Xenon HID upgrade

[smorgasbord]

I was able to look and compare a roadster with HID projectors VS the halogen stock projectors this weekend and it was a big difference between the two glass eyes! That's how the factory gets better results than with just the HID bulb/ballast combo with the halogen projectors.

If anyone in the SF Bay area has the factory HID upgrade, it'd be interesting to get together and do a side by side comparison. I'll bring my light meter. PM me to co-ordinate. For thoroughness, we can include a stock Roadster as well.

 

[strider]

Ouch. Maybe Tesla will do something about that.

I worried about that initially but decided that these aftermarket lights are so cheap that it just doesn't matter.

 

[wiztecy]

If anyone in the SF Bay area has the factory HID upgrade, it'd be interesting to get together and do a side by side comparison. I'll bring my light meter. PM me to co-ordinate. For thoroughness, we can include a stock Roadster as well.

One point I heard about the HID projectors vs the Halogen projectors is that the focus of the beam is also shot over to the sides allot more, meaning that when your into a turn the halogen projectors give a blind spot to the left and right of the car and what you're approaching in the turn you're now able to see with the HIDs.

The light meter would be interesting to see the numbers for comparison.

I'm working currently with a company who does HID retrofitting, I asked if I sent in a set of Tesla lights if they can match up a true HID projector into them. They got the lens apart and pulled the projectors out. They're now working on a bracket to fit the projector/balast. This will be the closest fit to the true Tesla HID upgrade you can get at a fraction of the cost. If this works I'll chime in with the results.

Two things that the Roadsters greatly need to ensure they're on the road and have a long life:

1) Good brakes
2) Good lights

 

[smorgasbord]

If anyone in the SF Bay area has the factory HID upgrade, it'd be interesting to get together and do a side by side comparison.

We've got 3 cars (stock, Tesla HID, aftermarket HID) lined up for a comparison tomorrow/this weekend, in the SF South Bay. Any suggestions on how to measure?

I was planning on using my ancient Sekonic to measure foot candles at various points at a certain distance from each car. I can also take photos of coverage with a camera in manual mode, so exposures will be fixed.

PM me if you want to join in the nerdy fun.

 

[jordanthompson]

OOOooooo I can't wait for the results! I am getting ready to pull my lights to see what I actually have so that I can order the aftermarket ones. I don't really trust anything about this particular car unless I see it in my hands - there have been way too many cases where the Rangers thought there was one thing and there wound up being something else...

 

[Doug_G]

Any suggestions on how to measure?

I'd keep a fixed standard distance from the front of the car, for ease of comparison.

Ideally you'd want an X-Y grid (left-right and up-down) of measurement points across the beam. Produce a kind of graph of brightness across the beam. Might be hard to do accurately.

One thing you can do to get a consistent comparison of peak brightness is move the sensor around until you get a peak reading, for each headlight.

 

[smorgasbord]

Ideally you'd want an X-Y grid (left-right and up-down) of measurement points across the beam.

Yeah, I think I'll try for the grid thing, although I'm not going to space the data points very close together. Assuming we have a wall, that should be pretty easy to do.

As for peak brightness, that's easy to do, but then having a really bright spot might not be as important as overall brightness, and that's where the grid comes in.

 

[smorgasbord]

Just a teaser that we got 3 Roadsters together last night (stock, DDMTuning kit, and Factory XID upgrade) and took both photos and light meter measurements. The results were quite conclusive and I think many will be surprised. I hope to post everything in a couple of days.

 

[mpt]

Can't wait!

 

[bonnie]

Just a teaser that we got 3 Roadsters together last night (stock, DDMTuning kit, and Factory XID upgrade) and took both photos and light meter measurements. The results were quite conclusive and I think many will be surprised. I hope to post everything in a couple of days.

Tease!

 

[DrComputer]

The results were quite conclusive and I think many will be surprised. I hope to post everything in a couple of days.

Days!? We live in a world of instant information. We want the data NOW! :smile:

 

[Timothy]

Days!? We live in a world of instant information. We want the data NOW! :smile:

Now? Are you insane? We want the results yesterday!

