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<misc> ellipsoids

John asked
>I have to ask a silly question:  are the ellipsoid headlights worth all
>that money?  I have the standard U.S. headlights on an E36 318is and
>they don't seem to be much worse than the ellipsoids on my previous
>car, a German 318i - at least for me

I seriously doubt it.. I have the ellispoids on my E30 325i and while
I think they are kind of neat I wouldn't spend $$$$ for them.

The light pattern is a bit different than normal halogen lights. With
the ellipsoids (at least on the E30) the light is very spread out, no
bright spots, just a smooth gradual spread of light.

With regular headlights you have a bright spot on the ground for each
headlight with the light intensity dropping off the further you go
from the spot.

Also the ellipsoids have a definite cut off that goes from ahead
bottom left to ahead upper right so that you don't shine lights into
oncoming drivers. This also means that you don't illuminate the
oncoming lane as much as with regular headlights.

C&D did a test of various lighting systems a while ago, and while they
didn't test the BMW ellipsoid headlights they did test the HID lights
which have an ellispoidal projector lens. They found it was weird
because they were used to a bright spot and non existed with the
HID. Also they noticed the cut off (bottow left to upper right) that
didn't illuminate the oncoming lane as much.

They *could* however see better than some of the other lighting
systems, they just thought it was weird.

One other thing they said was that for Euro roads (tighter, twistier)
the ellipsoid stuff worked better (less glare to oncoming drivers) but
for US roads (wide open straight) they were a little strange.

chris pawlowicz
'89 325i - with ellipsoidal headlights and foglights :)