Ford-a-tude

Hey everyone! I finally had a chance to play around with my Raxiom Retro Headlamp assemblies. I am concerned that my upgraded HIDs may damage the lens. My OEM headlamps are suffering from thousands of micro cracks within the lens (Crazing) and I don't want to damage these the same way.



I inserted a temperature probe into one of the vent holes and positioned it above the metal shield.



I started with the bulb that shipped with the housings. No brand name, just marked Raxiom 55w 12v. My intentions are to get a baseline temp. reading with the approved bulb from the manufacturer. After approx. 20 minutes the temp peaked at 261°F.



Next I swapped my HID bulb into the housing and repeated the test. It's a 55w from Retro Solutions. This time it went much faster due to the housing already being warmed up and the temp. stabilized right around 270°F. I was pretty surprised at the results and was happy with the 10° difference. The lens material is polycarbonate (Lexan) which starts to become formable at 300°F and starts to flow at 500°F! With a 30° buffer I will take a chance and use my HIDs with these new housings.



This was all done idling in the open garage, so as a last reassurance I held a box fan in front of the light for 5 minutes. You can see that the temp. started to drop, so cruising at 55-60 MPH should provide even more cooling.



My next concern is protection film or not. I would like to keep the lenses from getting that "Sandblasted" look from road debris, but there are mixed feelings on these protection films actually causing crazing.

Fingers crossed and I'll follow up after I get them installed and put some miles on.

dennisafrompa

...but am quite retro! This may open the door for others that want the lamps but have HIDs as you do. There were a few people on the Bullitt forum that want to do this.

freyes

Check out the temp of the connector that attaches to the HID lamps. This is usually where the problems start. The high resistance frys these connectors.

2005Redfire6

I didn't think it was the matter of the HIDs getting too hot in the housing. I was thinking maybe the bulbs were too long and would not fit behind the bulb cap? But thanks for posting that! Has me thinking about getting them now...

RedFire281

Yes, thanks for posting. I have the same 55w Retro-solutions HID and I've really wanted to get these headlights but was unsure about the heat generation and the bulb length as well. I don't have the capped HID bulbs and until I saw your pics I thought I might have to order new bulbs. Looks like you just cost me $374.99. LOL Great post.

kput

I feel that if your lights ever got the "sandblasted" looks you could just polish them back to new..

20_PONY_06

Good information, I was thinking of installing the raxiom lights, now I will put it on my MOD list.