A couple of weeks ago I traded in a vehicle with factory HID projectors. I think the headlights were my favorite thing about that car. Bought a 2016 Ford Explorer with factory LED headlights. I couldn’t wait to test these out at night. While they are indeed very nice, I think the HID projectors were much better. What has been driving me nuts is the cutoff line and 2 distinct hotspots. I finally parked on a level surface and took a beamshot.
The first thing I noticed, and this was bugging me while driving, was that there is no ‘drop off’ on the driver’s side. It actually seems to slope up slightly. The next issue is 2 very distinct hotspots for each headlight. This isn’t noticeable while driving in a straight line. However, they jump right out at me when I’m turning and there are buildings in front of me…the hotspots sort of jump out while they pass over objects if that makes sense.
I’m hoping all of this is by design. The hotspots actually project straight down the road and do not hit oncoming traffic. Maybe that makes up for the lack of drop off. Anyhow, my wife is tired of hearing about the led headlights, so I thought I’d vent here instead.
Well, disregard the above. Did you know there are forums dedicated to headlights After using a little Boolean logic in my searching I found this is a fairly common beam pattern. Carry on. Nothing to see here.
While I like new LED technologies I also prefer HIDs with a slight blue-ish color temp. My eyes are quite bad/sensitive and I wouldn’t be able to live with hotspots. That is actually a key advantage of HIDs, the light is very even and distributed in a very adequate way.
Since optics are generally designed for a “point source” of light, which an HID more closely resembles than an LED, LED’s are considered pretty difficult to control in an optically precise way.
I hate modern headlights, they blind me when driving at night, the older yellowish lights do not blind me. It always seems to be the expensive cars that have the worst lights in this regard.
Natural selection will take care of this eventually.
The people with bright blue headlights, I expect, are going to experience more head-on collisions — hit by the old people whose aged eyes turn that bright blue light into blinding fog.
Blue wavelengths scatter a lot more.
Look at the sky if you doubt me.
That’s a warm white sun behind the atmosphere, but most of the blue component is scattered.
Same for yer damn headlights.
And get outta my lane ….
I have night blindness and the modern headlights in properly designed housings don’t bother me near as much as the idiots with their crap job hacked in HIDS or trying to run color tinted headlights. I really wish the cops would enforce the lighting laws better about that stupid crap. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize colored bulbs or a POS 90s ricer with globs of silicone holding the light in isn’t DOT approved.
Even my aging poor old eyes see quite well with sealed beam halogens or xenon factory bulbs. But I can’t see crap with the HID’s and LED’s because the top cut-off goes from full laser-like hotspot to nothing. If you want to develop your ‘night vision’ you never look at the light- you look above it instead. To keep your ‘night vision’ you don’t look at the lights of an oncoming car, you look to the right side of your lane letting your peripheral vision keep track of the other car. The top cut-off works best when it fades quickly from hotspot to spill, thus illuminating farther down the road than the main portion of the beam without disturbing oncoming drivers. Off-road or on a long on a long flat straight highway your ‘spotlight beams’ on high work better but most of us drive in a far different situation where top and side spill matters more.
Try it for yourself. Find a spot where there’s a long straight stretch of road where you can safely park in the dark beside it. Give your eyes a half hour to get used to the darkness, then pull onto the road with lights on and note how far you can see. Now try the same with the other type of lighting with both having the same aiming point of the main beam hotspot. Then you’ll understand that brighter doesn’t automatically mean you will see more and in fact can cause you to see less.
The sad fact is that most people drive while looking at the brightest part of their light’s beam which destroys their ‘night vision’ and greatly shortens their actual view of the road (along with everything else around them). The brighter that light is the less your eyes will see. I don’t know why this isn’t taught to new drivers but it should be. Those of us old enough to have driven with the old incan car lighting (especially the dim 6V ones) had to learn how to look and preserve our night vision or drive at low speeds because we couldn’t see diddly. Headlights are not spotlights nor should they be designed that way, but everybody apparently seems to think they should be these days. Go for beam pattern and adequate lumens/lux and learn to develop and hold your ‘night vision’. Work with your body, not against it.
Personally I much prefer led headlights to hid or halogen.
Anyway I’ve had mine since 2013 but over the past few years there has been people over on another car related forum i use who weren’t happy with the cut off etc and they went back to the dealer and they either adjusted them or did a software update and in most cases it made the beam pattern etc better.
So maybe have a word with the dealer you bought your vehicle from
After using a little Boolean logic in my searching I found this is a fairly common beam pattern. Carry on. Nothing to see here.