[cowboyt]

Coming up next: FCPEuro's Jahn D2S* vs. Osram 66240 CLC. Who will win?

* Jahn part # is 12790588 (aka the 983581)

 

[cowboyt]

OK, here we go. Jahn vs. Osram, HID head to head.

The comparison vehicles are as follows:

1.) my '03 S600 TT, which started this thread and was my first headlight assembly refurb/restore, and
2.) the project S500, which I use as the comparison standard.

This is a true bulb-to-bulb comparo, because not only is it the same chassis, but this time, both headlamp assemblies got new Morimoto E46-R D2S projectors. Same exact projector model in each car. Only the bulbs are different.

The S600's packin' Jahn P32d-2 Xenon 1000's, bought from FCPEuro as part #12790588. And as always, the project S500 is rockin' the Osram 66240 CLC "Classic" bulbs.

Color distribution on the Jahn P32d-2's are 4300K. The Osram CLC's are, as mentioned previously, 4000K. So, they should be pretty close to each other.

Let's begin.

You remember the S600. It's the thread-starter here and was compared with its refurb'ed factory assemblies against the S430's pair of stock, unmodified, brand-spankin'-new DEPO assemblies. Here are the low beams.



Right bulb only:



Left bulb only:



Nice, yellow-white glow to 'em, huh? I rather like this color distribution. Pretty bright, too, with a nice, sharp cutoff line. They have not lost any of their brilliance since you first saw them 9 months ago. I was quite impressed by them then, and they continue to light up the road well now. As I mentioned then, this is probably an order of magnitude of an improvement over the burned-out--and DANGEROUS AT NIGHT--projectors these assemblies *used* to have.

Now...let's bring the comparison standard, the project S500, into the mix. Here's what that looks like.



The S500 never fails to disappoint here. I dunno, folks...the Jahn P32d-2's are good...but are the Osram CLC's even better?

Here's the side-by-side comparison.



Like I said...the Jahn's are good. Turns out, yeah, the Osram CLC's are just a bit better.

So, how do they look from the perspective of oncoming traffic? Does one look "cooler" than the other?



Nah, not really. They pretty much look the same from that perspective. Where you see the color difference isn't from the perspective of oncoming traffic, but rather the light thrown on the road.

OK, time for the high beams. First, the S600 with the Jahn P32d-2's.



Next, the project S500 with the Osram CLC's.



And both together.



This is an even truer test of light output than the low-beam test, because there's no shield-positioning difference to affect the results, even if only slightly. You can see the color difference here. The Jahn P32d-2's have just a bit more yellow glow than the Osram CLC's "whiter" light. Again, this is despite the P32d-2's being rated slightly higher than the CLC's. You can also see a slight brightness difference between the two, with the project S500 (on left) having the small advantage.

Of course, we've got to include the head-on pic of the high beams as well.



This is done not to compare brightness, which is silly here, but rather the color distribution that oncoming traffic sees from that bulb. In other words, how "kewl" you might look. Note the project S500 (on the right in this head-on view) actually looks more yellow-ish than the S600. I learned after taking the photo that this does depend on your exact position in front of the cars. This is generally true of projector HID's and why some people think, "oh, blue is KEWL!" The true judge is what we see against the wall. Also, the halogen high-beam bulbs may be affecting things here.

Conclusions?

First, physical positioning does matter when you're taking pictures, or evaluating the apparent color distribution, of projector HID's. That last head-on picture of the high beams, compared to the head-on picture of the low beams where I was more careful, reminds us of this truth.

Now, the bulbs. Despite their slightly higher Kelvin rating, the Jahn P32d-2 HID bulbs do appear to produce slightly more yellowish light than the Osram 66240 CLC's. This is borne out on the road, too; having spent much quality time with both cars, the Osrams do tend a little bit more towards the "pure white" spectrum than the Jahns do. This is a matter of personal taste; I rather appreciate the slightly yellow-ish glow and find it easy on the eyes. However, the Osrams are hardly jarring by any means.

Also, I'm seeing a slight edge in brightness from the Osram CLC's. Remember, both cars are using the exact same model of Morimoto projector, the E46-R. The best way to tell this is with the high-beams on, so you eliminate any possible slight differences in low-beam shield positioning.

As with the CLC vs. CBI comparison, *both* bulbs produce a lot of light. I understand that the Jahn P32d-2 bulb is OEM in several models of BMW and Porsche, and with obvious and good reason. I can tell you that the S600 lights up the road *quite* nicely.

And that brings us to the real-world differences between these two bulbs: price and personal preference.

I bought the Jahn P32d-2 bulbs from FCPEueo for about $49.50 each almost a year ago, so that's about $99 for the pair, shipped. They're now up to $52 there, and between $48 and $50 at other places, including eBay. Why did I buy them? Well, they're OEM quality, that's why. Remember, Porsche and BMW.

However...I bought the pair of Osram 66240 CLC's for $60, shipped. That's a savings of about $40, depending on where you buy them. And on top of that, those CLC's just slightly--slightly--edge out the P32d-2's.

I don't know how long those CLC's are going to remain at that price. But given that at $30 each, they're going for what a so-called "premium" halogen bulb goes for, the CLC's really are the headlight deal of the decade. "Cheap" Osrams, indeed....

But whichever one you get--and you may or may not prefer the warmer glow of the P32d-2's--there's nothing like throwing lots of light down the road when you need to. Am I going to swap out the Jahns for a pair of Osrams? HECK, NO! Remember, we're comparing quality HID's to quality HID's here; on an absolute scale, *both* are very bright and do a fine job.

 

[cowboyt]

Here we will see the difference between projectors. I just recently completed the retrofit of my Honda Civic EG sedan with HID's. The difference from the halogens is just astounding. The equipment list is as follows.

