I installed DDM Apexcone Raptor 35w 6k on my avalon last week. They are bright, but not as I thought they would be. I aimed them,so there is no glare at all, unless you look directly at the light. I haven't been flashed by any oncoming drivers yet. I also bought nokya artic white bulbs, b/c the oringinal yellowish bulbs didn't match. I only installed the nokya bulb in left fog light bc they are a pita to change.
Here are the pics:
I considered doing the same thing, but I read too many websites that discussed the issue with glare and uneven light distribution.
Glare is not just cause by light reflected up into the oncoming driver's eyes. It is caused by the intensity...or brightness divided by size, of the light spot. A much smaller, but more intense point of light will cause more problems with glare (imagine looking into a laser pointer.)
The Halogen has one intense filament in the middle of the bulb. You will see a silvered cap on the bulb, reflect back and cover this filament from other drivers. On wider lights there is a forward reflector (like on the Avalon.)
The HID has two intense points of light at the front and back of the bulb that must likewise be covered from other driver's view and they are much more intense than the light emitted from the halogen filament. From some angles, these can be directly viewed in a typical reflector housing like the Avalons. In an HID reflector housings (like an '03 Acura TL) they place a shield over the exposed part of the bulb to protect other drivers views.
The second issue is the shape of the reflector itself. The reflector is designed to disperse the light evenly over the coverage area based on a focal point of light...where the light is coming from. In the halogen light that light is coming from a long filament in the center of the bulb and the reflector angles are designed to disperse that light. When a HID is placed in the same reflector, it has zero light where the halogen has it's most light. Instead it has to pinpoints of light at the edges. The halogen reflector will mirror these pinpoints into two intense points of light in front of the driver, leaving dark spots in the periphery. The brighter spots will close down your pupils making the darker spots even harder to see. The effect is you actually have less field of vision than with the standard halogen bulbs...though things "look" brighter.
The only way to properly upgrade a halogen is to install projectors inside the reflector housings. The best ones are done by retrofitting good projectors from another companies HID lights. The second best method is to install a G3 reflector kit, that installs into the original light bulb socket. The second method is significantly less fabrication intensive, but both require you to heat up and disassemble the original light housing.
The light housings on our Avalon have yellowed significantly and even when I polish them they seem to re-yellow in a few months. This reduces the light output somewhat. I used that to justify buying a G3 kit. I'll post the results...including some installation pics, when the kit arrives.
Here is an example of a projector install inside a reflector housing.
P.S. If you want the brightest HID's stick with the 4xxxK ones. HIDs are the brightest at 4300K (typically 3,200 lumens.) At 6000K they drop to 2,500 lumens and by 10,000K you have only 1,100 lumens...below most good halogens. There is also evidence human eyes can see better with lower frequency light...(yellower vs. bluer) and perceived glare is lower. This is why you will see ski goggles and glasses with yellow lenses...to filter out the glaring blue light.
i bought the same for my 98 avy and my brothers 95 avy. i have installed on the 95 no complains about it because its bright even through the foggy headlight. cant wait to see the results on my 98.
Guys, you should not be putting HID's in standard halogen reflectors. First, It is illegal. It is illegal because it causes dangerous glare to oncoming drivers. It is illegal because, although it seems brighter, it actually decreases your night vision. That is because the light emitting points are different in HID, and hot spots are formed. These hot spots are much brighter than the original halogen, while the darker areas of the light field are actually darker or the same brightness as the original halogens. Your pupils will constrict to the bright areas and you will be able to see much less detail in the dark areas...leaving blind spots. That is why they are illegal. If you want real HID lighting you need to buy a kit that includes refracters. These are designed to produce the correct light field and not blind oncoming traffic.
It really doesn't give of that much glare, I have seen it from another car and it is not that bad as you think.
The glare of HIDs is a lot worse for older people, people who have had refractive surgery and people with glasses. Older people take longer to recover from the light and anything in, or on the eye that can scatter the light makes it worse.
I have aimed the lights lower, so that should help. Plus I dont drive at night that much.
While that will help a little, the glare issue is about light containment...from all angles. The reflector curvature is the wrong for the HID's hot spots, so there is more reflector scatter. The element is also visible, because the shield doesn't cover it, like it does the halogen. Which means as your car goes by, the full brightness of the HID element is visible to other drivers. The bluer frequency of light scatters more, due to the wavelength...so it will glare off the front of the light housing at all kinds of angles. Finally, human eyes are more effected by the bluer lights of HIDs...causing more pupil constriction and loss of visual acuity.
You can see the hot spots in the pictures you took and on websites that sell HID retrofit kits. On a normal headlight, if you view it, off angle, there is barely any light directed at you and compromising your vision. But with HID's installed you can see an intense glare. In contrast, lights designed for HID's contain the light even better than halogens.
I installed DDM Apexcone Raptor 35w 6k on my avalon last week. They are bright, but not as I thought they would be. I aimed them,so there is no glare at all, unless you look directly at the light. I haven't been flashed by any oncoming drivers yet.
I don't flash vehicles unless I know their high beams are on, because I don't want to then get a dose of their high beams on top of their crappy low beams. And if you aimed them so low that you're not getting flashed, you've aimed them so they're not providing the proper beam pattern. Remember, an HID burner uses an arc; the reflector for a halogen headlight is designed for a straight filament. You can't possibly aim them correctly due to this mismatch.
And 6000K? Headlights are for seeing by at night, not for decoration. Color temperatures exceeding 4200K may be stylish but bad for mesopic vision.
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1999 Toyota Avalon
HIDS Installed!!!
Linear Mode
