selfbuild 55W HID, low budget, low work vs N30

[Nos]

It began with a short visit it a electro home depot store in my street.
I have never been there before, but this day went in instead of ust going by.

Anywhere overpriced cheapo LED trash everywhere you looked at........................ but suddenly :wow:

I saw this beauty for 40€

Inside a 90/100W H4 incan, a 12V 4.5aH SLA, a cold cathode tube, and arround the reflector eight 5mm LEDs.

As you can see the reflector and the whole light is gigantic with a whole lot of space inside. Ive been looking for ~2 years for a cheap big host like this, so i went to the bay and bought 2x 55W slim ballast HID kits.

The bulbs are H7 4300k because i couldnt find some afforable H4 single low beam bulbs at the time.

After some fitting i got the bulb in the socket, but the light was completely out of focus. :mecry:

The options were either to buy (and 1st FIND) some new H4 bulbs, or somehow make my own kind of socket or attachment. Two hours later i was finally successful!!!


Now let pictures tell

the digital 55W slim ballast

along with my N30

Have a look at the reflector size :devil:

2 minutes after the strike

Hopelessly over exposed white wall shots

a little better but still too bright for my cell phone cam

But with the naked eye the hotspot of the selfbuilt is 4 times brighter....at least! My room is 5 meters long, and at ~2,5m distance the N30 has roughtly the same brightness :nana:
.....talking about throw...... :devil:



*note* runtime is 15min, the SLA is at its end. But a LiPo is on the way




40€ host
23€ HID Kit (46€ total but one is still spare)
Overall the selfbuild cost me so far 63€.


0,5h plug and play and testing
1,5h bulb fitting
Time involved: ~2h



My N30 costed me ~180€ with customs, and 2 hours to retrieve form customs VS 63€ and 2 hours.

Hope you like my Monster "El Uminati" so far.......ill be posting updates with LiPo and 2x MC-E upgrade for pure flood :wave:

 

[SmurfTacular]

So how exactly did you say you got it to focus correctly?

 

[Nos]

So how exactly did you say you got it to focus correctly?

Usually H7 shouldnt fit in the H4 socket attachment, but they did. I could simply put the HID with its socket (or better basement) in the reflector and clamped it tight. The bulb was well keep in place and perfectly centered, but it was ~2cm out of focus.

So I removed the attachment ring from original H4 socket, which was holding the incan bulb and used it as spacer/centering ring for the HID bulb.

Now the bulb was just a tad out of focus, but grinding down the basement of the bulb did it.

 

[SmurfTacular]

Nice, you should post outdoor beamshots.

 

[LiteShow]

Usually H7 shouldnt fit in the H4 socket attachment, but they did. I could simply put the HID with its socket (or better basement) in the reflector and clamped it tight. The bulb was well keep in place and perfectly centered, but it was ~2cm out of focus.

So I removed the attachment ring from original H4 socket, which was holding the incan bulb and used it as spacer/centering ring for the HID bulb.

Now the bulb was just a tad out of focus, but grinding down the basement of the bulb did it.

Great light! I have been thinking about doing a similar project.

Just some questions/clarification in your bulb mounting process: Your host originally took a H4 halogen bulb, correct? You then bought a H7 HID bulb, removed the outer attachment ring of your original H4 halogen bulb, and attached it over the H7 HID bulb? Did you have to do any modifications or did it just fit over? The other thing is how did you secure the outer attachment ring to the H7 HID bulb? Hope I am making sense here.

 

[kramer5150]

Nice work! impressive.

Wow that ballast is small.

I got my HID kit at Xtreme HIDs. They sell single beam H4 lamps with removable shields.

 

[Nos]

The H7 HID basement is fitted over/in the H4 attachment ring, and both are are clamped with the socket clip.

Hope it got clearer now :shrug: ill post pictures when the LiPo arrives.

 

[LiteShow]

The H7 HID basement is fitted over/in the H4 attachment ring, and both are are clamped with the socket clip.

got a few more questions...

So does the H7 base just slide into the attachment ring easily or do you have to modify anything. Is it a tight fit between the base and the ring?

Thanks!

 

[Nos]

The basement sits on the ring, it only needed some grinding at the side for the clip.

With the clip the bulb fits really tight, i have no worries about it getting lose. :thumbsup:

 

[thunderflash89]

Maybe I should contact you... if you would like to build something for me...

 

[M@elstrom]

I removed the attachment ring from original H4 socket, which was holding the incan bulb and used it as spacer/centering ring for the HID bulb.

Ah... a novel approach, glad you were able to rectify the focus issue! :thumbsup:

 

[Nos]

Maybe I should contact you... if you would like to build something for me...

No problem....if you live in Germany

 

[shine]

N30 looks color temperature is 6000K or more. In the fog or rain, penetration is much less 4300K.