1.) Osram Xenarc 66240 Classic. Yep, the one I keep calling the bargain.
2.) Morimoto Mini-D2S bi-xenon projectors with E55 shrouds
3.) New low/high beam housings with the clear, non-fluted glass lens
4.) Hylux 2A88 AMP ballasts, used primarily 'cause they're small
5.) AMP-to-D2S adaptors
6.) Black headlight sealant

The Mini-D2S projectors fit right into the 9003/H4 housing. There was a little trimming I had to do to get the projector cut-off line to be horizontal. Some careful chiseling took care of that.

The wiring, I had to figure out. Since this era of Civic uses the H4 (aka 9003) bulb type, that means dual filament in the same physical package. Can't just do a straight wire-up like with W220's, because due to the H4 wiring setup, you hit the high beams, and the bulb goes off. Whoops. Learned about the "diode trick" for the high-beams and keeping the bulb lit. So, I overengineered the diode capacity and used 6A diodes, just in case. They were only $5.00 apiece, so no problem far as I'm concerned.

Took some work to get everything fitted in and aimed right. Those adjustment screws are a PAIN to get to.

Anyway, it works great. I get better lights, with a "somewhat stock-ish" look, without blinding oncoming traffic.

The comparison car is, as usual, my best friend's 2000 S500 that I had retrofitted several months ago. As always, it's packin' the Osram 66240 CLC's and Morimoto E46 projectors inside new Depo housings.

The Honda still needed some finishing-touch aiming when these pictures were taken. That aiming was completed just last night at around 9:00pm.

Yep, as usual, thumbnails *are* clickable.

First, the low-beams of the newly-converted Civic.



Right side only:



Left side only:



Could this little pip-squeak Honda be giving our beloved W220 some competition? I can understand the E-class doing it--after all, it's a Benz, too--but the Honda? A *CIVIC*?? Could it be...?

Let's find out.

Low beam output compared to that of the Mercedes S500. The Civic is on the right. You can see here that the Civic is a little low and to the right (that's what I fixed last night--it's dead-on now).



Yep, looks like we've got a contender here--The Lumen Lucha Is ON! :grin

Light output directly in front of each car onto street (also know as, are foglights superfluous?). I'm standing to the right of the Civic.



Same thing, this time from the left, standing just to the left of the Mercedes. There are street lights kinda drowning out the light output, but both pairs do light up the road in front of the cars, with a slight edge to the Benz.



High beams of the Civic:



High beams of the S500:



Both cars' high beams at once.



As can be seen here, the low beams of the S500 are just slightly brighter than the Civic's. However, the high beam outputs are darn near equal. There may even be a slight advantage to the Civic's high-beam outputs here.

Now, back to low beams for a moment. This is more of a "light output immediately in front of the car" evaluation. You can see that both sets perform pretty well here, so foglights aren't strictly necessary. The S500's bulb output looks bluer here because of the angle at which I was standing; both cars use the exact same model of bulb. The camera was held as high as I could hold it for this picture.



And now looking at the bulbs from just below the low-beam cutoff line. Note the S500's bulbs now look more yellow. Goes to show, angle of photography matters a lot with that.



Immediately in front of each car. The S500 does light up the ground a little better, but not by much. These Mini-D2S's in the Civic are actually doing pretty well.



Now let's look at high beam output, just for fun. Holding the camera up high....



...and now down low. Pretty meaningless; again, it was just for fun.



Left headlight in action. I wasn't sure which would turn up better, so I took two snaps. Gotta learn.




And the right side in action. You'll note that I'm using the factory amber turn-signal indicators here, for that OEM look (I kinda like OEM). Matter of fact, I bought a couple of new ones from HondaPartsNow.com because these original ones looked fine compared to the stock fluted halogen assemblies. But compared to these brand-new, clear lens low/high beam assemblies, these amber indicators showed the 24 years of road time. So, time for new OEM ones, which had already arrived and thus also got installed last night.



Now, these pics are from yesterday, shortly before I got to work on re-aiming the headlights.

This pic was taken with the phone camera's flash. Despite it being cloudy overcast daytime, it looks like nighttime. Like I said, gotta learn. But it is an interesting photographic effect!



Lesson learned; turn off the flash. Here's the right hand side, taken one minute later. Again, I'm going for as OEM a look as I can with this retrofit.




Here's the beginning of the pics showing how the wiring and ballast is laid out in the engine compartment. The right side was easier to place the ballast, with the wiring being the same. No, it's not perfect; far from it. But it's my first such project.



This is the car's left side. You can see the ballast Velcro'd onto that well where the strut fits into (I don't know that part's official name yet). Since the Hylux 2A88 ballast is a CANbus error-canceling ballast, you can see the "Error Canceller" as well, next to the timing belt cover. These ballasts were originally bought for the S430 before I learned how to set XENON=PRESENT. Being 1990's-era cars, CANbus error cancellers aren't needed on this generation of Civic, but it doesn't seem to hurt either if your ballast happens to have them. Any ballast small enough to physically fit into the car would work just as well here. I found it somewhat tough to find a good place for a ballast in the Civic, and this took the majority of my time. You can see the red and black (+ and -) wires as well, held in place by some clips. No, it's not a clean harness type setup. But it seems to work pretty well.

So, what do we take away from *this* comparison?

1.) Again, the 66240 CLC is a good bulb.
2.) Morimoto has really come along with their Mini-series of projectors. These Mini-D2S's are just about as bright as either the E46's in the W220's or the EVOX-R 2.0's in the W211.
3.) No matter what type of car, there's nothing like HID's to light up the road at night. Seriously.
4.) H4/9003 wiring needs a bit of extra consideration. But it's definitely doable.
5.) I'm apparently addicted to HID conversions.

