john mcfarlane

The following report is designed to inform folks about my probs with my ss cibies Firstly it is my opion that Pete and his gang sell some excellent gear.The cibies when they work they are the dogs bo*****s. I travel on really crapp roads and they are needed all the time.I am going up to the Yorkshire Dales at xmas so they will hopefully light up my xmas.The problems although I have praised the lights I am one of the people who have had lots and i mean lots of grief. The've Blown more bulbs than ms Lewinsky's blown Bill Clinton. After numerous phonecalls and a visit to Scoobysport it was put down to high voltage so it went down to the local dealer to have a look at they tested it and they told me and showed me the voltage range is 13.8-14.8 as on there tech sheets so no joy there. I have since spoken to a local auto electrician and more importantly a workshop manager for a subaru rally outfit a very successful one.

My opinion is that my car with its pro-drive suspension and the the rough b and c roads is bad news for the bulbs as the spotlights are shaking about too much: result blown bulbs all the time some last 15-20 minutes.The local auto guys can supply me 10 x bosch 130 watt h2's for £32.50 they have no probs with bosch as opposed to the rings I have. On good roads no probs bulbs are fine.
The workshop manager suggested the following he has read the probs people have had in the past and suggested trying the PIAA's he said if you still have probs you could resort to the PIAA's that they use in the rally cars they are about £50 I think? so dont qoute me on that.

IN MY OPION IF YOU TRAVEL A LOT ON BAD/ROUGH ROADS YOU COULD HAVE PROBS NOT JUST WITH SS CIBIES BUT WITH ALL THE HIGH SPEC TEMPREMENTAL BULBS.

Andy Tang

iTrader: (3)

John,

Thats odd!

My old MY97 UK car had Prodrive suspension and Scoobysport driving lamps. In a year I did 25,000 miles on a variety of roads with no issues to my driving lamps.

I moved them to my current car (also with Prodrive suspension) and used them for about 8 months (7,000 miles) before selling them, but I had only ever blown one bulb!

One bulb lasted 32,000 miles, the other about 27,000 miles.

These are just my experiences in the same product.

john mcfarlane

People do tell me your lucky?

Andy Tang

iTrader: (3)

???

DR Motorsport

It seems to be a problem that comes up on Scoobynet every so often. But I agree the Cibie lamps are a good piece of kit, but I think the problem is more related to the rigid mounting.
We had a customer, and after 16 bulbs in a year, changed to PIAA's and the bulbs then lasted 13 months. His voltage was checked at 13.9v.
The PIAA's are only mounted through 1 point and have a bit more flex to them.
So try rubber washers behind the fixings, and don't overtighten, to give them a little movement.

555 Markus

John

I've had similar problems with my SS cibies on my MY97. I've blown 6 Ring 130w bulbs since having the lamps installed in May this year .

After repeated attempts at sourcing replacement bulbs without much success, I'm now trying Bosch 100w bulbs bought via Halfords and hope those will have a longer and more successful life.

Mark

john mcfarlane

I was going to get a couple of bosch 130's but my local guy would have to buy 10 £32.50 not a bad price. The rigid fitting theory sounds good I'll have a look when I get time.

Dave T-S

John
This may help....

http://www.scoobynet.co.uk/bbs/threa...threadid=32981

Pete Croney

John I'm sorry to hear that you are still having problems and am also sorry to hear that your dealer considered 14.8v to be fine

No performance bulb, Cibie or PIAA can tolerate voltages this high. If you are seeing 14.8v measuring across the battery, imagine the voltage spike when the heated rear window turns off. If the bulb is running at a very high voltage, then vibration will make things worse, but the answer cannot be to have lights that wobble.

I seriously doubt that the thousand + people that have trouble free use from their Cibies will post up, because people quite rightly expect a product to work faultlessly and if it is, its just doing what it should do.

I do think, though, if you change to another driving light you will have the same problem until your voltage is at the specified 13.7 +/- 0.3 volts.

john mcfarlane

CHEERS.

