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Headlamp meltdown???????????
https://slantsix.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14565		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  emsvitil [ Fri Sep 30, 2005 9:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Headlamp meltdown???????????
I was looking at the wiring diagram to see how easy it would be to run relays on the headlights so they have a good voltage and would be brighter.....


It also would be possible to run them so that lowbeam is lowbeam, and highbeam is both highbeam and lowbeam for more light.....

So the question is:

Can the headlight take the heat of running both filaments at the same time????????
Author:  SlantSixDan [ Sat Oct 01, 2005 4:50 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Headlamp meltdown???????????
Quote:
I was looking at the wiring diagram to see how easy it would be to run relays on the headlights so they have a good voltage and would be brighter
See Here. And put in a good set of headlamps. Most of the sealed beams on the market (and for that matter, most lamps sold as "upgrade" lighting) are garbage. There is one exceptionally good line of sealed beams on the market, GE Night Hawk.
Quote:
It also would be possible to run them so that lowbeam is lowbeam, and highbeam is both highbeam and lowbeam for more light
NO, don't do this. In the first place, dual-filament burners (such as found in your sealed beams and most any replacement) are meant and designed for only one filament to burn at a time. The burners are pressurized to over 10 atmospheres cold. Of course, when they heat up, pressure skyrockets. Burning both at the same time invites burner explosion, which destroys the headlamp. Even if that never occurs, the two filaments share a common lead which is also the filament support. It, too, is designed to handle only the current of one filament at a time, and if you overload it 100% (as occurs when burning both filaments), it will often begin to melt/deform, which pulls the filaments out of position and destroys the beam focus. Finally, running the lows with the highs in a single-lamp-per-side system does increase total light output (for awhile until bad effects happen, see above) but it does not increase useable light output. The extra light close to the car actually spoils your distance vision, so while you feel more comfortable due to "more light", your distance seeing is measurably worse.
Author:  phogroian [ Sat Oct 01, 2005 5:04 am ]
Post subject: 
For that I'd keep it simple and put the relays (one for low beam, one for high) right there behind one of the headlights. They could be energized by the 12v coming to them when on, and you could then run a single wire from the battery + to actually power them.

Ps. thanks for the wiring diagram email. I'll try to figure out what than ign2 does.
Author:  emsvitil [ Sat Oct 01, 2005 11:31 am ]
Post subject: 
Ok, no doubling up the filaments............ :idea:


As for replacements:
There's original style sealed beam
halogen upgrade sealed beam
replacements with H4 bulbs (noname to named brands & hi-wattage H4's available)

With relay's, are the hi-wattage bulbs necessary, and what isn't garbage.......


BTW SSD, nice writeup......


(phogroian, you're welcome)
Author:  Slanted Opinion [ Sat Oct 01, 2005 5:05 pm ]
Post subject: 
I had a set of Hella headlamps on my '74 Valiant years ago (used to be sold through Direct Connection). These were replacements for the standard headlamps. They were the best investment I ever made for that car.
The optics & focal pattern of the lamps were fantastic, and they put out a bright white light (legal) that would flood the road in front of you on low-beam and go for a long ways on high beam.

Replace your headlamps with the Hellas (about $35-50 a side).
(I think the model used to be H4, but I'm not sure).

You'll not regret it.

-Mac
Author:  james longhurst [ Sun Oct 02, 2005 3:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Headlamp meltdown???????????
dan sells cibie headlamps on his site. i bought an older set of cibie BOBIs from him a while back and they kick ass. the newer designs are probably better. you need them. you must buy them.

-james
Author:  SlantSixDan [ Sun Oct 02, 2005 11:52 am ]
Post subject: 
Don't get Hellas, they are dangerously weak. Get Bosches or Cibies. Most guys install the Hellas (which are the easiest ones to find), look at the sharp cutoff at the top of the low beam as projected on the garage door or wall, and think it's a great, well-focused headlamp. It has a sharp cutoff on low beam, true (all European-spec "E-code" headlamps do) but that's only of secondary importance. Much more important to the headlamp beam performance is what's under the cutoff (i.e., how much light there is, and where it's directed).

Take a look Here.
These are isocandela diagrams for Cibie and Hella 7" round H4 headlamp
units.

If you're not familiar with isocandela diagrams, these will look like random squiggles and lines. Think of it as a topographic or "contour" map of the correctly-aimed beam pattern shining down the road. Each differently-colored line represents the threshold of a particular intensity level, with the color legend located to the right of the isocandela diagram. The diagram is plotted on a chart calibrated in degrees. Straight ahead is represented by (0,0), that is, zero degrees up-down and zero degrees left-right.

To get a mental approximation of the units and amounts under discussion
here:

Parking lamp: About 60 to 100 candela
Front turn signal: About 500 candela
Glaring high-beam daytime running lamps (e.g. Saturn): 8000 candela

The parameters to pay attention to are the luminous flux (total amount of light within the beam), the maximum intensity and its location within the
beam relative to the axial point (0,0)—the less downward/rightward
offset, the longer the seeing distance—stray light outside the beam pattern and effective beam width (contained within the dark-turquoise 500 candela contour).