 

[cowboyt]

Been looking at the S600 TT's headlamp assemblies over the last almost two years. The original refurbishment I had done was an enormous improvement. However, since this was a refurb of the factory assemblies, I had refinished the lens covers. When I'd put them back on, I realized that there was some imperfections on the *inside* as well. Turns out there was some yellowing on the inside. Refinishing the outside isn't too bad, but refinishing the inside as well? Nah, way too much of a pain, time to try some new lens covers.

Yes, the new lens covers are Chinesium. They seem to be the only folks that make 'em for sale, separately from the headlamp assembly. The price was about $60 for the pair, including shipping.

I know, Chinesium, probably gonna suck.

Turns out they actually fit rather well. They appear to have the proper toughness, too, they're just as thick as the factory lens covers, and they're crystal-clear. They are mounted on the S600 TT now, and yes, it is a noticeable difference. Going to put a coat of Opti-Lens on 'em ASAP, just in case.

Makes me wonder if that Jahn vs. Osram comparison was actually a fair comparo. Hmm....

 

[cowboyt]

New review! This time, it's DEPO's "factory bi-xenon" W220 headlamp assemblies.

When I looked at the internal wiring for the S600's headlamp assemblies, I got rather concerned by the wire insulation flaking off. As a former electronics technician, I could rewire the whole thing with new, better wiring. However, that would take time to do properly, especially with the connectors.

So, instead, I bought a brand new pair of DEPO headlamps for factory bi-xenon cars. Short version: they work very well and as is apparently typical of DEPO, the internals are high quality, like the Bosch originals, but with better wiring insulation. However, DEPO went a bit further. Unlike my Bosch factory originals, the DEPO assemblies do have the plug, all wired up, for the low-beam auto-leveling motor. Yep, the bi-xenon versions come with that motor as well. Why the Bosch ones don't have that wired up, I don't know. You do need to use your existing HID bulb and factory Bosch ballast, but all the other bulbs--turn signal, fog lamp, halogen high-beam, and the little parking bulb--all come with the unit. In my case, I used the Jahn HID bulbs from when I first refurbished the factory assemblies. Yes, it turns out the Jahn bulbs are just as bright as the Osram 66240 CLC's.

Anyway....

I did note something when I had one of them apart. Yep, I took the left one apart to see how it was built and to see if the included HID projectors would be as good as the wonderful Morimoto E46's (it appears that yes, they are). First, the wiring is slightly different with the bi-xenon headlights vs. the single xenons that fit into the factory-halogen cars. Inside the headlight assembly, you have two separate ground wires, and no, they are not connected together inside the headlamp assembly. DEPO's goal is to replicate the factory as exactly as possible, and they did this with the internal wiring as well. Tracing out the wires and checking things with both an ohmmeter and a 12V motorcycle battery, all the lights work just like the factory Bosch assembly. Heck, the parts are interchangeable with the Bosch one. Even the high-beam solenoid shield in the bi-xenon projector has the three-pin connector! Yep, just like Bosch. That means you do not have to swap over your Bosch bi-xenon solenoid to the DEPO projector the way I've done previously with the Morimoto E46 projectors. Nor do you need to use the alternative of the two-pin-to-three-pin wiring adaptor, either.

These things really are plug and play.

HOWEVER....

One of the connectors took some oomph to plug in at first. My S600 TT has two headlight connectors on each side of the car. There's the "main" one for lights and a second one that appears to be wired to the ballast. That second connector is the one that takes some oomph to get plugged in all the way. It might feel like you're forcing it the first time you plug it in. Go ahead and do so; it's just a really tight fit. Getting it off required the careful use of a screwdriver as a small pry bar, alternating on each side of the connector. I found that if you do a few cycles of "plug it in, pull it back out", it does get somewhat easier, though still a pretty darn snug fit.

Here's how you know you don't have it plugged all the way in yet. If you activate your turn signals or hazard lights, you will hear the bi-xenon projector's high-beam solenoids activating instead of seeing your turn signals go on and off.

Once I figured out that, yes, you should "force" that connector into its receptacle, everything started working great.

The rest of the review, with pics, will be coming soon.

 

[cowboyt]

I've been meaning to upgrade the 2003 S430's projectors from the "stock" Depo single-xenons to bi-xenons for some time now. Well, last week, this got done. And I learned something new in the process.

From a few years ago, we know that the single-xenon projectors in the "stock" Depo headlamps are pretty good. They certainly outdid the reflector HID's in the pre-facelift cars. But, as you all should know by now, I like to do even better.

Sadly, Morimoto no longer produces the E46-R projector that I had been using. Their replacement is the Mini-D2S 5.0 projector with some adaptor bracket to fit the E46 bolt pattern. The bracket does line up perfectly with the screw holes. Unfortunately, the Mini-D2S projector with that bracket does not physically fit.

Fortunately, I had ordered some ACME-brand E46-R projectors from hidprojectors.com a few years ago. The projector bowls aren't quite as mirror-finished as the Morimotos were. They looked kinda like the stock Depo single-xenon bowls. But a bi-xenon upgrade is still a bi-xenon upgrade.

Turns out these ACME projectors actually are pretty decent. Seems to be a viable replacement for the now-discontinued Morimotos. And it seems that finding new AL Bosch brand projectors to buy is...difficult.

 

[cowboyt]

And now, here are the pics. This is the 2003 S430, with new Depo headlamps for either any pre-facelift car (HID or halogens) or any post-facelift halogen car (this model currently remains available from Depo), modified with the ACME bi-xenon projectors from www.hidprojectors.com. They are, I believe, also available from at least The Retrofit Source at present.

The HID bulbs are the same in both comparison cars, namely the Osram XenArc 66240 CLC Classic, which I've been using now since late 2017, starting with (back then) the project 2000 S500, now the wife's 2000 S500.

First, the preview, with the 2000 S500 on the left, and the 2003 S430 on the right. As usual, the thumbnails are clickable.



Hmm...looks like this is gonna be a pretty decent match-up, doesn't it? Let's get to it!

