Need help designing a headlight jig

[Taiden]

I need to design a jig for aiming headlights off the car. What it will do, is hold the headlight, and give me 3 axis control of the headlight (x/y plane and rotation). This will allow me to get the headlight perfectly level, and aimed at a reference line (leveled horizontal).

It needs to be set up so that I can easily remove the headlight from the jig and install it back on.

It also needs to be able to quickly fit and swap many different headlights and maintain accuracy.

On top of that, any parts that are permanently attached to the headlight must be relatively light, so the headlight can be manipulated easily while I am servicing them.


I have to go eat dinner now, I will post back up with my ideas.

If you need clarification on anything please feel free to ask. I encourage discussion in my threads.

[Tigwldr]

Heres a way to do it without a system. http://www.coolbulbs.com/HID-VISUAL-...-PROCEDURE.pdf


In the 80's when most headlights were glass bulbs. This was pretty easy to do. Now with all the different types headlights and angles, I wish you luck in doing this.

[Taiden]

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. I'm not aiming them off the car in that sense. I have a business where I take a headlight and install HID projectors into them. I need to make sure the retrofitted HID projectors are aimed identical to the halogen cutoff, step and the diamond cut reflectors horizontal lines. This jig will aid me in doing that.

[Taiden]

My biggest hurdle right now is figuring out the best way to have adjustability. I'm going to have a hard time explaining this since I don't know what any of this is called, I just have a mental image in my head.

You know those threaded rods that milling machines use to position the workpiece? Some headlights use smaller versions of those for aiming. Also those drill press workpiece positioners. I want to make a small version of one of those workpiece positioners but instead of the workpiece that it moves, it will move a tab that the headlight can bolt directly to.

One side of the headlight will be held by that.

The other side will be held by a single axis threaded rod adjustment thingymabobby that will be used to move one side up and down, that will give me rotational adjustment.

This will complete my 'adjustment blocks', which will fit onto a 1" thick MDF sheet that has holes drilled in a grid ala pegboard. The adjustment blocks will have pins that will set into these holes and make it easy to remove and fit many different headlights to. It will also allow me to accommodate many different shapes and sizes of headlights.

So what are those threaded rod adjuster thingies called? I know McMaster Carr has to have some, I just can't seem to find them since I dont know the name.

[trouble007]

i think your thinking of acme threads. That's just the type of thread its used in milling machines for the x and y axis. heres the link http://www.mcmaster.com/#acme-thread...-studs/=9ul8ya

Hope this helps

Ryan

[wintermute]

honestly, I think you'd be best off doing this with a cross-slide rotary table and a big white board to aim it at. Block the headlight assembly onto the rotary table, aim it appropriately (you'll have side to side, front to back and rotary adjustment capability), then mark out your key points of light projection on the whiteboard with a dry-erase marker. Once you change out the light to your HID's, put the headlight back onto the rotary table in the same way it was before and check your reference points on the white-board.

[turbocad6]

most modern headlights have a level portion, many will be perfectly level at the ballast mounting, others may have a level shelf or portion,
you have to kind of find the level by looking at the headlight & judging by it's installed position to identify this level plane, some are trickier than others...
once you find this level plane then you need to build your jig to mount to that headlight at that plane being level to the jig itself...
then you can use lasers for alignment.

I've done this in the past for some headlight projects I've worked on... you don't want to have to adjust the light to level on your jig,
your going to want to make the jig pefectly level with the headlight level & then
any adjustments for leveling to calibrate would be done in leveling the jig itself...
I used to use 3 screws in the jig that would allow me to level it left & right & fore & aft...

a few shots...









as you do it you'll figure it out, only thing is, I don't think your going to be able to have just one jig, I used to build a jig for each type of headlight I did,
which is why I only did a few different ones, not just any & all, especially when it comes to projector retrofit,
each will take quite a bit of R&D to develop & the only way for that to pay back is to do multiples of the same ones to spread that R&D over multiple units,
otherwise it'll be very hard to be profitable...
I found that after a while it was so tedious & took so much work that in the end it wasn't very profitable anyway...
best advice I'd give is keep it simple, I would get way to involved with intricacies & perfection that most aren't willing to pay for or even appreciate...

