Projector fog lights on facelift X5

[X5SND]

Updating this a bit....

I've adjusted the shields with the projectors out of the housings, and as I've relayed to RB, have discovered a couple potential issues along the way as far as tweaking via pick method. Bear with me as Ill update this with pics some point hopefully later today to better illustrate what I mean...

So after getting the projectors out of the housings, and playing with the shields for some time, I noticed what was happening when I was pulling the shield back, was that it wasn't actually bending the shield, but rather the tab that it mounts on. This was giving me all sorts of issues; reflections of flares across the cutoff...a phantom flare if you will, that would not dissipate until I started playing with the tab mounting tab on the projector housing. Pulling the shield back and pushing up on the lower mounting tab is what finally cleaned up the cutoff. Next was to play with the curvature of the shield itself to get that cutoff straight across with minimal color.



I should point out that at this stage although my cutoffs had very little color, they were both frowning as a result of their change in position. This is where time and patients comes In as the way you remedy this is by increasing or decreasing the radius of the arc on the shield. In my case I had to increase the radius (decrease the sharpness of the curve) on the outer portions of the shield to bring the ends back up towards the horizontal. It's a painstakingly slow process, and only one that can be done with the projectors out of the housing!

As of now my projectors are ready to go back into their housings for a test fitment (to double check my cutoff rotation once on the X) before thoroughly cleaning everything one last time and re-sealing everything back up.

As for the wiring on the bulb, my original plan of utilizing the factory housing plug has been replaced with RB's idea of removing the pins to the plug on the housing and drilling out the holes a bit to then disassemble the AMP connectors and route the wires through the housing. This way negates the need to pull the whole housing apart in the event of a bulb change, and keeps the separate sealed connectors to prevent an accidental arc between connections on a dual pin plug.

[X5SND]

So unfortunately, in my quest to get these things done....I broke the number one rule of light retrofitting: If you're not using butyl to seal the housings, be sure to wait at least 24 hours before firing everything up.

...Long story short, I had to re-open my housings to clean the lens' and will have to seal them up again. I did however discover a potential issue with using an HID kit in these housings; HEAT (or lack there of). My theory is that since we're using a 35W arc lamp, despite being significantly hotter at the arc....it does not produce the same amount of heat overall (compared to the 55W halogen) that the housing was designed around, thus it's unable to "boil off" the moisture. This can lead to moisture condensing on the lens of the housings. That being said it should be an easy workaround via vacuum line fittings to key areas of the housing to get that air moving (and some foam to prevent dust from entering the housing).

Hopefully I'll be able to wrap this up by end of day friday, and grab some shots this weekend of how they look.

[Ricky Bobby]

S,

Phenomenal work and pics above! Really like that clean idea for routing the wires too, that looks like it worked really nicely for you I would also put some silicone around the grommet portion just for extra bit of sealing, but I'm worried about why you are having moisture issues (could it be because they were fired up before the sealant had enough time to dry?), as it has not seemed to be a problem with members in the past who ran HID in their projector fogs.

Perhaps making the hole in the stock cap with the entire grommet intact would allow enough "airflow" ventilation to not have moisture buildup? This is why I am hesitant to break the factory seal on these housings, and although you have done an awesome job with the "frickin laser beams", I will most likely be settling for a less perfect cutoff in hopes of avoiding any post install issues from opening the fogs up.

This got put on the back burner this week as I finish redoing my porch (we have a bbq for my birthday coming up in less than 2 weeks) and I have plenty of housework to do. I'm hoping to take some time over the weekend to pull these babies off the car finally and play around. Where did you end up mounting the ballasts?

[TerminatorX5]

guys, i am trying to understand, what the problem is that you are rectifying...

is the problem that the cut-off line is not straight but rather curved when projected onto a wall?

or, the problem is that, that line between the light and the shadow is not a sharp cut line but a "fuzzy" transition from the light to the dark and that there is a light shifting in the ultra-violet/purple color?

[Ricky Bobby]

Originally Posted by TerminatorX5

guys, i am trying to understand, what the problem is that you are rectifying...

is the problem that the cut-off line is not straight but rather curved when projected onto a wall?

or, the problem is that, that line between the light and the shadow is not a sharp cut line but a "fuzzy" transition from the light to the dark and that there is a light shifting in the ultra-violet/purple color?

The stock cutoff is a bit fuzzy, so we were trying to make the cutoff slighter sharper (member Lightwerkz mentions sharpening the cutoff by tweaking the shield with a pick) in his post from I believe 2010, so we were updating the process a few years later as he never really went into detail of what he modified or tweaked on the shield in order to get the razor sharp cutoff (with some nice blue flicker) that he showed in the thread.

I'm going to try some before and afters when I do mine, although I may not get as drastic of a change as S did since I won't be taking mine completely apart. Would like to show you what the cutoff looks like "out of the box" and as well after some slight changes to the shield.

[X5SND]

Ricky, another year closer to the big 3-0 eh? (read: retirement, ).
I'm not sure as to why I have moisture problems either....BUT heres the good news. It may not have boiled off the lens since the water vapor was also mixed with fumes of the uncured sealant. After opening up the housings again, and leaving everything to cure (so I could cut it all off cleanly) there was an oily film on the glass the next day. Whether or not this contributed to my issues I couldn't say for sure.