Right low-beam only:



Left low-beam only:



Both headlights together:



Note the nice, sharp cutoff lines.

Now let's have a look at the high-beams.



Hmm...pretty bright. I can assure you that these light up the road rather nicely.

Now, let's bring in the comparison standard, the 2000 S500, with its excellent Morimoto E46 projectors and also packin' Osram 66240 CLC bulbs.

First, both cars in low-beam mode.



Ahh...the S500 has yet to disappoint in the over four years that we've had it. It remains as luminous now as it always has, which is why it remains the comparison standard. But these ACME projectors...despite my initial misgivings due to the "less shiny" mirrored finish on them compared to the Morimotos, these ACME projectors seem to be doing considerably better than I had expected. The ACME projectors, like the Morimotos, have a nice, wide light distribution, too, and it's very helpful on the road.

Note also the ground illumination right in front of both cars. The S500's Morimoto projectors always have made the foglights superfluous. Apparently, so do these ACME's. The Morimotos do appear to have a slight edge in overall brightness, but not by very much!

Also, remember that this is the exact same model of HID bulb in both cars, namely the Osram XenArc 66240 CLI Classic. You can see a slight shift toward more blue-ness with the S500 over the last four and a half years. What's up with that? Well, the S430's bulbs are brand-new, never been used before, and HID bulbs do gradually drift a bit to more blue over time. I've seen this before with other HID bulbs; apparently that's normal. After about 10 more years or so, the S500's bulbs eventually will look just like Osram's popular 66240 CLI "Cool Blue" model, or like those modern LED headlamps on the newer cars today. The S430's will take about 15 years to get there, since they're brand-new.

Here, I show you why I did this mod. This is a reminder of how the S430's Depos originally came, from the comparo I did in 2017. As usual, the S500 comparison standard is on the left, with the S430 on the right.



The stock, un-modded Depos are pretty good, and I've always maintained that. They are good. But the reason for this mod is now pretty obvious. It's quite an improvement.

Let's continue. Here's the S430 in high-beam mode.



Now, the S500 in high-beam mode.



And both cars.



Dang...Dracula and his minions had better beware of either of these cars, huh?

Here, BTW, is the high-beam comparison of these same cars, from 2017, with the S430 again on the right, as a reminder of how things had been up to this point.



Yep. The stock Depos have always been good. We're just in a different weight class now.

We can notice a few things about the high beams. In both cases, you can see the halogens lit up, though they are generally superfluous. With the S430, the halogen high beams point a bit higher than the HID's do, and that's generally been true with the Depo headlight assemblies (S500 included--just a little bit). In the specific case of the S430's headlamps, the halogen high beams originally were A LOT higher, I'd say by as much as a 5 degree angle. As you can imagine, this causes some issues when adjusting the aim of the headlamps.

Therefore, a little shimming of the HID projector was called for to bring them closer, which I did. They're still higher, as you can see, but not by nearly as much as they had been. This didn't matter so much to me when the S430's headlamp assemblies were still using their single-xenon projectors. But after doing this mod, it was so obvious that I had to do something about it, thus the shimming. The results work well on the road.

Let's have a look at the front of the cars as well. This is for color distribution.

First, the high beams. The effect of the halogen high-beam bulbs is present.



And now the low beams.



Here's where really we see the difference in the light spectrum output of the bulbs. Again, the S500's have been getting used on a regular basis by my wife over the last 4 and a half years. The color shift is slight, but noticeable, though it doesn't appear to diminish brightness any. Actually, the light output right in front of each car looks just as bright. What I might have been seeing above as a "slightly dimmer" output from the S430? That might be just the color-shift, because here, they both look just as bright on the ground.

So, what does this comparison teach us? Well, a few things.

First, the ACME E46 projectors are a good substitute for the amazing--and apparently no longer available--Morimoto E46 projectors. Why did Morimoto discontinue them? I called The Retrofit Source and asked 'em. Apparently not enough people do mods on E46-based headlamp assemblies anymore, so the sales weren't there. This seems odd to me, given that BMW E46 mods are still routinely done, but Morimoto's replacement product for that is the Mini-D2S projector with an adaptor plate. I bought a set of those, and THEY DO NOT FIT!! The adaptor plate fits, yes, but the projectors bump up against the projector supports in the headlamp assembly, so those are a no-go in a Mercedes-Benz W220. So, we have to use an actual E46 replica.

That's why I tried the ACME projectors out anyway, despite my initial concern about the mirroring. Turns out that concern was unfounded, as you can see in the pictures; these ACME's are pretty darn good. The Morimoto E46's do have a slight edge on them, but it's slight; the ACME E46's put in a very good performance. The hot-spot on the ACME's actually seems to be a bit more consistently placed than on the Morimotos. Personally, I don't believe the slight difference between them will matter in real-world driving, because both of them light up the road really well.

Now, let's briefly talk about the modding process and some adjustments that I had to make here. The ACME projectors did require the use of J-B Weld to secure the projector shrouds, once the projectors were installed into the headlamp assembly. This is because the snaps on the shrouds are not lined up with the slots on the projector. I believe this is because I used the shrouds from the Depo-stock single-xenon projectors. Had I bought new shrouds for the ACME projectors, they might have snapped right in, but even The Retrofit Source says to use J-B Weld even in that case, so nothing new here.

Also, the Depos do need a little shimming of the projector itself so that the HID is aimed to the same level as the high-beams. This is not difficult; I've done it. If one is careful about it, it can even be done without disassembling the headlamp assembly, i. e. having to take the lens cover off. I used several thin washers, JB-Welded together, to construct an appropriate thickness of shim. In this application, the J-B Weld that sets in 15 minutes would work very well here and speed up the process (I used the traditional J-B Weld, so the process took a couple of days).

So, do I still recommend this mod? Yeah, I do. It remains a good one, and the ACME bi-xenon E46 projector gets the job done. I was quite pleasantly surprised by the results here.

