Revised - Feb, 2010.
Removed bad links and redirects and did a major cleaning on the thread.
*DISCLAIMER*
We are not responsible for your mechanical ability, and therefore can not be held liable for any mis intrepretation in the information provided to you.
Also, to any one that we have linked in this post that doesn't want to be there, simply post a reply stating so, and it will be removed.
!!NOTICE!!! Any website using this material without the author AND site administrators consent will be considered plagairism. If you are interested in using any of the info here in the HIDPlanet University section, you must contact both the author of the original thread and any of the HIDPlanet staff!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This information covers the basics of components used in HID lighting and to get you somewhat up to speed on sourcing and planning your project.
Bulbs
Ok, first off, lets start with the bulbs. The common mistake some people here is that all these high kelvin rated bulbs are "the shiz". Well, they couldn't be more wrong. The higher you go in kelvin, the less light and lumens you'll have. Pratically anything over 6k is really a waste if your at all concerned with your safety and brightness of lighting. So what is the best bulb out there then you ask? 4100-4300k. It has the most lumens out of all the HID bulbs produced. Thats why car manifacturers still use them today. Below is a graph showing you the variances of the light spectrum. As you can see, 4100k would be right where the "sweet spot" is on that chart. It produces near to the suns same kelvin thus giving you daylight-like output. Think of it like this, high kelvin bulbs would be like being out in the sun with sunglasses on vs a 4100k being in the sun w/o glasses on.

Also here is another good thing to know taken from the FAQ:
Yellow:
1500 k Candlelight
2700-2900 k Yellow painted fog halogen bulbs
-------------------------------
Yellowish white:
3200 k Sunrise/sunset
3200 k Premium H7 non painted halogen bulb
3400 k 1 hour from dusk/dawn
-------------------------------
White:
4100 k Philips/Osram OEM HID D2S
5500 k Bright sunny daylight around noon
----------------
Blueish white
5500-5600 k Electronic photo flash
6000 k Philips Ultinon HID D2S
6500-7500 k Overcast sky
-----------------
Blue:
9000-12000 k Blue sky
-----------------
Purple:
28000 Northern sky
12000-30000 k Ultra Violet light (black light)
Some important terms to know:
Watt- Measure of electrical power (w)
Volt- Measure of electrical charge (v)
Kelvin- Measure of color temperature (K)
Lumen- Measure of light brightness (lu)
Capsule- tecnically correct term for a HID "bulb".
Candela- Measure of light intensity (cd)
Ampere- Measure of electrical current
Cut-off- A distinctive line of light produced by the shield in a headlight that blocks light above a certain height in order to prevent blinding of other motorists.
Beam Pattern- The pattern of light that is projected onto the ground which includes angle of lateral dispersion, width and depth of illumination.
Capsule- Another term for an HID bulb. Some refer to HID bulbs as gas discharge capsules.
Optics- The lighting control assembly structured around the bulb, which effects the dispersion of light and it's characteristics to a great degree.
HID (High Intensity Discharge)= Gas Discharge
Halogen= Incandescence
So now that you know about kelvin and some aspects of the bulbs, you might be wondering why you hear the terms D2R or D2S. Well, to put it very simply to you, D2R is a HID bulb that was designed for HID reflector housings. It has a different base than a D2S and also has a painted portion on the bulb itself. Why is it painted you ask? The paint is there to block certain areas of the bulb that would cause excessive glare in the housing. Does the paint affect bulb performance? Yes. A 4100k D2R has slightly less lumen than a 4100k D2S. Can a D2R be converted to a D2S? Yes. You would have to make a notch in the base of the bulb to match that of a D2S. you would also need to delicatly remove the painted portion of the bulb so that it would be completely visible just like a D2S. So enough about a D2R ehh, lets talk about the D2S for a sec. The D2S was designed soley for a HID projector applications. They are completely clear and give out the most efficiency of the two. Thats pratically all there is in difference between those two bulbs Below are some pics of both.