TTZZ

I use Neglin 130 Watt in my Cibies, still going strong, no problems. Now for 3 years. 50.000 km

But, Never use them standing still, even better to switch them off at low speeds.
The 130 Watts are far to much for the small size lights.
Lifetime of the bulbs will be determined by the bulbs temperature.
When driving, you will have a lot of forced convection.
This give you enough cooling for a lot joyful rides in the dark.
Jan-egbert

jonny concrete

Fitted my SS Cibies this morning. I was concerned by the postings here so I bought 13mm dia rubber grommetts from Halfords to put behind the bottom fixings only. This provides shock absorbing and also quite a lot of beem adjustment dependant upon the torque applied to the bolts. I'll let you all know if the bulbs blow. If you try this this mod you have to fit slightly longer bolts aswell.

sjc

Mike Owen

Yes...you are right... this topic does come up "now and again".

I've had the same set of SS driving lights fitted to "three" different Scoobies (MY97, MY99 and now a UK WRX) and the problem has always been the same. 130w bulbs last no time at all, maybe a couple of weeks if lucky. 100w last a little longer and 55w last forever. I don't think it's anything to do with how they are fitted. In all three cars, they have been a "firm fit" (so to speak!). All cars have also been on standard suspension. Maybe I'm just "very" unlucky. It's a shame, because the d/lights are a good idea and reasonable kit (except for the steel fixing screw that rusts solid after one winter, now replaced with a brass one). I tend to think that the very small bulbs just run too hot and basically become fragile very quickly. Well that's my theory.

Have a good Christmas.

PS. Yes this has always pretty much p1ssed me off. But then again, that's life sometimes.

[Edited by Mike Owen - 12/25/2001 12:22:40 AM]

lokokkee

Before discarding the Cibie bulbs as blown, check to see if the filament is actually broken or the glass is blackened, as my lights have quit working on a number of occasions and on dismantling, the filament was intact and the problem was with the metal contact of the bulb which appeared to be heat oxidised. Sanding it clean solved the problem until the next episode. Otherwise, working ok for more than a year.
Seasons greetings to all.

john mcfarlane

Everytime it is either a black bulb or recently the glass and the connection end of the bulb cracks and breaks the filament themselves seems ok.

paul w

I made myself a lighting kit from a pair of cibies and have used the original bottom mounting bracket,slightly redesigned to fasten to car and have blown only 1 100w bulb in 2 years and 20k miles.This is the way driving lights were made to be mounted.

I have seen a pro kit,dont know the make as it was in a dealers and this was fixed solid to the car so there was no bracket to take some of the shock load,didn't look ideal to me and surely must be bad on bulbs and the signal wire was connected with one of those crude blue scotchlock things instead of simply soldering it.

If i remember right the bulb holder on my cibies were also pretty crap and bad connections can cause voltage spikes so make sure all your connections are clean and secure.

Cheers

john mcfarlane

The latest theory I'm going to try is that some people say they get very hot so they don't use theirs when there going slow?I normally have the clear plastic covers on mine so I've taken them off which should enable them to keep cool who knows? Ihopefull will get the bottom of it before I sell the car in january.

TTZZ

John I've found an intersting link, have a look
http://lighting.mbz.org/faq/#overwattage

And yes, your plastic lens covers are good thermal isolators.
Remove the covers, I am driving with these lights with no
covers for more than 3 years now, no Problem.

Can you imagine 130 Watts in just a small box without forced
aircooling?

Do a simple test, let somebody switch on your cibies when you are standing in front of the car and feel with your fingers on the lens, Well thats hot.
What do you thing the bulbs temperature would be?
Regards, Jan-egbert

Dave T-S

I have been fitting auxiliary lights on cars for 30 years ( - old fart ) so have a bit of experience of this.....have used just about all the lamps in the Cibie range at one time or another!

