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Hi, I purchased a set of retrofits that cam with morimoto bulbs and upon closer inspection am wondering if these bulbs are damaged? I'm talking about the brown spot, mid bulb facing the brown pole or whatever you'd call it. Spot is in same place on both bulbs. Any help would be great, ordering ballasts tomorrow and need to know if I need bulbs too. They are bixenon if that means anything.
The brown spots are just the salts that create the light when voltage passes through them. All HID bulbs will have that appearance when they're not powered on. They should be fine. I'd be more worried about the bent return wire at the top of the bulbs but as long as they're not broken they should work.
Ok cool thanks. So the brown spot is no worries, but that wire at the top is, what, supposed to be curved?
Is that bent return wire something that would cause issues? Worth replacing $40 bulbs? I'd maybe trying to bend it so it comes out of the top of the bulb housing completely straight is a very risky proposition?
I'd personally run them as is. The return wire may have been like that right out of the box for all we know. Like I said, if the wire isn't broken it shouldn't be a problem.
Yeah I looked up a bunch of bulb pics of morimoto bulbs and none looked like that, however both my bulbs look exactly the same there. So idk. I guess I'll use em til they go. Lol. The wire isn't actually broken.
Since u seem to know a little something about this.. I'm going with Volt ballasts since they seem comparable to Morimoto and are 30 bucks cheaper. and a cheap $10 9006 relay. Any concerns with a cheap relay? It seems to just be wires, and fuse. Maybe cheap ones aren't copper?
I def don't want to cheap out on the HIDs. I'm just not seeing any real difference between Volt and Morimoto ballasts and differences in relays.
Ive only heard very few stories about cheaper relays but they design is still the same . Id feel more safe with the Morimotos if you don't want to have to go changing them out if you installed them in a hard to reach place.
I went with a $15 relay from some random company that has actual customer support. Lol.
And for the ballasts, I got a cool deal from xenondepot. Instead of $65 shipped for the Volt ballasts, I got the full kit with 4300k bulbs too for $80 shipped due to some promos they were running. So as soon everything arrives, I'll test both bulbs and run with the ones I like most (4300k vs 5000k) since all are quality, laser balanced. I stayed away from going with a 6000k bulb cuz idk it seems like it'd be ricey and I'd rather have the lumens.
Yeah it's about the light output. Afyer I finally have HID if I fall in love with it I have a 4th gen prelude and the e36 fogs are a perfect fit so I'll order the lenses for cheap and stick a cheap DDM 3000k HID kit in them. They're reflector lenses but I figure if I point them down I'll be alright.
I tested the high beam shield on the Morimoto projectors last night with a 9v and one side is perfect and the other side sticks and doesn't fully retract. I'm contemplating opening the headlights and fixing it but idk. I don't have a need for high beams as it is.
04-26-2015, 05:50 PM
are these HID bulbs damaged?
