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        General >> Problems >> Bulbs on e-bay
        
(Message started by: Dean on Oct 15^th, 2004, 12:29am)

Title: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by Dean on Oct 15^th, 2004, 12:29am

Hi Guys
I have reacently seen adverts in e-bay for 'super duper' replacement headlamp bulbs (5800K FORD SCORPIO XENON HEADLAMPS BULBS H1) has anybody tried these ? are the any better than the standard bulbs ? and are H1's the right size for the Scorpio ? your thoughts and advice would be very much appreciated.

Cheers

Dean ;)

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by Paul B on Oct 15^th, 2004, 6:48am

Ask Nick (BadBoyTunes) about this.
I know he had these bulbs at one point in his Scorpio, but they gave him trouble!

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by Badboytunes on Oct 15^th, 2004, 7:33am

Thats right Paul i did......... They are very pooh . As for the difference in brightness it was minimal. And it screwed up my wiring. They are in no way xnenon bulbs nor Hid bulbs. They are just high power bulbs that give off a blue / bright hue. Stay away if u want my advice.

HTH
Nick

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by john.n on Oct 15^th, 2004, 8:34am

Got to agree there, Fords have never had the best headlight power. Standard is 55amp i beleive, and i fitted higher power ones with little difference. john.n :(

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by locky on Oct 15^th, 2004, 12:12pm

If you are going to change your bulbs, stick to well known names. I bought Osram Blue off ebay and had no problems as they are a direct replacement. And yes H1 are correct, you will need 2 sets, 1 set for dim/dip and the other for full beam, aslo worth getting the blue capless side light bulbs too, just to finish it off. Go the whole hog and get them for the fogs too H3. :)

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by Phil_Waller on Oct 15^th, 2004, 12:50pm

I have the ones in question on mine..

They are the same wattage as the standard H1 so I am questioning how they can screw up the electrics? I am worried about that statement so can you please expand Nick?

I also agree with Locky and if you are going to do it get them for thr main beam, update the sidelights and fogs.. I havent gone that far yet..

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by TonyS on Oct 16^th, 2004, 1:05pm

Read all about lighthing upgrades here http://www.danielsternlighting.com/home.html

Basically don't use filtered bulb's .. the 5800K relates to the supposed colour temperature of the light and if you read Daniel's site you will see you are doing yourself and others no favours.

The Scorpio's headlamps are better than most non HID systems for it's era if you understand bright light is not everything - the distribution and beam control matter as well.

I'm guessing, but I suspect that fitting the later generation projector units as used on many cars now (clear quoted at 50%+ efficent compared about 34% for our soft diffused ones) could make the biggest difference. Providing they are E Marked and not HID it's legal to do this if I understand the regulations correctly.

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by Eddie on Oct 17^th, 2004, 5:27pm

One of my pet hates, the xenon(?) bulb systems fitted to more upmarket cars,mercs etc.
I beleive cars fitted with these systems must have auto leveling suspension to ensure oncoming vehicles (drivers?) are not dazzled.
FINE,what about when the car goes over a speed hump or comes over the brow of a hill.
Being dazzled by these lights is no joke,it is painfull and very dangerous.
The law does I beleive stipulate a maximum wattage for main bulbs at 55w-this doesnt regulate the maximum light output.

Adding a further question,whats with dim/dip?
The application of this appears to be random,Fords implement it but GM doesnt. My Omega (sorry)doesnt even have the headlights on the ignition circuit,so the headlights can be left on with the ignition off and the car locked. (moan,moan,moan!) ;D

eddie

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by Phil_Waller on Oct 17^th, 2004, 6:13pm

After having a good read of this and working out the the cheap 'pretend' bulbs are exactly the same as a normal H1 bulb (but painted blue) I am going to stick my normal halogens back in..

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by Badboytunes on Oct 17^th, 2004, 9:53pm

Hi there. The bulbs i purchased from e-bay were of a higher wattage ( 80w i think) and also drew a higher current than the wiring was originally intended for. All i can say is that after i put them in my car ( about 2 weeks) my lights played up no end. Also they werent that much brighter.....

