TemjinX2

yup just do what frank said. Keep in mind the beam pattern is going look like crap compared to what you with the oem bixenons. if you get a hid kit, make sure you use a harness directly connected to the battery. I would try not to use the oem harness, just in some cases the cheap chinese stuff uses more amps when you turn them on compared to oem.

Bif powell

I have these housings currently, how will I know what bulb is used for the low beam?

Also, as for using something that goes to the battery and not MBs harness, I'm down with that and the wiring is probably as trivial as the other stuff I've taken on with this car but knowing what/where is the trick. Do these retro fit kits come with instructions or am I hunting for that as well?

Thanks guys!

TemjinX2

https://mbworld.org/forums/showthrea...188766&page=18

FrankW

uh...open it up and check if they don't include the bulbs then most likely they want you to use the stock bulbs (stock halogens) then just check the manual for the bulb spec.

SilverBulletAMG

These are the ones I just recently picked up - http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...TQ:MOTORS:1123
Yes it's ebay but I must say I am much more impressed by these than the Depos and would go so far as to say they kick Depos butt. These look amazing in person and are a huge bang for the buck. The guy also preinstalled the HID conversion kit since I already have the factory xenons. I will also copy and pate the generic instructions he sent me that went along with the lights.


We do not have an installation guide made exactly for each model/year of headlights we sold. But here is how to connect the HID part.

Here is the basic concept. The car will provide power to the factory xenon ballast and the ballast then power the HID bulb.

Now, since the whole unit has the headlight with HID bulbs pre-installed inside and pre-connected to the new xenon ballast, and then you will see 2 wires coming o ut from the new xenon ballast with 2 blue butt splices at the end. One wire is RED (positive) and the other is BLACK (negative).

What you need to do is to dis-connect the power going to the factory xenon ballast and re-connect them to those 2 wires (red and black with blue butt splices). Dis-connect the battery before you do any of the above!

You will locate the wires coming from the car and to your factory xenon ballast, those 2 wires are the power supply wires from the car, one of them will be the positive and the other is the negative. Identify them and disconnect them and re-connect them to the red (+) and black (-) wires by clamping down the blue butt splices. That is all you need to do.

The high beam and signal part, simply un-plug the factory adapter that goes into the factory headlight's back and plug it to the new headlight's back where there are several metal pins inside that slot. Then you got power on the high beam, parking light and signal lights.

Regards,

FrankW

yeah, but pay attention to the pictures. It clearly printed DEPO on the lens. If you have received them and they don't say DEPO on them take a picture and let us know.

Gramma_Benz

Hey, would you say your light output is now better than your stock frosted bi-xenons?

I would love to upgrade, but if they light they project isn't as good as the stock bi-xenons, then I'm hesitant.

TIA!

SilverBulletAMG

What the....you're right! I just went and looked and sure enough it does say Depo on the lens. I emailed the seller because I had Depos in the past and wasn't impressed. The seller stated it was a modified Depo housing, whatever that means. Possibly just means it has the HID kit already installed? I dunno, but I do know these look way better than the standard Depos I had in the past.

SilverBulletAMG

Hard to say. The stock ones were just a tad brighter in my opinion but I like the deeper blue look of these 8k much better. I'm guessing the stock xenons were around 6k? Either way the stock ones weren't as blue and I much prefer the more blue tint at night.
So, are they as good as OEM, no. Nothing but another set of OEM bi-xenons will be that good but then again you're paying $1,200 vs. $400-$500. As always you do get what you pay for. If you want something thats very CLOSE for a fraction of the cost, this was a great way to go for me.

FrankW

stock HID bulbs are 4300k. at 6000k you start to loose visibility (lost of lumen)

if he changed the projector on the DEPO he is selling it can perform very well. check up on the whole DEPO light thread in w203 forum sticky. The projector came with the DEPO are not that good. At the price that seller is selling I doubt that he changed anything other than throw on the HID kit ready for people. still good alternative for the look tho.

the frosted xenon isn't "bi-xenon".

TemjinX2

stock is 4300k. the depo lens is junk. The projector is a copy of the e55 projectors, but the lens and the inferior reflector bowl kills a lot of the beam pattern and sharpness. I wouldn't recommend going any higher then 6k, you lose a lot of light past 6k and it also start to cause driving fatigue.

Why not save and just do a retrofit? Its cheaper them OEM and depending on what projector you use it can have better output and color.

TemjinX2

damn it frank...you post it while i was typing it up..lol.

Gramma_Benz

Cool, thanks much for the feedback!

TemjinX2

click on my retro link, i have a wider and sharper beam then oem and at a fraction of the cost.

I did it for around $600.

https://mbworld.org/forums/c32-amg-c55-amg-w203/242212-temjinx2-s-tsx-retrofit-project.html

FrankW

WIN LOL

SilverBulletAMG

Looks like it turned out very well for ya but also looks like a total pain in the ***. I don't have mine in the car yet and have only seen what the light pattern looks like hooked up in the house. I'm hoping on the car the 8k bulb isn't too dull. I thought stock was 6k. Oh well, if they suck like the rest of the Depos I might go your route or just sell them and get true bi-xenons.


FrankW, yes I know our stock xenons aren't bi's. I think Gramma_Benz is looking to compare OEM bi-xenons to Depos or the likes however.