 

[smorgasbord]

Comparison of Stock, Tesla HID, DDMTuning DIY HID headlights

First, thank to augkuo and another owner, we were able to get 3 Roadsters with different headlights together for a good comparison:
- Stock Headlights
- Tesla HID Headlights
- DDMTuning 55-watt HID Headlights rated at 4500K (other color temps available)

Test procedure was:
1) Position a car with its lights pointing at a wall about 43.5' away, and mark the wheel locations with PostIts on the ground.
2) Put Post-Its on the wall to indicate top cut-off line.
3) Put Post-Its on the wall to locate positions at which lumen measurements were taken.
4) Write down measurements on the PostIts.
5) Take a RAW photo of the illuminated wall with a camera locked on manual settings.
6) Position next car in same spot as previous, as close to the ground PostIts as possible given our patience.
7) Repeat 4-5, then repeat 6 & 4-5 for the last car.
8) Process all photos in Photoshop with the exact same processing settings (via "Synchronize" in Camera Raw), get all 3 photos as layers in a single file, align the layers, then crop the file. Toggle each layer's visibility and "Save For Web & Devices" at a reasonable resolution, JPEG at lowest compression.

I suppose we could have gotten more scientific (for instance, we didn't have the camera on a tripod, but just stood at the same mark and aligned the viewfinder's grid on the same element), but to be honest, as soon as we turned on all 3 cars' headlights, there was no question as to the results. Note that the cut-off point for the headlights was different on all 3 cars. We don't know if the higher output lights pointing up higher was coincidental or is a side-effect of the higher output.

Note also that we were only measuring low-beams. I suppose we should have also measured high beam output as well, but there wasn't any beer where we were.

First, the photos:

Stock:

Tesla HID:

DDMTuning 55-watt HID:

One thing you'll note is that the color temperature is different on all 3 lights. If anyone really wants, I can do the processing again with the processing color temperature individually to the output of each headlight. All 3 photos here were processed at 3750K, which is a bit higher than the Tesla HID, but pretty close to that. Stock headlights were probably 3200K and the DDMTuning's were rated at 4500K. Daylight is 6500K, and Audi's LED headlights are supposedly set to 5500K.

Here's the table of lux readings. Looking at the photos, each reading was taken along the lower row of PostIts, from left to right to match the table. I did try moving the meter around at each spot, but the needle hardly budged (this is an ancient analog Sekonic meter, btw), so I don't believe the different cut-off heights really matter. For the Post-It behind the bush I took the readings just in front of the bush. We did not make the effort to find the brightest spot for each headlight, and we didn't create a big grid to catch vertical differences. Refreshments and a warmer evening would be required for that.

Stock	108	140	140	108	129	140	86	65
Tesla HID	172	215	215	205	172	194	140	108
DDMTuning 55watt HID	226	409	409	323	258	409	237	129

You're reading that table right: Tesla's XID is about 60% brighter than stock, but DDMTuning's 55watt XID (4500K) is 200%-300% brighter than stock!

Note that in some states, aftermarket replacement lights are not legal.

 

[Doug_G]

Great test - reasonable methodology considering the difficulties involved.

FWIW I don't think the cutoff line is important per se, as it is something that can (and should) be adjusted.

Frankly I'm surprised the factory HID headlights came out only 60% brighter. The performance difference on a dark, rainy night is a lot more than that. Maybe there's some kind of vision threshold effect here.

 

[smorgasbord]

Frankly I'm surprised the factory HID headlights came out only 60% brighter.

There could be something related to the light pattern/dispersal, as well as the color temperature.

 

[Timothy]

You're reading that table right: Tesla's XID is about 60% brighter than stock, but DDMTuning's 55watt XID (4500K) is 200%-300% brighter than stock!

Note that in some states, aftermarket replacement lights are not legal.

Now you need to throw in the cost analysis of the Tesla HID vs the DDMTuning 55 Watt HID!!

 

[strider]

Thanks for the work guys - I forgot how crappy the stock lights are. Definitely happy w/ the DDM tuning lights on my car.

 

[smorgasbord]

I'm not sure how useful this photo is, but here's one of the three cars from behind:

Stock on the left, Tesla HID center, and DDMTuning HID at right. I think the Tesla HID's have the most even pattern, at least at this close distance. Which makes sense considering the aftermarket HID's are sitting inside projectors meant for a different size/kind of bulb.

 

[smorgasbord]

I would also add that the Factory HIDs have shuttered HIDs for the high beams as well.

While you can replace the stock high beams with aftermarket HIDs, the problem there is the warm-up time - it's many seconds. So, if you want to flash your high beams at someone/something, you really can't. However, if you're on deserted roads and can leave the high beams on much of the time, then it might work. I left my high beams as stock. They're a tad redder than the HID's 4500K, which is noticeable but not annoying.

The best cost-is-no-object solution is the Factory HIDs, IMO. But in terms of bang for the buck the DDM Tuning HIDs are impossible to beat. You could even get the 35 watt versions, which probably come close to the Factory HID brightness.

 

[Timothy]

Well done, Smorg. Thanks for your effort.