[Taiden]

acme threaded rods were what I was thinking of, but on their site I can only find the threaded rod. I can't find any complete units used for adjusting position of an object.

Seems like I would have to put the tips on a lathe and fit them inside milled stops, and then fit a nut and a knob on it. Anyone ever get frustrated with how hard it is to type out mechanical things? It's so much easier to explain something when you can use your hands to show what you are trying to talk about.

and thanks for the post turbocad, i'm curious though about why you were aiming a laser level at the lights?

[rlitman]

Ugh, please tell me you're not another one of the people doing this.

The mirrors and lenses in a car's headlights are designed to project an image that spreads white illumination across a specific area. Being a projection, if you change the shape of the object being projected, you get a different projection.
Optically speaking, the projected beam is an image (albeit intentionally highly distorted), of the light source itself.

Halogen bulb filaments are transverse (typically). HID tubes are axial. That's just the way they're made. They're differently shaped light sources. Its like changing the slide in a projector; you get a different image. No matter how you focus it, or align the slide, a picture of your in-laws on vacation won't look like a picture you took at the zoo. [ok, this doesn't apply for all family's, I understand.] :-)

Put an HID bulb into a lens/mirror system designed for a halogen bulb, and you're going to get dangerous glare in the corners (not to mention color fringing), with increased foreground illumination (giving the false appearance of more light), and decreased distance illumination. There's no way to "aim" the bulbs, and even when replacing axial filament halogens, as the halogen bulbs have a shielded tip, the HIDs do not, and the capsule is still a different shape from the filament (albeit closer). Additionally, how would you deal with the low/high beam issue.

Now, if you are replacing the entire lens system with something DOT approved (because anything else IS illegal), I'd love to hear about it. I've also seen some really nice LED low beams, but haven't seen anything aftermarket as of yet (not that I've been looking).

[Taiden]

You don't need to lecture me on headlights. You are wasting your time.

Here is my website: http://brightnightcustoms.com

[turbocad6]

ha, that's a pretty fancy website, very nice

the laser shining on the lights themselves was just a visual confirmation of level & even from all angles...


what I did on mine was double up on the stock projectors making it a dual bi-xenon, so a quad setup really... 100% more light & perfectly focused & aligned cut off. the results were awesome & they did not blind you at all.
the fx has a knob on the dash to raise & lower the projector aim, mine are both motorized & pivot together.

I cut an extra headlight & used the housing for the donor projector area,
extending the headlight capsule & welded the 2 housings together.
had to modify the radiator support to fit it












this is one of the test runs without the chrome bezels installed... they work awesome

[dellwas]

Somebody has to. Let me get this straight, you are running a "business" and you come into a welding forum looking for advice on how to ensure that the lights are aimed correctly.

Yeah, right.....

Originally Posted by Taiden

You don't need to lecture me on headlights. You are wasting your time.

Here is my website: http://brightnightcustoms.com

[trouble007]

No, He's looking for advice on how to build a metal fixture to hold the headlights!

[Taiden]

I'm not here to learn how to aim headlights. I can already do that without a fixture. I want to build a fixture so I can do it easier, and faster. I don't remember anywhere in my thread where I asked about how to aim headlights.

Like someone who is building bicycle frames, they don't *need* a frame jig, but one certainly increases consistency and speeds up production.

If a bicycle frame builder started a thread about ideas for a bicycle frame jig, would you bad mouth and discredit his business? That doesn't seem very polite to me.