D2R
D2S
Lets move on shall we...
Ballasts
Ok, it has come to my attention some people think that if you use 2 different ballasts on the same bulbs, that one will look different than the other. Is this true? No. A ballast is a ballast (performance wise) as long as we are talking about 35W ballasts. As long as each ballast has the same exact style of connectors, they both can be used in conjunction with each other.
However, most aftermarket HID kit suppliers usually end up making their own sort of connector thus no longer using the oem style D-type connector. Thus that means some HID kits out there that use these different types of connectors, will no longer be able to connecto to a standard D2R or D2S based bulb. They make these kits like that to be universal with their rebased bulbs. If you ever plan on retroing projectors and using oem products, you aftermakret kit balast WILL NOT work and you will either have to replace the ballasts with oem components or be brave and splice in a new plug and oem connector.
So now you may be asking yourself, "so what all does a ballast do in general"? Well, here is a little bit of info on how flouresent ballast work and their basic simplicity. The same somewhat applies to automotive ballast. Our automotive ballast take in your cars DC power and converts it to AC current.
Ok, so now that you've read that, whats a electromagnet...
With that being said, you now know the basics of what all is going on inside a ballast. The DC power from your car is being turned into AC power to supply the charge needed to power up the HID bulbs. The ballast throws out 23k +/-1-2k of volts to the HID bulbs upon start-up often refered to as warm-up. This is when you seeing HID trun on and start to change colors and get brighter as they warm. This usually lasts only around 25 seconds or so on OEM ballast. Cheaper aftermarket ballast tend to warm-up longer thus causing premature bulb life loss.
Sometimes when people first get HID, they tend to show boat infront of their friends turning their HID off/on rapidly. Is this good some say? The answer is no. If you've ever seen HID turned off and on you would of noticed a 4100k turns redish-orange for a second. This is the bulbs way of saying OUCH! What happens is the bulbs have already created Xenon gas to for the light but hasn't cooled back into salts and then when the bulbs are turned back on, the ballast are sending out a start-up of 23k volts which IS NOT a good thing. The bulbs already had enough Xenon in them to supply light and didn't need the 23k shot to them. This kills bulb lifespan.
So you've learned about ballasts and bulbs now. Lets move on to the wiring now shall we....
Some people out there just aren't aware of the dangers with wiring HID straight off of your existing oem wiring. Should a relay be used to power HID, yes and always needs to be used. Why you ask perhaps? Your oem halogen equiped car was never designed or intended from the manufacturer to use or run high voltage/high current/ high amperage HID ballasts. Ballast draw a imense amount of amps upon start-up and could very seriosuly damage your wiring and not just at where its connected. We are talking serious damage to fuse boxes, ecu's, or worse could short and cause fires on very old cares that even have a hard enough time trying to power halogen. The reason why is, that when the ballast "demand" power, your car has to supply it from somewhere. Lets say its tapped into your oem headlight wire ok. Now you power up the ballasts, the draw current from your wiring, your wiring might not be up to the task so its needs help, t searches for a source and before you know it, you've now weakend not only one source but two now just to try and supply the ballast good clean power. This is why a relay harness is needed. A relay harness gets its power straight from the battery via relays. These relays are then wired to go to your ballasts now.
More about relays! http://www.bcae1.com/relays.htm
-or this one-
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/relay1.htm<-------link
What a relay does
A relay is a kind of "remote controlled switch".
From the inception of the electric starter, some kind of remote switch was required in order to provide the power to the starter motor without bringing the heavy, unwieldy wires to the dash and, as a result, making them longer with consequent voltage drop. Having a remote switch allows application and interruption of current to be done at the most electrically efficient point in the circuit, even if it is the most ergonomically least suitable position. At first, starter motors were operated by pulling on a cable which operated the switch, much in the same way that a bonnet (hood) latch is still actuated today.
