Rubbish dipped beam

[Botus]

They're a good choice, I'm running 6 of them in H4 and H7 between the A3 and X Trail and they've really improved nighttime driving. The Audi lamps I find rather crappy in general though- poorly defined washy beam, the X Trail, my parents Passats and my old Golf beat it hands down.

An A8 I drove had disappointed lights. Xenon dip and LED main. I thought both were well below par. Volvo I find incredible about twice what the A8 gets.

My S class I find are the worse xenon lights I've had, and because I have night vision my main beam is dangerously pathetic. If I knew how to and the headlamps came off easily, I revert the night vision ones back to a second set on normal lights

 

[Craiglxviii]

It's surprising how the Germans work in some ways. A modern car halogen headlamp will cost around £50 for the plant to buy from the Tier 1. Audi lamps have an additional £8-10 of leveling parts fitted over and above most other automakers of their brand strength/ prestige/ perceived quality. Those leveling parts are only ever used once (at the plant, to adjust the beams) and then if the lamp is ever removed and a new one fitted.

My point is, they go to all the trouble of fitting adjustment to the lamp unit, but pay little enough attention to the light output of it, that it performs much more poorly than its competition. Odd eh?

That said, the D2S dipped beam on the CL is looking a bit shoddy (dim/ washy) so I'll be getting them swapped out for a replacement set of Osram lamps I got from the Bay.

 

[Botus]

It's surprising how the Germans work in some ways...
but pay little enough attention to the light output of it, that it performs much more poorly than its competition. Odd eh?

You make a good point. ALL German cars I have driven have very poor headlamps. With halogen or xenon in VW, Audi, BMW and Merc all below par.

Its all a bit odd. In America it seems (according to many forums) they legislate mandatory dim headlamps. Half BM forums are all about software coding tricks to wind them back to European voltage / brightness (as well as turning off the perm orange indicator extras they get).

Your comment about headlamp adjustment I'm not sure I follow. I do see interior headlamp beam adjustment seems common on German cars. The bit I wasn't sure if you were making or not, it is mandatory to have self levelling headlamps with wash, if xenon's are fitted for cars sold in European Mkt.

 

[Craiglxviii]

You make a good point. ALL German cars I have driven have very poor headlamps. With halogen or xenon in VW, Audi, BMW and Merc all below par.

Its all a bit odd. In America it seems (according to many forums) they legislate mandatory dim headlamps. Half BM forums are all about software coding tricks to wind them back to European voltage / brightness (as well as turning off the perm orange indicator extras they get).

Your comment about headlamp adjustment I'm not sure I follow. I do see interior headlamp beam adjustment seems common on German cars. The bit I wasn't sure if you were making or not, it is mandatory to have self levelling headlamps with wash, if xenon's are fitted for cars sold in European Mkt.

Yes it's strange, although my memory of my Golf Mk.IV headlamps was that they were pretty good. I went from that car straight to the A3 and noticed an immediate reduction in performance. The X Trail has 5 megawatt beam lasers in comparison.

America is a strange case (oho in so many ways, but alas!), they tried for years to regulate AWAY from HiD lamps, citing excessive glare to oncoming traffic, increased frequency of accidents etc; in Europe we try to go for the best illumination we can while maintaining glare at regulatory levels.

Re the allen screw adjustment you see, what I was getting at is that German manufacturers will go to the lengths of having these adjustment systems fitted (to be used only once or twice in that lamps entire lifetime)- and more importantly, the cost to them for it, while still producing a lamp that has crap illumination performance compared to its competition. Rather than spending the additional money on making the lamp perform better in its role of actually lighting the road...! It's a typical German design mentality that we can see going back many decades. To give you an idea, at e.g. €8 per lamp, say €16 per car, that would buy a fair few bits of body metal.

 

[geraldrobins]

I'm not quite following this. Surely dipped beams are dipped and the lighting geometry will only allow you to see so far anyway. Yes they can be brighter but how can they light up a greater distance without dazzling oncoming traffic.

 

[Westheath]

I'm not quite following this. Surely dipped beams are dipped and the lighting geometry will only allow you to see so far anyway. Yes they can be brighter but how can they light up a greater distance without dazzling oncoming traffic.

I do a lot of night driving UK and on the continent.

In the UK I am blinded often by oncoming traffic fitted with aftermarket lighting.

Not such a problem abroad though for some reason (not the fact of driving in the other side of the car)

 

[LostKiwi]

It's not such a problem with properly setup e-marked lights but the aftermarket stuff is at best patchy quality and often downright dangerous for the lack of beam control.
It's a shame there aren't tighter controls on poorly setup or illegal light set ups.

 

[A.J.]

Been reading reviews on Amazon about Osram Night Breakers and thing that keeps cropping up is their lifespan. It would seem that the lifespan that can be expected is between 3 and 7 months !!