I should mention that when I did those jeep housings, I was having moisture build up which was from a lack of ventilation in the housing (the factory venting system on those particular housings used the same membrane sticker as our fogs), and adding some vents remedied this.

I'm simply taking these setbacks in stride, as nothing is for certain when you start messing around with things like this! lol

As for the ballasts, I pulled off the bumper and tucked them right below the crash-bar bracket. They fit pretty much perfectly, and are completely out of the way.





T, the problem when you use a arc lamp in place of a conventional incandescent, the placement/length and shape of the hotspot changes. This produces an output that is not sharp, and thus not as "useable" as it would be if the projector was properly focused to match the light source in use.

More or less the result we're chasing (ignore the mess in the garage!):

[TerminatorX5]

so, you guys take into the account that the lens in front of the light bulb is a magnifying lens that has a specific focal point that is projected on the front surface, and the cut-off is "sharp" only at the point of focus, at a specific distance from the lens?

and that the curvature of the optical lens breaks the produced light into the spectrum components of the light that are highly visible at the edge of the beam pattern, and thus producing the bluish-purplish tint at the cut-off line that actually blurs the line...

Think of an overhead projector (or any projector for that matter of fact) - the lines at the edges of a picture (as well as the picture itself) will be blurry if the distance to the projected surface is different from the focal point of the lens.

have you calculated the focal point of the headlight projector lens? are you evaluating the cut-off line at a pre-measured distance?

I am not an optical engineer but i suspect, you are chasing a unicorn in your pursuit of perfection... {wink-wink}

[X5SND]

Originally Posted by TerminatorX5

so, you guys take into the account that the lens in front of the light bulb is a magnifying lens that has a specific focal point that is projected on the front surface, and the cut-off is "sharp" only at the point of focus, at a specific distance from the lens?

and that the curvature of the optical lens breaks the produced light into the spectrum components of the light that are highly visible at the edge of the beam pattern, and thus producing the bluish-purplish tint at the cut-off line that actually blurs the line...

Think of an overhead projector (or any projector for that matter of fact) - the lines at the edges of a picture (as well as the picture itself) will be blurry if the distance to the projected surface is different from the focal point of the lens.

have you calculated the focal point of the headlight projector lens? are you evaluating the cut-off line at a pre-measured distance?

I am not an optical engineer but i suspect, you are chasing a unicorn in your pursuit of perfection... {wink-wink}

Basically. There's a "sweet spot" that the shield can be adjusted to maximize the sharpness of the cutoff while minimizing the color across the cutoff at a specified distance.

In my case, I adjusted the shield to have a maximum sharpness at ~20ft (IMO, about the maximum usable distance of a fog light), anything further is where the foreground lighting in my low beams takes over.

[Ricky Bobby]

Originally Posted by X5SND

Ricky, another year closer to the big 3-0 eh? (read: retirement, ).
I'm not sure as to why I have moisture problems either....BUT heres the good news. It may not have boiled off the lens since the water vapor was also mixed with fumes of the uncured sealant. After opening up the housings again, and leaving everything to cure (so I could cut it all off cleanly) there was an oily film on the glass the next day. Whether or not this contributed to my issues I couldn't say for sure.

I should mention that when I did those jeep housings, I was having moisture build up which was from a lack of ventilation in the housing (the factory venting system on those particular housings used the same membrane sticker as our fogs), and adding some vents remedied this.

I'm simply taking these setbacks in stride, as nothing is for certain when you start messing around with things like this! lol

As for the ballasts, I pulled off the bumper and tucked them right below the crash-bar bracket. They fit pretty much perfectly, and are completely out of the way.

T, the problem when you use a arc lamp in place of a conventional incandescent, the placement/length and shape of the hotspot changes. This produces an output that is not sharp, and thus not as "useable" as it would be if the projector was properly focused to match the light source in use.

More or less the result we're chasing (ignore the mess in the garage!):

Looks pretty close to perfection to me S.

And August 9 I will be turning 27, don't remind me that I have officially been a licensed driver for 10 years, it depresses me getting old lol. I wish I could retire at 30, I'll have to keep playing Mega Millions or hoping to get on Shark Tank lol!

Can you just clarify the above (the factory membrane bit in bold) as I'm not quite sure I follow you. I'm under the impression these housings are pretty well sealed as I don't see ventilation elbows like on our headlights, and you kept the back cap intact so I can only think that perhaps there was trapped moisture inside the housing and combined with the fumes from the sealant may have been an issue. Anytime I open up housings I try to keep them in similar temperature environments (i.e. don't go in a cold garage opening them up then bring them in a warm house) as sometimes the change in temperature/humidity traps some moisture inside which needs to be burnt off.

Keep me updated, I hope you have it figured out now. How hard was it getting those amp connectors apart? I should be able to get the red "locks" off with a pin/paper clip right?

[X5SND]

If you separate that black cap on the back you get this:




The white paper looking stuff is actually a semi-permeable membrane.

Edit: Im on my way out right now, but Ill explain everything else in more detail when I get back/have a few mins free!