The solenoids used for inertial engaged starter motors were effectively relays. A switch, sometimes operated by a key, could pass a small current to the solenoid which would move an actuator that would in turn engage a bigger switch capable of carrying the very large current the starter required. Later, pre engaged starter motors required that the solenoid had to do more work, throwing the pinion into the ring gear before making the electrical connection to the motor itself, and so its electric current requirements went beyond the capability of the ignition/starter switch. To overcome this limitation, a relay was used to remotely switch the solenoid. Indeed, the first relay fitted to MGB's was for this very purpose.
Basically, inside a relay there is a small electromagnet that requires, in most automotive relays, about 0.25 Amps to operate it. Once this small current is flowing, the electromagnet can pull-in (or if so configured, let-go) a switch capable, depending on the relay, of controlling many times that current, but usually from 30 Amps to 70 Amps. Not only does the relay deliver more power to the load than could be efficiently achieved with a dash or column switch and its associated wiring but the dash switch and wires can be smaller, lower cost and have longer life owing to the minimal heating and arcing that results from switching, carrying and interrupting only 1/4 Amp.
Now that you know how a relay works, lets look at some diagrams to show you which way you need to wire your car.
*These diagrams are property of the FAQ so I do not take credit for their design*
**Special thanks to Herman, Eric, Vick and everyone else for supplying such a great database for everyone to use.**
**************http://faqlight.shopower.com/**************
NOTE-You'll need to use a diode for cars that use H4, 9004 or 9007 type bulbs in this type application so that power isn't turned off to the HID once high beams are in use.
Ok so now you know a good bit or you should be up to speed on things. But lets go over a few terminlogy we use for the projectors out there....
Ok, so now we've covered the basics and you feel confident somewhat to tackle your project. All you need now is a few ideas to help get you in the right direction. Check out our forum pics/video section for some great ideas and how-to's. Here are a couple of other links outside the forum that may help:
http://www.emotors.ca/Articles/article.aspx?id=132
http://spiicytuna.com/DSM/projector/
http://www.houseofthud.com/cartech/hids/index.html
http://www.turntableteknicianz.com/c.../S14%20HID.htm
We hope that helps you guys with your future projects! Now go out there and do it! :rock:
Removed bad links and redirects and did a major cleaning on the thread.
*DISCLAIMER*
We are not responsible for your mechanical ability, and therefore can not be held liable for any mis intrepretation in the information provided to you.
Also, to any one that we have linked in this post that doesn't want to be there, simply post a reply stating so, and it will be removed.
!!NOTICE!!! Any website using this material without the author AND site administrators consent will be considered plagairism. If you are interested in using any of the info here in the HIDPlanet University section, you must contact both the author of the original thread and any of the HIDPlanet staff!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This information covers the basics of components used in HID lighting and to get you somewhat up to speed on sourcing and planning your project.
Bulbs
Ok, first off, lets start with the bulbs. The common mistake some people here is that all these high kelvin rated bulbs are "the shiz". Well, they couldn't be more wrong. The higher you go in kelvin, the less light and lumens you'll have. Pratically anything over 6k is really a waste if your at all concerned with your safety and brightness of lighting. So what is the best bulb out there then you ask? 4100-4300k. It has the most lumens out of all the HID bulbs produced. Thats why car manifacturers still use them today. Below is a graph showing you the variances of the light spectrum. As you can see, 4100k would be right where the "sweet spot" is on that chart. It produces near to the suns same kelvin thus giving you daylight-like output. Think of it like this, high kelvin bulbs would be like being out in the sun with sunglasses on vs a 4100k being in the sun w/o glasses on.