Is this a fact because I am having second thoughts even though I have already bought them :???:

 

[nyx]

for the extra safety they provide im willing to put up with £17 every 7-12months

 

[A.J.]

for the extra safety they provide im willing to put up with £17 every 7-12months

I think you are probably right in what you say but is that a fact that they have a short life, or is it the people who fit them handle the glass or simply mis-fit them :-|

 

[LostKiwi]

Agreed. I think the Philips ones last a bit longer. I think I got 15 months from them.

 

[Botus]

I'm not quite following this. Surely dipped beams are dipped and the lighting geometry will only allow you to see so far anyway. Yes they can be brighter but how can they light up a greater distance without dazzling oncoming traffic.

dip beam is a bodge to stop the lamp unit doing all it can (I'm open to more technical description if you know it...)

1) On old H4 halogen units, dip is created by a shield on the low beam filament meaning it reflects on only half the reflector behind.
2) H7 single filament there a shield built into the headlamp unit.
3) With xenon's a chunk of metal is stuck in the way

With a cheap bulb or on H7 single filament units it could be both cheap bulb and cheap headlamp unit, it can be misaligned at manufacture and may dazzle or reach less far all other things being constant.

After that element, the beam that goes up the road is dictated by the power of the bulb and the quality of the reflector and headlamp glass. Regardless of the two later points (reflector and glass) if the lamp is twice as powerful its reach is further, dip or no dip

 

[LostKiwi]

I think in modern H7 lamps there is no shield on low beam and the optics of the lens and reflector are responsible for controlling the beam pattern.

 

[Botus]

I think in modern H7 lamps there is no shield on low beam and the optics of the lens and reflector are responsible for controlling the beam pattern.

on projector lamps ? these look like yellow version of xenon's. Maybe they do the same as xenon's for dip?

I was thinking H7s in old things like a mk4 Golf (was just trying to cover a conventional style headlamp but where its on get single filament bulb)

 

[Craiglxviii]

The H7 lamps in my Mk.IV Golf GT TDI (at the time I knew nothing of Nightbreakers, so used the Halfords Silvervision) provided a much better quality of illumination and a far better defined beam pattern than the exact same lamps in my A3 TDI Sport. The new Nightbreakers are far better but only (IMO) approaching the quality of illum of the Golf's lamps.

Beam pattern is defined by regulation, the UK has a notched or dogleg beam different to the Continent. It defines where the beam can reach to, but it does not define how sharp the beam cutoff can be. What I see on my Audi is that there is significant light bleed for some distance to the edge of the beam; from experience this is likely a cost cutting measure in the reflector or PES unit that still (just) stays within regulation. There will have been some change to the metalisation grade, some reduction in material etc.

I believe that H7 are a single filament lamp which utilize a forward shield and rear reflector; the projector (technically, PES- Poly Ellipsoidal System- I learnt this just the other week from one of our headlamp designers!) has an internal lens setup.

Interestingly I was at a technology day yesterday held by a headlamp supplier, they are developing active beam pattern control for laser/ LED lamp units, where they can blank off, unmask or brighten automatically different parts of the beam pattern as required. Very interesting indeed.

 

[LostKiwi]

Interestingly I was at a technology day yesterday held by a headlamp supplier, they are developing active beam pattern control for laser/ LED lamp units, where they can blank off, unmask or brighten automatically different parts of the beam pattern as required. Very interesting indeed.

I was under the impression that was available already?

 

[Craiglxviii]

Adaptive lamp control is, but I've never yet seen a car that can steer bright areas within the beam pattern to illuminate a distant road sign, steer high beam away from a single oncoming car, blank off illumination of an overhead gantry sign that's quite close and giving significant glare back...

 

[JBell]

Mine have been in for over a year now, no problems at all, I was very careful when installing them not to touch the glass

 

[Chrishazle]

IIRC my nitghtbreakers lasted almost 2 years, initially in the S203 and then in the S204 (where I have dipped beam on whenever engine is on). When they decided to fail, all 4 went within a very short period, and of course it was night time when I noticed so had to change the dipped beams at the roadside at night! Luckily I had put the originals in the boot so had spare bulbs immediately available.

 

[Botus]

Interestingly I was at a technology day yesterday held by a headlamp supplier, they are developing active beam pattern control for laser/ LED lamp units, where they can blank off, unmask or brighten automatically different parts of the beam pattern as required. Very interesting indeed.

its already in Mkt, Mondeo with optional LED has it, as does (I thought) quite a few BMs. There's no high beam it just morphs around the issues in front on oncoming

LostKiwi, was right. Lots of current stuff running H7 don't have bits in the way to create the beam pattern. I was forgetting my BM bike just has an H7 with nothing else and an absolutely clear glass, must have a funny reflector. Main beam is a separate unit and another bulb.