 

[cowboyt]

New review! This time, it's DEPO's "factory bi-xenon" W220 headlamp assemblies.

When I looked at the internal wiring for the S600's headlamp assemblies, I got rather concerned by the wire insulation flaking off. As a former electronics technician, I could rewire the whole thing with new, better wiring. However, that would take time to do properly, especially with the connectors.

So, instead, I bought a brand new pair of DEPO headlamps for factory bi-xenon cars. Short version: they work very well and as is apparently typical of DEPO, the internals are high quality, like the Bosch originals, but with better wiring insulation. However, DEPO went a bit further. Unlike my Bosch factory originals, the DEPO assemblies do have the plug, all wired up, for the low-beam auto-leveling motor. Yep, the bi-xenon versions come with that motor as well. Why the Bosch ones don't have that wired up, I don't know. You do need to use your existing HID bulb and factory Bosch ballast, but all the other bulbs--turn signal, fog lamp, halogen high-beam, and the little parking bulb--all come with the unit. In my case, I used the Jahn HID bulbs from when I first refurbished the factory assemblies. Yes, it turns out the Jahn bulbs are just as bright as the Osram 66240 CLC's.

Anyway....

I did note something when I had one of them apart. Yep, I took the left one apart to see how it was built and to see if the included HID projectors would be as good as the wonderful Morimoto E46's (it appears that yes, they are). First, the wiring is slightly different with the bi-xenon headlights vs. the single xenons that fit into the factory-halogen cars. Inside the headlight assembly, you have two separate ground wires, and no, they are not connected together inside the headlamp assembly. DEPO's goal is to replicate the factory as exactly as possible, and they did this with the internal wiring as well. Tracing out the wires and checking things with both an ohmmeter and a 12V motorcycle battery, all the lights work just like the factory Bosch assembly. Heck, the parts are interchangeable with the Bosch one. Even the high-beam solenoid shield in the bi-xenon projector has the three-pin connector! Yep, just like Bosch. That means you do not have to swap over your Bosch bi-xenon solenoid to the DEPO projector the way I've done previously with the Morimoto E46 projectors. Nor do you need to use the alternative of the two-pin-to-three-pin wiring adaptor, either.

These things really are plug and play.

HOWEVER....

One of the connectors took some oomph to plug in at first. My S600 TT has two headlight connectors on each side of the car. There's the "main" one for lights and a second one that appears to be wired to the ballast. That second connector is the one that takes some oomph to get plugged in all the way. It might feel like you're forcing it the first time you plug it in. Go ahead and do so; it's just a really tight fit. Getting it off required the careful use of a screwdriver as a small pry bar, alternating on each side of the connector. I found that if you do a few cycles of "plug it in, pull it back out", it does get somewhat easier, though still a pretty darn snug fit.

Here's how you know you don't have it plugged all the way in yet. If you activate your turn signals or hazard lights, you will hear the bi-xenon projector's high-beam solenoids activating instead of seeing your turn signals go on and off.

Once I figured out that, yes, you should "force" that connector into its receptacle, everything started working great.

The rest of the review, with pics, will be coming soon.

At long last, here is that review. We did this comparison this Monday evening, the night before we did the above comparo with the S430's ACME bi-xenons.

At this time, the headlamp assembly is not available from DEPO, unfortunately (the one for post-facelift halogen cars, and all pre-facelift cars, remains available). However, as the supply chain gradually continues to come back up, hopefully they'll start production of the bi-xenon assemblies.

I'm doing this comparison primarly because of the particular E46 projector that comes with the DEPO bi-xenon headlamp assemblies. They don't have a manufacturer's name on them, so I don't know who makes these, but they do have just as smooth a finish on them as the Morimoto E46 projectors do. The bulbs in the S600's DEPO's are the Jahn D2S bulbs. The S500, as always, is packin' its always-excellent Osram XenArc 66240 CLI Classics.

Let's begin.

First, the preview. Wow...there's some difference in the shape of the light output, but the brightness appears to be there...how will it go?



We begin with the low beams.



Right low-beam.



Left low-beam.



Looks pretty good, nice and bright, and just as importantly, wide.

Now, let's bring in the comparison standard, the wife's 2000 S500.



The 2000 S500 never disappoints. The 2003 S600 is lookin' pretty darn good here, though, isn't it? Nice and bright, like one would hope.

Note the difference in the shape of the light output, especially right in front of the car. The S500's Morimoto E46's are round, basically hyperbolic or parabolic (I'm not sure which) conical section. By contrast, the bi-xenon projectors that came with the DEPO assemblies show a squared-off pattern. I'm guessing that's because of the shield used in these projectors. They do light up the front of the car, though. And the hot-spots seem to be good on these projectors.

I also note that the light output from these bi-xenon projectors is considerably greater than that of even the pretty-good single-xenons that DEPO use in their "for halogen cars" headlight assembly. Up until very recently, the 2003 S430 had those single-xenon projectors. Here's a reminder. The 2000 S500 is on the left, the 2003 S430 is on the right.



The difference is obvious. Remember, the single-xenon projector in the DEPO pre-facelift headlight assemblies actually is pretty good, and I've always said this. They are. It just seems that DEPO's bi-xenon projector, whatever the one is that they use in their bi-xenon assemblies, is indeed of a higher grade, on the order of the Morimoto E46 projectors. I really like that.

Let's continue.

2003 S600's high beams.



Followed by the 2000 S500's high beams.



Again, we can see the difference in shape of the light output here. But what about the brightness?



Oh, yeah. Pretty much a dead heat here. Only the shape is different. The halogen high beams are irrelevant here; in both cases, the HID's just drown 'em out.

