http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/m.html?_nkw=H7+HID&_sacat=0&_odkw=&_ipg=25&_osacat=0&_armrs=1&_ssn=hids-direct
I just ordered a car H7 type (check bulb type is H7 for the S10 as this is based on faded memory of over 1 year since purchase). I picked the ones with small ballasts and dont get the short bulbs . I prefer bulbs with metal mounting bases as they fit easier, but most the kits seem to come with plastic ones but I've also bought spare H7 hid bulbs off ebay with the metal base and they should just be plug and play as long as the wattage is the same as the ballast.
One trick I found usefull is the bulb wiring plug was wider than the ideal hole size I drilled in the headlamp access cover (large enough for the fitted wiring grommet) so I removed the terminals from the plug case ran them through the hole and refitted in the plug case, make sure terminal tangs dont snap and still catch and are the right way round (though not sure if the bulbs are biased +/- like Led lamps but the wiring is colour coded?)