Things to notice about these two diagrams:

(1) The Cibie produces a much wider beam pattern than the Hella. The 1000 candela line of the Cibie's beam pattern extends from 25 degrees Left to 25 degrees right, while the 1000 candela line of the Hella extends from 18 degrees Left to 20 degrees Right. At a distance of 50 feet from the car, this means the 1000 candela-and-brighter portion of the Hella's beam is 10.5 feet narrower than that of the Cibie. The 300 cd contour of the
Cibie's pattern is far wider, extending from 43 degrees Left to 50
degrees Right, compared to 26 Left to 25 Right for the Hella. This means
the overall useful width of the beam pattern at 25 feet from the car, as
perceived by the driver, will be 40.7 feet for the Cibie and 22.3 feet for
the Hella. If you only ever drive on straight, narrow roads with no possibility of pedestrians or animals entering them, either headlamp (any headlamp, really) will do fine. If you ever drive on curves or where animals with 2 or more legs are present...you need beam width.

2) The total luminous flux (overall amount of light) within the beam
pattern is 695 lumens for the Cibie, 463 lumens for the Hella - the Cibie
is 50.1% more efficient. (the TLF data is listed as "Luminous Flux" in the
readings up above the isocandela diagram)

The high beams for these two lamps (isocandela diagrams not yet scanned
in) are very similar in overall performance and amount of light—the
critical difference is that the Cibie's high beam hot spot is located closer to (0,0) and closer to its low beam hot spot. The Hella's high beam and low beam hot spots are separated by a fairly large vertical amount, such that setting the lows where they belong results in most of the high beam light going up in the trees, but pulling the high beams down so they send light straight ahead puts the low beams 10 feet in front of the car. This got to driving me crazy when I was first getting involved in automotive lighting and had a set of Hellas on my '65 Valiant.

If you go shopping for Bosch units, make certain you get the car headlamps, and not the motorcycle ones most people seem to import to North America. Yes, the motorcycle unit takes an H4 bulb and yes, it fits in your car. But the optics (and the resultant beam pattern) are grossly inferior to the car unit for lighting the way ahead while driving a car. Also don't be tempted by the "Euro Diamond Super Halo Xenon" etc. stuff you can find all day long on eBay—it's all Chinese garbage that's seriously unsafe—nor by the "reproduction" Cibie Z-beams that are coming out of India. Sure, they cost less, but their performance isn't worth it. If you're on a tight budget, get GE Night Hawk sealed beams.

And remember, blue ("Superwhite", "Silverstar", "Hyper", "Ion", etc.) bulbs don't improve your seeing, they worsen it.
Author:  emsvitil [ Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:56 am ]
Post subject:  GE NightHawk.........
So where do I find these??????? (H6024NH) (and how much?)

So far the local outlets seem to have no-name sealed-beam replacements and Sylvania Halogen replacements.........


And I can't even find them on the internet
Author:  SlantSixDan [ Tue Oct 04, 2005 5:19 am ]
Post subject: 
That is a good question. All the sizes EXCEPT 7 inch round are available in Canada at Canadian Tire. I am in Switzerland (at the U.N.) for the international automotive lighting regulation working commission working session, and had lunch with the GE guy 45 minutes ago. Turns out he is a Mopar freak as well. I will ask him where these are being distributed later on this afternoon and report back as soon as I can.
Author:  SlantSixDan [ Tue Oct 04, 2005 11:01 am ]
Post subject:  GE Night Hawk headlamps
OK, update: The GE guy says you should be able to find H6024NH (7-inch round Night Hawk headlamp) from Wal-Mart. I'd normally hesitate to recommend setting foot in Wal-Mart, but given that this particular product is made in America I have less of a problem with it.
Author:  emsvitil [ Wed Oct 05, 2005 3:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: GE Night Hawk headlamps
Quote:
OK, update: The GE guy says you should be able to find H6024NH (7-inch round Night Hawk headlamp) from Wal-Mart.

No NightHawks of any size at Walmart (at least in los angeles area)

Only run-of-the-mill H6024's, not even the HO or other versions (had some 6054BP's or something like that... for Blue something or other)


Then to even see if they can get a H6024NH, they need the UPC code (no look up capabilities at store...order system is too centralized).

Who is going to know a UPC code????????
Author:  SlantSixDan [ Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:14 am ]
Post subject: 
Amazing...GE goes to such great lengths to engineer a great product and then makes it impossible to buy. What fun. Perhaps this is the universe telling you to get the spendy lights from me instead! :-D

Seriously: I think I have the UPC code in my office. I will be back on Monday.
Author:  CStryker [ Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:25 am ]
Post subject: 
I ran to the local Wal-mart here in Rolla and found GE Night Hawks, but not sealed beams. The only sealed beams they had were standard, high output (these any good?), and blue.
Author:  mcnoople [ Fri Oct 07, 2005 11:02 am ]
Post subject: 
Is the GE nighthawk only available in 7" or is it an entire line of bulb. I seriously need to upgrade the lighting on my daytona but it uses a 5" x 7" with a funky plug don't remember the # but it's not the common ones. I would order some from dan except I almost never drive the car anymore.
Author:  SlantSixDan [ Fri Oct 07, 2005 2:45 pm ]
Post subject: 
GE Night Hawk consists of 9003, 9004, 9005, 9006, 9007, H7 bulbs plus the following sealed beams:

-H6024 (7-inch large round "2D1", one per side of car)
-H6054 (200mm x 142mm large rectangular "2B1", one per side)
-H4656 (165mm x 100mm small rectangular "2A1", two per side, low/high beam unit only)
-H6545/H4666 (165mm x 100mm small rectangular "2E1", one per side, low/high beam)

Your Daytona takes the H4666.
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