Car Headlight specs for home built (experimental) car??

[dmac386]

I am building an electric car from the ground up and have been looking online for the DOT requirements for illumination levels, distances, heights, viewing angles/beam patterns, for headlights, taillights, turn signals, backup lights etc, and all I seem to find are specs for mods to existing cars that may or may not be in compliance with the "rules." I have been having trouble finding ANY minimum requirements for an experimental car at all. Can someone point me to some actual DOT statutes for lighting or even better for more than lighting?

Thanks,
dmac386

 

[-Virgil-]

The lights and reflective devices on all roadgoing vehicles in the U.S. are governed by Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108, which is contained in the Code of Federal Regulations at 49CFR571.108 . FMVSS108 contains most of the information on what lighting devices are required, where they must be mounted, how they must function, what color of light they must emit or reflect, etc., and also contains design, construction, and performance requirements for headlamps. However, not every detailed requirement is present in FMVSS 108; many requirements are stated only by reference to SAE documents which must be purchased individually from SAE International.

It's a shame the USA continues to insist on having its own special unique safety standards rather than aligning with the rest of the world and adopting ECE ("European") regulations according to the UNECE 1958 Agreement, which are all available for free in full detail and multiple languages.

 

[John_Galt]

Hopefully Scheinwerfermann posts has helped. You're definitely going to have to post some pics of the car, and the lighting for us. Good luck.

Are you trying to go LED or HID as far as headlights go? I believe the SST50 and SST90 are about 100lm/w, and able to produce several thousand lumens. So they would probably be as efficient, if not more efficient than HID.