While both do make the foglamps pretty much superfluous, I do notice that perhaps the S500's "on the ground" performance might be just a tick brighter, though that may be due to the eyes getting fooled here by a slight color-shift difference between the Osram and the Jahn bulbs, with the Osrams being just a little more "blue-ish". However, up against the wall, i. e. projecting light down the road, these two headlamp assemblies appear to be the equal of each other when it comes to brightness. And that's really what matters most.

Let's look into that shape difference a little more closely. Here's the 2003 S600, with its squared-off output. You can see the hood ornament of the car close to the bottom of the picture.



And the same thing for the 2000 S500. Much rounder here. Appears to be maybe a bit brighter on the ground as well, as I mentioned previously.



Now, for color distribution. Remember that these are different bulbs here. The S500's got Osrams, while the S600's got Jahns.

First, the high beams. The halogen high-beam will have an effect here.



And now, the low beams.



Hmm...in both cases, the frequency spectrum output looks pretty close. As in the above S430-vs-S500 comparision, look at the on-the-ground brightness. They appear to match in brightness here. You can see that slight light spectrum difference, though it is a slight difference. This is most likely because the wife drives the S500 every day. I drive the S600 frequently, but not every day like she does with her car (there's the 2003 S430, the Civic, etc.). Plus, there was that almost-year (late 2019 to mid 2020) when I didn't drive the S600 at all due to troubleshooting that cylinder misfiring problem. Thus, the Jahn bulbs simply don't have as many hours on them as the wife's Osrams do.

So, what did we learn here?

First, this is the projector that DEPO should've used from the get-go in their model for upgrading halogen post-facelift cars (also pre-facelift, both halogen and HID--same model). Why they thought people would respond badly to a bi-xenon projector like this one is beyond me. Whatever that bi-xenon projector is, it's a good one. Though the output shape is different from that of the Morimoto E46, it's every bit the equivalent in down-the-road performance as the Morimoto.

Note also that I did not have to modify this headlight assembly one bit. It came with that kind of performance straight out of the box.

But what about the slight advantage on the ground, right in front of the car?

Not really a big deal. The most important factor is down-the-road performance. Can you see what's down the road? The answer here is a definite YES. The light output right in front of the ground is already considerably brighter than the foglights, which are superfluous here just as they are with the S500. I've driven the S600, with these new DEPO bi-xenons, on unlit country roads at night. As a previous US Presidential candidate once said, "I guarantee you there's no problem, I guarantee it." Seriously, these things perform brilliantly on the road. Having driven the wife's 2000 S500 on those same unlit country roads, I can confirm that DEPO's bi-xenon headlamp assembly performs just as well, without any modifications.

Also, the Jahn bulbs, as you can see, are just as bright as the Osram 66240's. There's a reason that Porsches came with them. You can't go wrong with either bulb.

I really hope that DEPO resumes production of these. There remain a lot of post-facelift cars out here, especially S500's, that came with bi-xenons. I did take one of them apart just to see how they were built, and yep, they've got the auto-leveling motor, and high quality of construction, in usual DEPO fashion.

So, to paraphrase President Biden, "C'mon, DEPO!" 😁

 

[cowboyt]

The 2006 S350 will be getting this bi-xenon upgrade treatment next. It's got the LED bulbs in halogen assemblies and thus halogen projectors. It's not bad, about like the pre-facelift reflector HID's. With that said, it doesn't measure up to the DEPO single-xenons, and, like the pre-facelift HID's, it gets absolutely annihilated by the Morimoto bi-xenon-upgraded DEPO's.

If I can, I'll take pictures of the process. Here's the equipment I'll use.

• Bulbs: Osram XenArc 66240, standard D2S fitting
• Projectors: Morimoto E46 bi-xenons
• Ballasts: MB Bosch, taken from a low-mileage pre-facelift car (Dad's 2000 S430, which has had DEPO's for several years now)
• New lens covers, specifically the spares that I have from experimenting with the 2003 S600's original factory headlamps

I'll have a weekend coming up reasonably soon, so that should give me some time to knock this out. For this project, I'll first try out the headlamp assemblies that are currently in there (they're some un-named aftermarket). If that doesn't work out for some reason, then I'll buy another pair of DEPO's to mod, because I know for sure those will work.

We shall see!

 

[tim687]

My car went for an MOT a month ago, and I heard the guy say something about a something silver too. I think he was referring to this.

What is the silver lining? Is it inside of the lens, responsible for getting all the light through the lower part of the lens?

 

[cowboyt]

It's inside the projector. Over time, the heat from the bulb will "cook off" the silver mirroring inside the projector and thus reduce the output. The lens itself will be fine, as that is glass.

 

[tim687]

Have you ever replaced the projector on a non bi-xenon (I assume that bi-xenon means that there is an flap that moves away for high beam) pre-facelift car?

My xenons aren't very bright

EDIT: I see, it's the plastic piece behind the xenon that reflects the light going to the back, forward. It is interesting to see if we can refurbish that ourselves

 

[cowboyt]

Yes, I have. I've done projector replacements on both single-xenon-based headlamps, and bi-xenon-based headlamps. The process is almost exactly the same, with the sole diference being the wiring up of the bi-xenon solenoid. I'll explain.

The DEPO headlamps that I bought all are single-xenons. On all low-beam projectors, be they halogen or HID, there's a (usually metal) shield that blocks half the light. This shield is needed because a projector will simply shine light like a really bright flashlight, i. e. in a roughly circular pattern. That's great for a high beam, but it of course blinds drivers in oncoming traffic, which is very bad.

Single-xenon projectors have that shield welded in place. It's always a low beam. Bi-xenon projectors have that shield mounted on a hinge and moveable by a small electromagnet (more specifically, a solenoid). When you hit the high beams, that solenoid activates and moves that shield out of the way so that you get the full output, both "halves", of the light. That's why bi-xenons are so good and so desirable out on unlit country roads at night.