[Taiden]

turbocad6 that is a very very nice setup. quad fx projectors! good lord that must be bright. There is a guy on hidplanet who used to have quad 55w FX-Rs in a corolla. The videos of his light output were jaw dropping. It was like sunlight below and pitch dark above. Pure awesome. The only thing I wish he had done (and I'm still debating on whether this would be a good idea or not) is to modify the cutoff to have no step. Yeah, you would lose some height on low beams on the passenger side, but can you imagine one, straight, beautiful cutoff from four projectors perfectly aimed? that sounds pretty awesome to me.

The corolla guy ended up ditching the headlights because he said they were too bright. Meaning, once he got to his destination, he had no night vision! He's a big advocate of dual vs quad projectors now, but I say to each their own. I think the quad setups are awesome.

[rlitman]

Ok, THANKS for the link. That makes MUCH more sense now. You seemed like you had a head on your shoulders from earlier posts, and now that I understand what you're doing, yeah, that could work very well.

On that note, I have to ask, are those your STI's? I'd love to see more details on what you did with them, as I have the same headlamp assemblies in my 2000 2.5RS.

What I still don't get about your process is:
Are you cutting a hole in the original lens's mirror and inserting your projector assembly into that (which is what it looks like), and what are you mounting the projector to? Hanging it from the back of the mirror; a separate mount, etc.?

As for alignment. Would a cross-slide table even work for you? You need to adjust angle, not the height of the assembly. I would expect to see something more like the mirror adjustment in a Newtonian telescope. The mirror is clamped in three places, with three springs pushing it off the back plate, and three threaded rods (no need for acme threads) pulling back to the plate against the springs. No backlash, because of the spring loading. Then you'd just need to deal with rotation alignment (which a telescope mirror's symmetry has no need for).

[Taiden]

Those pics are of customer cars, they are actually 2.5 RSes just like the one you own.

My current method of alignment is really simple. You shine the stock headlight with a halogen bulb installed at a wall. you put a line on the wall showing the horizontal cutoff, and where the step kicks up. Then after you mount the projector, you tweak it until the horizontal cutoff is parallel, and the step kicks up is identical. then when you install the headlight in the car, it will be aimed correctly. the biggest issue is getting rotation spot on, and as of now I can get it close enough for the customer to *slightly* tweak it once it is on their car until it is perfect. only takes them a few minutes. but with the fixture I want to eliminate that and be able to get it perfect in the shop before I send them back out.

but I dont want to give away all my secrets

[rlitman]

Gotcha. You want to rotate a moving part of a fixture just a bit.
A rotary table is just two plates held together on a pin (or bolt), with one driven by a worm gear. If you're only moving a few degrees (and not around and around again), then you don't need the worm gear, and could just put an arm attached tangentially to one plate, and a threaded rod attached to the other, with a spring loaded nut doing the tweaking.
I'm guessing this fixture is just so you can easily adjust things, and then clamp them in place and remove the fixture?

I was wondering if those were modified 2.5RS's, or something specially imported.

[Taiden]

regular old USDM 2.5 RSs

I believe the silver one has a v9 sti swap though...

and yes, I want it so i can set up the headlight at perfectly level and aimed at the wall, easily remove it, do service to it, and put it back in place with no hassle and have it aimed at the wall with a projection repeatability of 1/4" as cast on the wall (which is 25 feet away). the key is to be able to be able to get it on and off the fixture in record time and absolute ease

[southernrebel]

Just a question, you don't have to answer since I know it doesn't have anything to do with your post, but what is the point of having headlights that bright? Is it a "looks" thing or do your customers just have bad night vision? I've heard people say that it makes driving more safe at night because you can see better....Isn't that what the high beams are for? I mean the majority of people don't live out in the sticks were there are no streetlights, I know I could drive around town all night long with my lights off and be able to see fine. In the woods, these lights would be helpful, on the street it seems to be just the "cool" thing to do after you put a coffee can muffler on your import. Help me understand...

[DSW]

Just toss a 1/2 dozen KC Daylighters on the brush gaurd and another dozen or so on the roof and call it good.

