Good morning,

I've just laid my hands on an 8000K CCFL halo kit, sold by a Swedish company, for less than half the price of the AAC ones. I'm just testing the halos to see if they are as bad as I expected, but I must say I'm positively suprised by them. I would also like to hear the opinions of those of you who have got the AAC Oracle brand halos.


This is how they look when fully lit.
All the pics are taken with the same shutter speed and settings. The sun was actually shining directly through the windows, on the table where my halos laid. That gives you an idea of how bright they are.


However, in sligthly below normal room temperature (~18°C) it took them about five minutes to get there. I suspected it has to do with the temperature of the ballast so I put it in the freezer for half an hour, just to confirm my theory. This is how they look when the ballast is really cold. You can see the sun shining on the left side of the paper.


This is a comparison between the fully lit halos and the other ones which were just taken out of the box and connected.


A few minutes later


I'm just curious if the AAC halos act the same way. Some of you should know.

Cheers!

Today I went to the breakers to pick up a busted headlight. I needed something to practice on before I open up my own ones.


Since this headlight had two broken pins it was considered "destroyed", so I got it for $35


It fitted nicely in my oven


15 minutes later the glue had melted and I was able to open the thing up


I squeezed in my halos


Somewhat assembled again. I just snapped everything together, without bothering about the glue


Connected to the sidelight wires




Tomorrow I will speak to AAC and find out if their halos light up instantly. Not sure I will keep these ones.

I can tell you that AAC has the same issues. Although I also heard they have a new ballast system. I don't think the new ballast addresses the cold issue, I think it's just a better ballast. Those ccfl's look alot differrent also. When i was working with the AAC ccfl's they were really fragile. Are those thicker? they look like they have the ccfl tubing and then have a case around that?

Thanks for your answer. I suspect the tubings are more or less identical but as you say these have got plastic casings around them. It's actually quite clever. The front side of the casing is clear and the back is chromed, which means all the light is reflected forwards and the headlight reflectors remain shadowed when the halos are lit.

I want these halos too .. they look really good!
Where from?

I bought them from a company here in Sweden, but I think you can find the same type on ebay.

Update:



















And with the new grille

Very nice love the look

Very nice job.

Btw....what temp did you set the oven for?