So, when you have a halogen or single-xenon W220 headlamp, there's no wiring for a bi-xenon solenoid. The solution there is simply to splice the bi-xenon solenoid into the high-beam's circuit, in parallel (do NOT do it in series, you'll burn up the solenoid!), so that both activate simultaneously. When you have a bi-xenon W220 headlamp, you either keep the factory solenoid (those seem to last forever) and move it to your new projector, because then it's plug 'n' play into the three-wire bi-xenon solenoid wiring harness. Or you can use the 3-wire-to-2-wire adaptor that a fellow out there makes for this purpose. I prefer to just move the original solenoid to the new projector.

If you're thinking of refurbishing your projector, I wouldn't bother. First, the projector itself (the ellipsoid part) should be made of metal, not plastic. Second, for US $150, it's worth it for me to just replace the doggone projectors. I don't have the time to attempt to refurbish burnt-out mirroring and hope that I get it right without it flaking off 6 months to a year from now...if I'm lucky. Remember, this is a somewhat high temperature situation, and I doubt you'll be able to get a mirror finish like they had originally, and like the Morimotos of today have. I suspect it's deposited electrochemically.

The "stock DEPO" single-xenon projectors that I reference above are "pretty good". The Morimoto bi-xenon projectors are stellar, with the ACME bi-xenon projectors just a hair behind them in light output. They're both very close, as the pictures show. I'd use either the ACME's or the Morimotos happily, depending strictly on availability.

 

[tim687]

Added to my todo list 😉

 

[cowboyt]

OK, the headlamp rebuild is in progress. I'm using the DEPO's in Dad's car for this purpose, and these will get tested on the 2006 S350.

"But CowboyT, didn't you already upgrade the DEPO's in your Dad's car a couple of years ago?"

Yeah, I did. But I did an experiment, replacing the projector lenses from the Morimotos with some Fresnel-cut lenses from another set of projectors. Turns out that was a bad idea, because those Frensel lenses were from HALOGEN projectors! Those have a different focal point, which, combined with the HID projector shape, were as bright as you'd expect, but the light was way down low and an odd shape. Even maxing out the height adjustment in the headlamp assemblies would get them properly aimed.

So, I figured, why not just fix those by putting the original projector lenses, which I did keep, back on those projectors? Turns out the process for doing that is exactly the same as for doing an HID projector upgrade, because you have to take the projector out in both cases. That's what I'm doing. Again, the process is exactly the same. Plus, I can show you how to wire up the bi-xenon solenoid into the (halogen) high-beam circuit.

Both are currently apart, with some pictures taken. I intend to finish these up this evening after work...assuming Murphy doesn't raise his ugly Law. The ballasts are Hella Gen 3's, and the bulbs, as usual, are Osram XenArc 66240 CLC's (Classics), with a 4100K spectrum output. The projectors are ACME, as it turns out, instead of Morimoto, however, they're the ones with the really shiny mirroring on the inside. Seems that Morimoto doesn't make the E46 anymore for business reasons, so ACME is now our source for good E46 projectors.

 

[cowboyt]

Here are some pics of the process. I started taking them shortly after I had removed the lens covers from the headlamp assemblies. I had also removed the outer piece of plastic chrome trim, since that's held in there by the black butyl glue as well, so you have to do it while things are still warm.

Thumbnails are, as always, clickable for the larger version.

Let's remove the projector. It's held in by three ball joints. Two of them are held in by a screwed-in clamp. The third is a snap-fit.

"Hey, what's that grey stuff surrounding the projector lens?" That's the J-B Weld that I had used to hold the projector shroud (I use the standard E55 shroud). You know, that thing that makes things prettier in there and hides the inner workings. The Retrofit Source actually recommends using J-B Weld for this, and I agree. Of course, that makes later disassembly, like what we're doing now, a bit more of a challenge. I had to be pretty careful to pry that shroud off of there without cracking anything.

Let's continue. That third ball joint--the one that's actually a ball--is a snap-in, and it's a tight fit. To get it out. we swing the projector holder (the white thing holding the projector) open like a door and pry just a bit. The joint then snaps loose fairly easily. Note that this is a new DEPO headlamp unit with new plastic; original MB Bosch headlamps have pretty brittle plastic by now, and you're likely to break one of those tabs. It's no big deal; just keep steppin'.

We do it like this.

To be continued, due to a forum limitation on number of images in a single post....

 

[cowboyt]

So, now we've got the projector (in its holder) out. There are four screws holding the projector to that white holder.

Now, here's something I've discovered about DEPO headlamps. They are built well. I've said so, and Dave2302 and others have confirmed it. Their actual construction is every bit as good as the AL Bosch originals; generally speaking, DEPO did their homework, and it shows.

There is, however, one area for improvement. The high beams do tend to be aimed--by DEPO at the factory, apparently--just a few degrees high compared to the low-beam projector that we just removed. This is easily adjusted by adding a few washer "shims". Is this really necessary? No, it isn't; you've seen the various pictures of my modded DEPO's before. The high-beam position really is made kinda superfluous by those monster bi-xenon projectors. But you all by now also know how retentive I tend to be about getting things just right, and now's the time to do it, since we have everything apart already. So, here's how we do the shimming.

First, the rear of the projector with its holder. You can see the four screws that need to be removed at each corner; they're the dull silver-colored ones with Phillips heads. In this case, I was replacing only the lens, not the entire projector, but the process is the same when replacing the full projector, too.

I used two 5mm washers as my shims. We insert them between the projector holder and the project, at the top two screws. You'd think we'd add them to the bottom to tilt the projector up, and that would be true if we were bolting the projector directly to the headlamp assembly. But it doesn't work out that way here (I actually made that mistake originally). You'll see in a moment.

The washers are in, and the screw is just started.

The projector is sitting right-side up, and you can see the washer shims at the top. This is a side view.

Here's a top view, looking down. You can see that the projectors are the ACME type, since Morimoto no longer makes 'em. The ACME projectors seem pretty good, though, almost as good as the Morimotos.