HTH
Cheers Nick

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by Phil_Waller on Oct 17^th, 2004, 10:05pm

Well one of the ones I fitted has blown.. Probably guessing at 60-70 mins usage.. Bollocking email sent to the seller..

The standard ones are back in..

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by Richard on Oct 18^th, 2004, 9:56am

Well i have fitted these and not had any problems with them as yet, Nick had problems because he fitted a higher wattage and as he says the current is to much for the wires, I think if you fit the correct wattage and handle them properly you shouldn't have any problems.

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by Dean on Oct 18^th, 2004, 11:41pm

Hi Guys
thanks for the advise, i think i'll stick to the standard bulbs for now unless something better comes along...

cheers

Dean ;)

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by TonyS on Oct 23^rd, 2004, 10:37am

"After having a good read of this and working out the the cheap 'pretend' bulbs are exactly the same as a normal H1 bulb (but painted blue) I am going to stick my normal halogens back in.. "

or treat yourself to some branded premium bulbs .. they are better aligned and do have better light output without the dazzle problems of the 5rap stuff floating around.

I've spent alot of time cruising the web trying to understand how and why I get dazzled so much (I drive about 40K a year right now - much in the dark). Daniels site was the most informative but I've ended up with several classifications I use for cars following at night :-

<rant>
Merc/BMW/Lexus - Legal HID with good beam control apart from X5 (lights too high). PITA over humps

Other problably legal HID (Ford/Renault/etc) - Generally poor beam control due to reflective rather than projector style dipped beams. Dirty/Misaligned/Overloaded PITA all the time, otherwise annoying.

Legal Halogen - Few have the beam control the Scorpio gets from using projector dipped beams. Misaligned, incorrectly set load adjustor etc makes them a minor PITA

Illegal (>55W) Halogen - Usually seem to be able to illumate everything *except* the road in front of the car due to poor manufacture and incorrect filament location. Complete PITA as they are too bright (and sometimes the wrong colour) but worst they shine light all over the shop.

Illegal HID in standard fitting - Complete PITA at any time and down south in Sussex I meet about one a week in either a car or worst still a motorbike. BMW's are popular choices for thingy heads to install the £250 kits into (cheap rebased D2S+balast+ignitor). The only rewarding thing to remember is these kits are *not* E marked and by fitting them to the car the type approval is invalidated as is the drivers insurance. HID capsule life is in the order of 200 hours in this form so the problem will disappear over time as the suppliers are unlikely to survive long meaning the supply of rebased HID units will dry up for a given kit. Due to the inherent problems of using a HID capsule in a system designed for filament bulbs the fitting is also so obvious to police that it's like sticking a sign to the car saying nick me!

Conclusion is almost all cars *except* those fitted with the projector based halogen bulb system are a PITA to my eyes - leaving the Scorpio to be my favourite car to have behind me at night ;D !

ps X5's, Range Rovers etc should be forced of the road where they belong - high mounted main driving lights don't work in a world were most peoples eyes are at the same height!
</rant>

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by Phil_Waller on Oct 25^th, 2004, 12:26pm

Very good and informative. Thanks.

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by mike.g on Oct 29^th, 2004, 9:24pm

Would Halfords own Xenon bulbs be any good.

They have two types of Xenon
30% brighter and the premium 50% brighter, both types are rated at 55w.

The they are doing 2 for 1 on the premium bulbs so 2 would only cost £12.99 and they only have two left at my store.

They also sell the illegal 100w types for off road and rally use only :D and the blue laser lights.

I'd go for the premium xenon but would they make much difference? I would hope so becuase although it's nice to have one of the least dazzling car's on the road I also think that normal beam is rubbish and doesn't light up enough of the road ahead.

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by TonyS on Oct 30^th, 2004, 10:52am

I've used the Halfords premium bulbs and they probably are worth the money as subjectively they make little difference but the main argument for them is they are likely to be better made with the filament positioned correctly for H1 spec and the suppressing gas mixture is likely to work for longer giving better life without scarificing light output.

