[Xyth]

It's about time to order some HIDs to throw in my spyder auto halogen projectors.

Probably going to go with 5000k color because it should be a clean white and not have much worse output than OEM HIDs which are around 4100-4300k

I'm also leaning towards 55w ballast over 35w (If I get 55w I will purchase a harness to avoid frying my stock harness, better safe than sorry! I'll probably also get a 6000k pair of bulbs in addition to the 5000k due to the wash out effect of the higher watt ballast and see which one i think looks better. Bulbs arent too expensive so why not!)

Wondering if anyone has some pictures of their spyder headlights with HID's in them and more specifically the cutoff with the HIDs in them. Wondering how bad the cutoff will suffer due to putting an HID in a halogen projector.
Looked around the forums for cutoff pics and didn't find many.

Thanks!

[Firemnted]

I have them on mine they clam that the H.I.D.'s work best in projector assembles. I just need to re-aim them I have pics but have to find them!

[Firemnted]

This pic is off my phone I will try to get better one's off my camera!

[scarce911]

I read somewhere that with the 55w. Kit your color washes out some...compared to 35 w. Kit... Seems people recommend 35w..last I looked into it.

[CaptainMorgan]

You get a couple of hot spots up high from the Spyders with HIDs in them. I was considering the Spyders a while back and then at meets checked out the setups closely. I was enough dissatisfied with the results I backed off, but I seem to be in the minority. Most people love them and I rarely hear complaints.

[YesImLDS]

HID's work great. Only thing I can complain about is the aiming is a bitch. I probably spent about $20 on gas to aim +reaim after I thought it was good enough since I didnt have a battery charger. The HID's don't seem to want to come on for too long when the car is off.

[BatCaveTrep]

I have this exact setup. It works pretty good, except I do not like the amount of light that is reflected upward. I have been flashed by other drivers and have mine aimed pretty far down. I will have to find those pictures. Recently I have taken mine apart and removed the "squirrel finder". I will putting them back together, today, so I will take new pictures. I went with 55w due to where I live. As someone once said, "There is a difference between dark and country dark.", and I have country dark. Here is a picture of regular bulbs and 55w HIDs.
Regular

55w

x2

[Xyth]

I went with the 35w 5000k HIDs.
I'll post pics once I get them in the mail and install them.

As mentioned, there are some noticeable hotspots above the cutoff line with these halogen projectors, which i presume will only get worse with HID's installed in them. So I went with the 35w kit because I was afraid the 55w would blind people and attract police attention. Ive also read that due to the extreme brightness of the 55w, you actually impair your vision down the road because you eyes adjust to the very bright light in front of you in the foreground and can't see much in the darkness in the distance. Plus, a lot of my driving is on well lit highways and in manhattan so I don't think the added intensity of the 55w kit was needed.

[Railoffroader2]

To my belief projectors are projectors regardless of bulb type installed.

[Xyth]

I'm by no means an expert on this but I don't think that is necessarily true, there are halogen projectors designed to be used with halogen bulbs and there are HID projectors designed to be used with HID bulbs. They are different in how they focus distribute the light.

Putting an HID bulb in a halogen projector can sometimes ruin your light output or mess up your cutoff lines or make them a little fuzzy looking and not so crisp. Sometimes it can work out pretty well. Depends on the projector

[Railoffroader2]

I thought the glass projector globes were the same and the port where the bulb gets inserted were the only difference between halogen & HID bulb fitment? Hmmm. Anyone?

[Xyth]

Halogen bulbs produce light by passing electricity through a filament, which then glows at very high temperatures. It produces light in the shape of a cylinder, whereas a HID bulb the light is produced by an arc between two electrodes. The shape of light is very different.

Since each light source is different, the projector has to be designed to handle that specific light source, they are made differently to focus the light from the bulb.

Here you can see HID bulbs placed in a HID projector (top) compared to a halogen projector (bottom). The cutoff is much smoother and the light is more uniform when using an HID projector. The halogen projector focuses more of the light straight foward creating bright "hot spots" in the center.


This is what can happen if you put an HID bulb in a halogen projector. It scatters the light around, above the cutoff. Some halogen projectors do this while some handle it much better like the picture above.

[Xyth]

btw, id love to see before and after pictures of your cut off with removal of the squirrel finder when you have it all put back together. Might be something I'll need to do in the future.

[CaptainMorgan]

Xyth nailed it. Because the two types of bulbs create light in a different shape the two projectors have different optics.

[Ronbo]

Hmmm....maybe. It's my experience that as long as the center of the HID capsule on it's bulb is the same distance from the bulb base as a Halogen filament to it's base the focus/beam pattern on a projector is close. If you change those dimensions there will be a prominent difference in focus/beam pattern.

The above is regarding projectors. The same is true for putting HIDs in a reflector housing designed for Halogen bulbs. Another issue for reflector housings is there's a HID bulb that's different than the ones designed for projectors. You typically see a "D2S" bulb in a projector as an example. In a reflector housing then the bulb would be "D2R" the difference is that the D2R bulb will have parts of the surface masked off with a coating that reduces stray reflections.
Most of the cheap crap HID kits on Ebay will be projector style with no masks on the bulb glass. 90% of the Ricer crowd just slaps "projector" bulbs in the standard headlights that are designed for Halogen bulbs. Hence the issues with glare/reflections/etc.
In summary it's critical to use the HID bulb designed for the particular housing and to get a bulb that has the gas capsule very close to where the halogen filament is located. There are "rebased" bulbs that are D2S/D2R with that critical dimension that's close.