And with all four screws tightened down. This will just slightly bend the white projector holder in the direction that we need it to be bent, to aim the projectors up just a few degrees. That's all we need. We're not hurting anything at all by doing this.

And here we have the projector reinstalled into the headlamp assembly. Again, one of the joints is a snap-fit; the other two use screw-in latches to hold it in place.

Now, we get to wire up the bi-xenon solenoid into the high-beam circuit. We are using the two-wire bi-xenon type vs. the factory 3-wire (more Kompliziert!), so the wiring will be very straightforward. What we do is splice the bi-xenon solenoid right into the high-beam circuit, IN PARALLEL. We do not do this in series!

The bi-xenon solenoid is powered by two skinny wires, a black one and a white one. Since this is a solenoid, polarity really doesn't apply here, but it's nice to keep the color codes matched as much as possible. Note that on MB's, the brown wire is the ground (GND). Just remember, "brown is ground". So, the black solenoid wire went to the brown high-beam wire, and the white solenoid wire went to the white (the "hot", or +12VDC) high-beam wire.

Here's one angle of the wiring.

This is where the bi-xenon solenoid wiring plugs into the projector.

And two more shots of the wiring.

Yes, I used wire nuts. Why didn't I solder, which is my general preference? It's because whatever type of wire used by DEPO, Morimoto, and ACME, it ain't copper, and it doesn't take to solder very well at all. I suspect it's aluminum wiring. So, we use wire nuts. This is safe because all the wiring is aluminum, and the nuts are AL-spec, so we don't have the copper/aluminum metal galvanic difference going on here. Also, I made sure those wire nuts were tightened well, so they ain't comin' loose.

The wife's 2000 S500 has had exactly this sort of installation since 2017. That car is her daily driver. No problems whatsoever.

These headlamps went into the 2006 S350, as I am now daily-driving that car. No, I did not reuse the headlamp assemblies that came with the 2006 S350. Turns out the lugs that you use to bolt the headlamp assembly to the car had cracked. Yep, they were cheap-o Chinesium. DEPO headlamps do not do that (they're made in Taiwan and are of much higher quality). So, the 2006 S350 got a major headlamp upgrade, not just the projectors, but also the housings.

This is why I now need another pair of headlamps for Dad's car. These came off of Dad's car, remember, and now his car is without headlamps at the moment. Fortunately, that car is saved for special occasions, so I can wait. When those come in, which should be any day now, those DEPO's will get the same upgrade and will go into Dad's car. I already have a set of projectors, HID bulbs (Philips 85122's, in this case), and ballasts (two more Hella Gen 3's) ready to go.

One nice thing; the cheap-o Chinesium headlamp assemblies had gotten H7 LED upgrades to its low-beams (the car originally was halogen-equipped). So, since those LED bulbs were fine--well tested by the previous owner in his own daily driving before I bought the car--I simply used these LED's in the high-beam position on the DEPO's. It's a pretty nice effect. We don't get any greater amount of light, and actually the "beam" from the LED's is a slightly wider dispersion. But remember, the bi-xenons in high-beam mode make the actual high-beams superfluous anyway, so no worries.

 

[cowboyt]

Here are the results, taken this evening. Thumbnails are clickable.

Front view, right in front of the car, and with the hood ornament. The foglights are, yep, superfluous yet again. I am fully aware that the left headlamp is aimed just a little lower than the right one at present. More on this later.

Right low-beam only:

Left low-beam only:

In all of the preceding pictures in this post, you can see that the "hot spot" for the projector is a little bit lower than with the other cars. Some slight shimming of the bulb may be needed. Another pair of ACME E46 projectors did not exhibit this, so I suspect it's specific to this pair. Even so, you can still see down the road pretty well. It's not quite at the level of the 2000 S500 comparison standard (yet), but it's still pretty good, I'd say about half to 2/3 between the stock DEPO's and the 2000 S500. I'll tinker with it as time allows to wring max performance out of it.

And as you can see, the Osram 66240 CLC Classics are as wonderfully bright as you've seen them before.

And now, the high beams. You can see that they're a little high, especially the left one. Every DEPO W220 headlamp has been a little bit like this with the high beams. I'm not concerned about it because as you can see, the HID's are way more powerful and make them superfluous anyway. You also can see that they're not amber, but bluer, due to the LED bulbs in there. This, BTW, is why the left low-beam is just slightly lower than the right hand one. Maybe a little more shimming is required on the left-hand side.

Now, from the front of the car, just so you see what it looks like.

First, the low beams.

Now the high beams. A lot brighter, ain't it? I'm holding the camera up pretty high for this picture. I think that the glare that the camera sees is partly an artifact of the slightly high-ish high-beam, especially on the left. But again, they're high beams, and you're not supposed to have 'em on when there's oncoming traffic, so again, it doesn't bother me.

Now a close-up of the headlamps, both right and left. Here's where you see the blueness of the LED bulb in the high-beam position. Not sure if I'll keep it that way, but at present, I kinda like the effect.

I can tell you, it beats the LED low-beams by a good margin, even now. When I'm done with the final tinkering, it'll be as ridiculously bright down the road as the wife's 2000 S500.

 

[tim687]

Looks amazing! My car has ABC, so it doesn't have self leveling lights (as the whole car self levels), is the projector different or does it still contain the pivot points?

 

[cowboyt]

The headlight assembly does indeed include not just the self-leveling motor inside, but also the pivot points. Our '03 S600 also came with ABC, so it's just like your car. I've had the S600's original factory headlamps apart as well, and they too have the self-leveling motor, even though the car doesn't. Same headlamps as AIRmatic/bi-xenon cars.

To my knowledge, DEPO are the only aftermarket makers of W220 headlamp assemblies that include the self-leveling bits. Like I said, they did their homework. How unfortunate it is that the bi-xenon version is no longer available at this time.