FrankW

oh yea...i was referering to gramma_benz because he said "frosted bi-xenons". i thought he's asking the oem frosted xenon light output versus depos with hid kit.

can't comment on that, but I can comment on the oem xenon vs bi-xenon since my car had the xenon already before i went bi-xenon. since the bulbs are the same 4300k osram or philip the brightness of course are the same. the difference is on the beam pattern on the road. The projector bi-xenon is more focused which emits a longer, but narrower pattern. The original frosted xenon is reflective which the lights are not as focused which led to shorter distance, but it does cover slightly wider range side-to-side.


you can see why we say the DEPO projector sucks. haven't seen anyone posted a picture of the DEPO projector without the HID fitted to them. maybe the halogen will be better suited for DEPO projector lens because the light won't be as intense which causing those "X" marks.

here's a picture of the DEPO beam pattern


and here's a picture of the US-spec bi-xenon pattern courtesy of Steve.

TemjinX2

here's a pic of my tsx projectors.

c32used

Try the Depos I had them on my car already and they fooled me into thinking I had the OEM bixenon I bought a 8k Carlab HID H7 kit and no issues those far in a year and a half plus of having them on. The HID kit you posted a link for looks like my Carlab kit... But I am very happy with them thus far! Definitely you will require a H7 HID kit cause your plugs are setup for xenon and Depo for H7. So get a H7 HID kit for your low beams. Now don't get me wrong I would still prefer the OEM bixenon anyday but I already had the Depo clear bixenon housings installed so it was either $1500 with install using MBenzl or just buy a $200 H7 HID kit and answer was very easy. I have pics of the light pattern in the newbie search...Good luck and its gonna look killer!

60n5pt1

I picked up a set of Eagle Eyes by Performance Products Euro clear Black Projector lamps almost two years ago
with H7s. I'm not sure to this day if they were damaged during shipping but
basically, I had a terrible time adjusting the light direction for both lamps. I also didn't bother returning the units and decided I'd live with it. The light direction wasn't that bad after all. About 6 months ago I replaced the H7s with a 10K HID conversion kit for about $150.00 (made in china) but website claim they're German technology based. I had to bore a 1" hole thru the center of the low beam bulb cover. The unit came with a 1" O.D. grommet to run the wires. The whole process is really easy. It is a plug and play. I used
high strength double sided tape to mount the ballasts and some tie wraps for insurance. Excluding the drilling part, I'd say 45 minutes per side was all it took.
Man, 10K is bright and blue and with the projector lens, it looks great at night.

TemjinX2

If you can see really well in 10k, you must be super human or a bird because most of the light coming out at 10k is UV light and not much visable light is present.

DarkXerox

Humans can see from 400nm to 700nm, and generally 10k bulbs produce little if any UV light (<400nm) at all (otherwise it would crack the plastic on your housings really fast).

From a coral reefkeeper's perspective, true 10K is more of a white with a slight yellow tint, with mostly a broad band of output from 400-850nm, sometimes a peak at ~525nm. 14K has a pure white with lots of blue and a large peak around 450nm. 20K is pretty much the bluest available, with very little in the 600-800 spectrum, and a huge peak at 450nm.

Of course the ballast driving the bulbs makes a difference. I would argue that from the picture of the OEM bi-xenons, that would be about 10K.

Here is a picture of a 10K bulb vs. a 20K bulb:

Hope that didn't go too far offtopic!

TemjinX2

The uv light comment was more of a exaggeration. As 10k you would barely see anything with the amount of lumens lost.

You are wrong on the kelvins. White light would be closer to 5k. 10k is basically a pure blue.

OEM bixenons are 4300k, there is no doubt about that. They actually start at 4100k and color shift to 4300k after 10hrs of use.

DarkXerox

Well you have to factor in the integral of the curve to get the true color of the lamp, e.g. there is far more red/yellow (600-800nm) intensity in lower kelvin bulbs. I can show you some spectral plots from various lamps (you can see how different ballasts driving the bulbs can give different slightly plots).



And compare it to the theoretical spectral curve for a 10K bulb here:

http://webphysics.davidson.edu/Apple...BlackBody.html

Of course without a spectral plot of the bixenon's, it would be hard to see if it fills the 400-500nm region, or just spikes at 450 like the aquarium bulb.

Here is a 6500K plot:

You can input 6500 into the previous link and see how it matches up.

20K is supposed to be the equivalent of midday, full-intensity, equatorial daylight, and is that bulb on the right in my previous post.

Overall it is a general measurement of heating a theoretical black body to various temperatures and the emitted light is the "color temperature". I'm just stating what the aquarium industry uses for metal halide bulbs and the auto industry might do things differently.

(use the sand as a "white" reference)

6.5K tank photo:

10K tank photo:

12K tank photo:

20K tank photo:

FrankW

LOL...that discussion is going way too deep.

to me it's pretty simple.

I had the 6000k HID bulbs and it was bluish white. illuminated the road fine. one bulb died and I went back to stock and other than the light being whitish yellow it illuminate the road better and less stressful on the eye.

I had drove friend's car with 8000k, 10000k, and up to 12000k to put it simple and clear.

8000k = very blue. looks bright to the human eye, but doesn't illuminate the road well.

10000k = bluish purple. again...bright it may seem. distance that covered the road was compremized vs 8000k

12000k = purple, bright as hell, but you can't see **** down the road pass 10-15ft.