Cleaning the glass is likely to result in a significant improvement in the performance of your headlamps and it's worth checking the voltage drop to confirm that all the wiring and earths are still ok.

The Bosch projectors do a good job of taking what light there is and placing it in the approriate places providing the filament is at the precise focal spot the design demands. Because of the cutout if the filament is mislocated then light is simply thrown away.

Putting higher luminance bulbs (either by using 'brighter' legal bulbs or overwatt one) only works if the filament is precisely aligned.

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by Acer on Oct 30^th, 2004, 5:02pm

I have bought these bulbs on Ebay. Apart from giving a whiter light they don't seem to be much better.

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by Phil_Waller on Oct 31^st, 2004, 5:07pm

watch out as I mentioned on of mine lasted all of 70 minutes..

Old ones back in.

I saw those premium ones on Halfords.. If I see them again at buy one get one free I will get them.

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by TonyS on Oct 31^st, 2004, 5:30pm

Well thanks to USA legislation changes last year we can expect more rock bottom HID kits to be shipped over here .. currently on eBay UK is a US vendor selling 'X5' H1 conversion kits for fitting into halogen systems for £179 including two rebased D2S capsules, ballast/igniter and wiring bits - supposed to be CE Marked as well (for Europe it's the E mark that counts).

Unable to sell them legally in the US, and by the look of it many kits having been recalled due to glare problems, we will become the dumping ground for these 30 minute to fit wonders of over illumination.

Somewhere in Mid Sussex there is the owner of a Jag XK8, N plated, who's upgraded to HID and as a result is clearing suffering from

http://faq.auto.light.tripod.com/reflection-bottom-headlight.gif

as he was behind me on friday for about 20 miles of the A272 unable to overtake because he was blinding himself as well as me.. most painful and a problem which is becoming endemic compared to the ultrawhite H1 halogen bulb.

At least I'm seeing more 'upgraded' headlight cars with one side blown .. people don't realise that the wiring in the car is designed for 55 watts . . 4.5 amps .. so fitting 100 watt off road super brights (8 amps) takes out either the fuse or the actual wiring in the loom.

Even fitting HID upgrades generally fails due to the initial inrush being 15amps or more as they ignite and added to that the RFI produced by the ballast means other things are likely to go wrong pretty fast on a car with poor placement of the HT stuff.

If anybody can be bothered (or wants the extra illumination) I'd say retro fitting a OEM HID projector (say Hella) to the Scorpio would work providing the bottom mirror's of the reflector and housing was blacked out. The fact the facelift had headlamp wash and levelling points to this was the direction Ford was heading with the car till the Mondeo took over.

Retrofit from another OEM unit is illegal as the car never had HID but at least the result would be better than the current rebased HID upgrade craze.

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by mike.g on Oct 31^st, 2004, 6:26pm

Got the halford's premium 55w xenon super bright 2 for 1 offer today.

Went to http://www.danielsternlighting.com/home.html and read peoples advice on this post.

Decided not to go any higher than 55w and stayed away from any kind of tint.

They are brighter for sure but my lights must have been on there way out as when I took one out to replace it the filiment inside had broken and the other light's filiment looked very tarnished. They also had a mismatched pair - osram and bosch (both good makes though)

Also opened up the headlight and clean one as it looked dirty inside. The projector and inside of the glass is now super clean and much brighter.

Downside - I wiped over the reflective plastic main beam reflector as it was tarnished inside but it polished away the chrome on the bottom :(

Upside - Didn't realise how good quality the scorpio's light's are compared to most other cars. The bosch projection system makes a very acurate pattern that lights up the right parts of the road without dazzling people. There would be a lot less accidents if everyone was made to have the same quality of lighting as the scorpio!

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by craig on Nov 1^st, 2004, 6:53am

mike...

you say you opened up one of the headlights to clean it.did you do this by just removing the clips ?,how long did it take,and also in all honesty did you find getting the clips off and back on,easy or difficult ?,i am intrigued because of thinking of upgrading to the later "tinted" lights,i know you can buy replacement lenses,with the chrome or tinted reflectors.......