Also here is another good thing to know taken from the FAQ:
Yellow:
1500 k Candlelight
2700-2900 k Yellow painted fog halogen bulbs
-------------------------------
Yellowish white:
3200 k Sunrise/sunset
3200 k Premium H7 non painted halogen bulb
3400 k 1 hour from dusk/dawn
-------------------------------
White:
4100 k Philips/Osram OEM HID D2S
5500 k Bright sunny daylight around noon
----------------
Blueish white
5500-5600 k Electronic photo flash
6000 k Philips Ultinon HID D2S
6500-7500 k Overcast sky
-----------------
Blue:
9000-12000 k Blue sky
-----------------
Purple:
28000 Northern sky
12000-30000 k Ultra Violet light (black light)
Some important terms to know:
Watt- Measure of electrical power (w)
Volt- Measure of electrical charge (v)
Kelvin- Measure of color temperature (K)
Lumen- Measure of light brightness (lu)
Capsule- tecnically correct term for a HID "bulb".
Candela- Measure of light intensity (cd)
Ampere- Measure of electrical current
Cut-off- A distinctive line of light produced by the shield in a headlight that blocks light above a certain height in order to prevent blinding of other motorists.
Beam Pattern- The pattern of light that is projected onto the ground which includes angle of lateral dispersion, width and depth of illumination.
Capsule- Another term for an HID bulb. Some refer to HID bulbs as gas discharge capsules.
Optics- The lighting control assembly structured around the bulb, which effects the dispersion of light and it's characteristics to a great degree.
HID (High Intensity Discharge)= Gas Discharge
Halogen= Incandescence
So now that you know about kelvin and some aspects of the bulbs, you might be wondering why you hear the terms D2R or D2S. Well, to put it very simply to you, D2R is a HID bulb that was designed for HID reflector housings. It has a different base than a D2S and also has a painted portion on the bulb itself. Why is it painted you ask? The paint is there to block certain areas of the bulb that would cause excessive glare in the housing. Does the paint affect bulb performance? Yes. A 4100k D2R has slightly less lumen than a 4100k D2S. Can a D2R be converted to a D2S? Yes. You would have to make a notch in the base of the bulb to match that of a D2S. you would also need to delicatly remove the painted portion of the bulb so that it would be completely visible just like a D2S. So enough about a D2R ehh, lets talk about the D2S for a sec. The D2S was designed soley for a HID projector applications. They are completely clear and give out the most efficiency of the two. Thats pratically all there is in difference between those two bulbs Below are some pics of both.
D2R

D2S

Lets move on shall we...
Ballasts
Ok, it has come to my attention some people think that if you use 2 different ballasts on the same bulbs, that one will look different than the other. Is this true? No. A ballast is a ballast (performance wise) as long as we are talking about 35W ballasts. As long as each ballast has the same exact style of connectors, they both can be used in conjunction with each other.
However, most aftermarket HID kit suppliers usually end up making their own sort of connector thus no longer using the oem style D-type connector. Thus that means some HID kits out there that use these different types of connectors, will no longer be able to connecto to a standard D2R or D2S based bulb. They make these kits like that to be universal with their rebased bulbs. If you ever plan on retroing projectors and using oem products, you aftermakret kit balast WILL NOT work and you will either have to replace the ballasts with oem components or be brave and splice in a new plug and oem connector.
So now you may be asking yourself, "so what all does a ballast do in general"? Well, here is a little bit of info on how flouresent ballast work and their basic simplicity. The same somewhat applies to automotive ballast. Our automotive ballast take in your cars DC power and converts it to AC current.
Originally posted by how stuff works.com
Originally posted by how stuff works.com
Sometimes when people first get HID, they tend to show boat infront of their friends turning their HID off/on rapidly. Is this good some say? The answer is no. If you've ever seen HID turned off and on you would of noticed a 4100k turns redish-orange for a second. This is the bulbs way of saying OUCH! What happens is the bulbs have already created Xenon gas to for the light but hasn't cooled back into salts and then when the bulbs are turned back on, the ballast are sending out a start-up of 23k volts which IS NOT a good thing. The bulbs already had enough Xenon in them to supply light and didn't need the 23k shot to them. This kills bulb lifespan.
So you've learned about ballasts and bulbs now. Lets move on to the wiring now shall we....
