Real Xenon bulbs

Erwin Hi,

where did you buy it from? I may be interested into using such a setup for my Discovery (also fitted with H4 bulbs) Take care Pantelis

On or around Fri, 27 Jun 2003 10:07:11 +0200, "Erwin" enlightened us thusly:

Does it do self-levelling? ISTR that it's a legal requirement for vehicles in the UK at least.

what sort of beam patterns does it do? The main difference between main and dipped on a conventional bulb is that the dipped beam filament has a shield underneath it which prevents the light from reflecting from the bottom of the reflector, the rest of the dipped beam pattern being done by the shape of the reflector or the glass in the front. I assume that the gas discharge light is a single light-emitter, and the dipping is achieved by a moving shield which does the same job. In theory, you could make a self-levelling unit in a similar manner, by having some arrangement to move the "bulb" off-centre slightly, which would move the output light beam.

Mind you, I don't really see self-levelling as being that relevant - most problems with dazzle from dipped lights arise from undulations in the road, coupled with a very bright patch just at the end of the beam pattern on modern dipped lights. Neither of which are addressed by self-levelling lamps, unless you had a terrain-following radar which tracked the lamp so that it always hit the road a given distance in front of the vehicle. Which would be a cute thing, mind :-)

IIRC from my Honda Type-R with such lights, it is not only a UK requirement to have an automatic self-levelling system but also headlamp washers are mandatory.

On or around Sat, 28 Jun 2003 18:16:31 GMT, "Exit" enlightened us thusly:

not sure about that. will have a look at the roolz.

can't find it. 's not in the road vehicles lighting regulations, that I can see, nor can I find an SI modifying same to cover HID lamps. But there is something in law about it, especially the self-levelling.

mind you, my LR has self-levelling, but I've no idea if it works.

found this, but at that price, I'll stick with boring old-fashioned filament lamps...

Perhaps it only applies to new cars - the fancy HID ones on my Type-R were no better than ordinary ones IMHO - people only want them 'coz they look cool to other drivers.

On or around Sat, 28 Jun 2003 22:00:55 GMT, "Exit" enlightened us thusly:

and at the price of the above, I can probably get about 45 of my currently-favoured Philips "vision plus" halogen bulbs. If I bought a few less and also laid in a stock of suitable spare headlamp units, I could keep meself in headlamps for my forseeable future at least.