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by mike.g on Nov 2^nd, 2004, 10:56am

I opened up to drivers side headlamp.

There are several clips. Two small underneath, one large on top and one large on the side (facing towards middle of the car).

I unhooked only the top and side clip (after removing a small peice of plastic cover) and the glass assembley complete with the black inner part came of easily. This was very easy and took about 2 minutes. I am not sure if the two underside clips where on properley which could have made it easier to remove and also explain why there was some tarnish on this headlight, or once the two main clips are undone this may have made them easy to release.

I snapped the side clip when replacing the lamp. :(

Once out it looked very easy to remove the glass section from the inner black plastic by unclipping all the clips.

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by Richard on Nov 2^nd, 2004, 1:44pm

Clips ?, what clips ?, I have never seen any clips that hold the glass on, except on the older Granada Scorpio.

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by TonyS on Nov 3^rd, 2004, 9:29pm

Continiuing this thread a bit I decided to try an experiment ..

I removed the Halfords premium H1 low beams I'd moved from my last Scorpio and fitted a pair of €2.65 Carrefour H1's I'd got some years back from a trip to Calais (at about £2 each they looked a bargain).

Inspecting the filaments of the bulbs I took out they looked pitted and generally aged. With the new bulbs fitted, nothing else, there was a clear difference both in the colour and intensity (plus the beam focus moved to a better pattern but still cutoff on the car in fronts rear bumper).

I'm beginning to form the idea that all new bulbs are '50%' brighter than the aged ones likely to prompt somebody to upgrade to premium units!

I'd guess the cheap Carrefour units will age even quicker as the marketing hype is bulb life is all in the gas mix but at the price I'd be happy to fit a new pair each month for the better illumination. They are legit 55W H1's made by a german company and apart from the lack of a refractory coating (which looks like it's all but gone from the Halfords one) the base and envelope look identical.

The Halfords H1's must have had a fair number of hours on them as I'm mainly long distance trips at night travelling to/from home from assignments. I'd guess if it had been more short journey's they would have blown earlier.

For those looking for a bit more then this wisdom - " when you apply 110% of the nominal voltage, the light output goes up by nearly 40%, but the power consumption goes up by only about 15%. Thus you're getting more light for your power. However, the bulb life is down to about 33% (1/3) of what it would be if run at the nominal voltage" - relates to the value of upgrading the wiring to the bulbs from the rather poor stuff Ford have installed.

Nominal battery voltage is 13.8v but the relatively high current drain of the H1's means that the drop over the loom is like to result in the reverse effect of the bulbs delivering 40% less light than expected due to a 10% *drop* in the voltage compared to what the manufacture expected. Of course the plus side is the bulbs last longer - as I have found from getting over 2 years from one set.

See http://www.myra-simon.com/bike/lights.html#overvolting - it relates to bike lights but I've seen the same comments over car lighting. Step one fix the power feed, step two clean everything, step three align.

And on a final note HID systems basically have to throw away light due to EC regulations on maximum intensity in various parts of the beam pattern. I'd guess the Scorpio can match the max intensities in the forward pattern from what I've seen when passing HID equiped cars - it just lacks the useless bright side lobes than serve to annoy so many people.

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by craig on Nov 4^th, 2004, 7:00am

richard

yes apparently there are 4 clips that hold the lens on,have been told this by several owners whenever i mention the upgrading of the lenses,3 are quite easy to get too,1 is a right b*****d ,haven't tried it myself yet..
but watch this space ;) ;) ;)

craig..

Title: Re: Bulbs on e-bay
Post by Richard on Nov 4^th, 2004, 10:05am

on 11/02/04 at 10:56:43, mike.g wrote:

Once out it looked very easy to remove the glass section from the inner black plastic by unclipping all the clips.

Hi Craig, I know about the clips for the headlight front but don't know of any for the glass as quoted by mike.g.

Richard