Ricapar

So a word of warning: I probably won't be taking this approach any further than these pics below. Just thought it'd be cool to share.

Main reason being.. The laser I'm using to light up the rings more resembles a light saber than a laser pointer. It's rather large, and expensive. I'm not about to take it apart either

Anyways... I ended up sourcing a pair of shiny new LCI Halogen lights. I had done an Orion V2 install, and I had everything working fine. No condensation, leaks, or other messes. However, I just really didn't like the Orions. They just didn't look natural (you could usually see the bunch of individual LEDs forming the circle). Also, once I got the new headlights, I realized just how bad my previous ones were. Plastic on the front is all scratched and chipped up. The old headlights are now my "project" headlights

About a year ago, I had bought myself a neat little toy... the Spyder III Pro Arctic. A handheld laser that they claim can put out a 1W beam. I have't done any exact measurements of the beam myself, but I can make dark objects start smoking fairly easily.

Paired that up with the opened up project headlights (with the original plastic light rings), and.....


<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">










So, does go to show one thing... Given a strong enough (and focused) light source, it is possible to get the rings to look really bright. It's dark outside right now, but with that laser, the rings' light output was almost on par with the Orions (which seem a bit too bright at times).

Unfortunately that could be attributed toward it being a blue light, and not a white light. It's certainly more distinctive compared to a white.

What is there to take out of this?

Lasers are fun!!

But realistically... I'm convinced that there's untapped potential in the stock angel eyes. HIDs could work a lot better too if the light was focused properly. The internal design of where the rings get light fed in from is actually two parts.. one for each ring. Light has to travel a lot further to reach the outer ring, which is why the inner (smaller) ring usually looks much brighter than the outer one when HIDs are used (basically a huge amount of uncontrolled light). However.. if you were to focus light in the right way, it'd be possible to even it out.

I shall continue messing around. Might try making myself some lens to try to focus some HIDs better.

iamnatio

Wow this is really cool. I would love to see these on during the day in direct sunlight.

I think if you can figure out how to focus an HID light into the rings it could reach the outer rings and even out the look.

nomis_nehc

Actually, the distinct difference in the brightness for the LCI xenons is not shown in the LCI halogens. The inherent problem is the design, but the angel eyes are engineered vastly different for the LCI halogen and LCI xenon.

LCI xenon's AE is not lit like the above at all.

With that said, I have thought of designs that would essentially power each ring by its own focused high powered LED, but at the end of the day, it's just unnecessary R&D on my end since nobody has specifically asked for such (or stepped up with the cash to do it).

AC525

Await your hid lenses

iamnatio

This article is a little old now and not sure if its 100% true, but BMW is testing out lasers as well.
http://content.usatoday.com/communit...mes-brighter/1

Sas

Quote from article: "...the biggest wouldn't be the ability to vaporize the guy coming at you when he won't turn down his high beams. ..."

To funny.