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      09-12-2012, 12:15 AM   #706
Alex@Alpine
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Drives: E90 M3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tomarse View Post
Sorry to disagree, but reality proves otherwise. I've seen HID angel eyes (35W bulbs) quite a few times in person.

DRL devices explicitly installed for the use as DRL such as BMW's angel eyes for the last 6 years, or Audi's LED DRL (or any other similar DRL installation on a car) are a non-directional light source by definition.

Therefore, they do project.

You can try it in front of a wall. The light emitted from the angel eyes is distributed all over the wall. It is not a directional light such as low beam, which keeps the light below a certain level (oncoming traffic eye level) in order to avoid blinding.

Non-directional light needs to be below a certain intensity during night time in order to not blind oncoming traffic, therefore manufacturer DRL (BMW, Audi, ..) is dimmed in combination with low beam, so it can be legally considered as parking light/side light.


Don't get me wrong, I dig the way how HID angel eyes look during daytime, really. In my opinion, it's the best retrofit solution during daytime (except complete headlight modification such as OSS which are much more expensive of course). But at night, HIDs are way too bright for use in BMW angel eyes. Too bad they are not dimmable, then they would be perfect.

LEDs, on the other hand, are easily dimmable, but unfortunately all retrofits (including LUX) are IMHO way too dark to seriously consider them as DRL (so actually there's no dimming required as there can't be any blinding). You can hardly see them in sun light.

HID angel eyes have been sold successfully for years because there is no other solution for white angel eyes with appropriate DRL brightness. People either don't think about blinding the oncoming traffic at night, or simply don't care.

As stated before, it's possible to code FRM so the angel eyes are deactivated in combination with low beam. But who wants that, a bimmer without angel eyes during night? I wouldn't either, by the way. Therefore I go without HIDs.
I am not going to start an argument over this, many things you have stated are so wrong I do not even want to start stretching this.

Our kits use ballast that IDLE at 25watts, not 35.
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