[Taiden]

southernrebel, I've had people ask me that question until they see them in person. It's more than just brighter light. In fact, the brightest part of HID light isn't much brighter than the brightest part of halogen light. The difference is how uniform, consistent, and wide the beam is. With the parts I use, most cars end up with a 140 degree arc of uniform light. When I drive down the road, I light up peoples doorsteps that are 40 feet from the road when I am practically next to them. I have caught foxes running in the forest next to me almost neck and neck with my car. Also, most high beams sacrifice foreground lighting because they shut the low beams off (especially in dual filament bulbs). These projectors light up your foreground (about 1.5' in front of my licence plate), all the way out on the road, and with about 140 degree arc onto my neighbors doorsteps... on low beams. High beams opens it up to cast light all the way down the road without sacrificing this foreground lighting.

Even the most uninformed person wouldn't spend $700 on "the next thing after the coffee can muffler"

I'm young and my eye sight is great, yet I refuse to own a car without proper HID lighting. Drop in bulbs are NOT proper HID lighting.

I was as skeptical as you until I saw one in person, and since then I have done my own cars, and dozens of others. This business is a hobby that I'm slowly transitioning into a business.

DSW, I actually use AUX lighting along with my HID lighting. Pretty much every type of lighting has it's uses, so I prefer get the best results through diversity. I have my HID retrofitted headlights, 55w unfiltered driving lights, and will be adding amber filtered fog lights in the near future. I love AUX lighting, it's good stuff.

[southernrebel]

So the beam is much improved over the output and uniformity of that of a halogen bulb. That makes sense. I guess my skepticism comes from seeing tons of people running the drop in kits. As you said, I would probably be amazed if I saw a setup that was done the right way. I'm going to look into this as an upgrade for my Jeep Cherokee. I don't really want or need brighter lighting, but a more uniform beam would be welcomed.

[Taiden]

I could make a lot of money selling drop in HID kits, but I absolutely hate them, so I don't associate myself with them. One of the biggest hurdles I have with this business is people thinking I'm selling a $700 drop in bulb setup. Wrong. Here's a quick comparison pic.





And here's a pic I found online that kind of shows the width I'm talking about. the projectors I used are better though

[turbocad6]

yeah man, my headlights work amazing & really light up the whole road evenly & the sides of the roads extremely well but like taiden said, no light anywhere you don't want it... high beams are different, high beams are usually not much brighter as far as additional lumen output, but is more of a difference as to where the light is thrown... a good headlight will throw no light above the cutoff on low beam & the cutoff should always be at less than 90 deg angle, meaning sloping down as it gets further away from the vehicle, where high beams will throw light above this 90* projection line, that's why high beams blind drivers ahead of you and on coming drivers...

ever drive down a very dark winding road, most cars you'll need high beams to see well, but then have to lower them every time another car approaches... well picture not needing high beams at all & having extremely well lighting in this situation but not even having to switch low to high because you are blinding no one... until you see how well they work it's hard to appreciate what they really can do for you... it's like daylight below a certain cut off...

I agree that many HID retrofits are garbage... but done correctly they can be a major improvement... I learned a long time ago that driving ability comes down to at least 90% of what you can see, the remaining 10% is motor skills, judgment & reactions to what it is that you actually see... don't believe me? try blindfolding the best driver in the world & see how well he does on a course


taiden, as far as getting your projectors perfectly level side to side, have you considered making a leveling jig that sits on top of the headlight? you can sit a 3 pointed jig on the top of the headlight while it is still oriented in the vehicle, then use a bubble level on that so you can take a level vehicle, place your jig on the headlight, adjust it to level on all planes, then, at home you can use this level to know exactly how the headlight sits in installed position, I think this will help with your aiming to the point that the end user will not have to tweak anything after... see that laser picture that you asked why I had it shining on the front of the headlights? that is for the same reason, to verify the side to side angle of the headlight... as you said there is more to aiming than just hieght, the side to side level is also important...