Some people out there just aren't aware of the dangers with wiring HID straight off of your existing oem wiring. Should a relay be used to power HID, yes and always needs to be used. Why you ask perhaps? Your oem halogen equiped car was never designed or intended from the manufacturer to use or run high voltage/high current/ high amperage HID ballasts. Ballast draw a imense amount of amps upon start-up and could very seriosuly damage your wiring and not just at where its connected. We are talking serious damage to fuse boxes, ecu's, or worse could short and cause fires on very old cares that even have a hard enough time trying to power halogen. The reason why is, that when the ballast "demand" power, your car has to supply it from somewhere. Lets say its tapped into your oem headlight wire ok. Now you power up the ballasts, the draw current from your wiring, your wiring might not be up to the task so its needs help, t searches for a source and before you know it, you've now weakend not only one source but two now just to try and supply the ballast good clean power. This is why a relay harness is needed. A relay harness gets its power straight from the battery via relays. These relays are then wired to go to your ballasts now.
More about relays! http://www.bcae1.com/relays.htm
-or this one-
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/relay1.htm<-------link
What a relay does
A relay is a kind of "remote controlled switch".
From the inception of the electric starter, some kind of remote switch was required in order to provide the power to the starter motor without bringing the heavy, unwieldy wires to the dash and, as a result, making them longer with consequent voltage drop. Having a remote switch allows application and interruption of current to be done at the most electrically efficient point in the circuit, even if it is the most ergonomically least suitable position. At first, starter motors were operated by pulling on a cable which operated the switch, much in the same way that a bonnet (hood) latch is still actuated today.
The solenoids used for inertial engaged starter motors were effectively relays. A switch, sometimes operated by a key, could pass a small current to the solenoid which would move an actuator that would in turn engage a bigger switch capable of carrying the very large current the starter required. Later, pre engaged starter motors required that the solenoid had to do more work, throwing the pinion into the ring gear before making the electrical connection to the motor itself, and so its electric current requirements went beyond the capability of the ignition/starter switch. To overcome this limitation, a relay was used to remotely switch the solenoid. Indeed, the first relay fitted to MGB's was for this very purpose.
Basically, inside a relay there is a small electromagnet that requires, in most automotive relays, about 0.25 Amps to operate it. Once this small current is flowing, the electromagnet can pull-in (or if so configured, let-go) a switch capable, depending on the relay, of controlling many times that current, but usually from 30 Amps to 70 Amps. Not only does the relay deliver more power to the load than could be efficiently achieved with a dash or column switch and its associated wiring but the dash switch and wires can be smaller, lower cost and have longer life owing to the minimal heating and arcing that results from switching, carrying and interrupting only 1/4 Amp.
Now that you know how a relay works, lets look at some diagrams to show you which way you need to wire your car.
*These diagrams are property of the FAQ so I do not take credit for their design*
**Special thanks to Herman, Eric, Vick and everyone else for supplying such a great database for everyone to use.**
**************http://faqlight.shopower.com/**************
NOTE-You'll need to use a diode for cars that use H4, 9004 or 9007 type bulbs in this type application so that power isn't turned off to the HID once high beams are in use.
Ok so now you know a good bit or you should be up to speed on things. But lets go over a few terminlogy we use for the projectors out there....
Originally posted by Civicsilover43
Ok, so now we've covered the basics and you feel confident somewhat to tackle your project. All you need now is a few ideas to help get you in the right direction. Check out our forum pics/video section for some great ideas and how-to's. Here are a couple of other links outside the forum that may help:
http://www.emotors.ca/Articles/article.aspx?id=132
http://spiicytuna.com/DSM/projector/
http://www.houseofthud.com/cartech/hids/index.html
http://www.turntableteknicianz.com/c.../S14%20HID.htm
We hope that helps you guys with your future projects! Now go out there and do it! :rock:
Originally posted by gearbox
Originally posted by gearbox
Originally posted by DarkAngel
Originally posted by gearbox
Originally posted by gearbox
Originally posted by gearbox
Originally posted by gearbox
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