Whatever make of bulb, there is only ONE technique used to make them brighter. The filament is made thinner. The higher wattage you go, the hotter the filament is running. There is always a trade off between ultimate lumens output and bulb life as a bulb exists in a sort of unhappy medium where the filament is permanently trying to vapourise itself

Other bulb killers:
Bad connections.
Voltage spikes.
Too high voltage.
Vibration.
Thermal shock.
Excess bulb temperature.

ScoobySport's Cibie kits are top class but unfortunately Cibie themselves persist in using the H2 bulb which has a fundamental design weakness - the way the connection is made between the bulb and the bulb holder i.e. via a spring clip.

In some cases when higher wattage bulbs are used you get the following situation:
The bulb gets too hot.
The bulb metal blade contacts overheat (normally characterised by it going a dark straw/blue colour).
This heat is transferred to the bulb holder, which overheats and the spring clips lose their temper, thus relaxing their grip on the bulb contacts.
Arcing starts between the bulb and its holder.
This creates voltage surges.
End of bulb filament (which is normally characterised by the bulb envelope going silver/black).

Recognise these symptoms?

55w H2's rarely create this scenario as they don't run hot enough to start the overheating cycle.

The bulb envelope and metal contact area on a H2 bulb is the smallest of all the H series bulbs, which means it runs hotter and has to dissipate its heat through a more concentrated area. Stand two feet in front of a lamp fitted with a 130w H2 bulb and you can feel the heat from there - imagine what the bulb/holder is having to put up with!
Interestingly, the H3 has nearly as small an envelope but does not appear to fail anywhere as near often as the H2. The two fundamental differences between the bulbs are that the H3 electrical connection is a flying lead out of the bulb to a spade connector which is not connected to a spring clip as with the H2, and the H3 is a flanged bulb which loses its heat via the flange to the reflector, the H2 cannot do this and has to dissipate its heat via the spring clip.

If only Cibie would convert their H2 bulbed lamps to H3.....

If you start losing H2 bulbs in Cibie lights, you nearly always need to replace the bulb holders as well as the bulbs because the holders have overheated and lost their electrical contact. You can clean up the existing ones with emery paper or similar to restore a good electrical connection but this is normally just putting off the inevitable.

I also suspect the reason why some cars are afflicted and not others is due to the fact that the other bulb killers as listed above are present in different degrees in each car. Also, how much the lamps are actually used will have an effect as all bulbs have a finite life even if they are operating in perfect circumstances.

For example, I live in a rural area, my route to the station is largely sparsely populated and there are not many cars about, and I have the auxiliary lights on up to 45 minutes a day, without constantly switching them on or off.

Interestingly, I have got through shed loads of 100w H2 bulbs in the past whilst only running one car, since running two Imprezas for the last 18 months with another brand of lamps using H3 bulbs I have only had one 120w bulb failure, and that was after driving through the recent floods and the drive lamps filling up with water....



[Edited by Dave T-S - 12/29/2001 9:39:19 AM]

Mike Owen

Dave,

From several years experience... I would tend to agree with you. Backed up by the fact that in each of the three Scoobs that I've had the same CB's in, I've also run 100/80w and for a while 130w's! in the main h/lights with "no problems". The bulbs in the h/lights last on average at least a year / season. I spend most of my 20k+ per year on Scottish back roads, so the lights get a good bashing. So I tend to agree that the H2 bulbs themselves are not good news. As you say, some of the other things potentially contribute to the problem... but the "main" problem, is the H2 bulb themselves.

While I accept that there a large number of people out there who claim that they've never had any problems, there are also an equally large number of people out there, who do have problems with these lights (just look at the number of times this gets posts!).

All I can say myself, is after three different Scoobs, I've never managed to get high Watt bulbs to last. So on the strength of this, I would never personally recommend these lights (sorry Pete C.).

john mcfarlane

cheers guys for all the info I have just got back from the yorkshire dales and what I tried was to leave off the clear lens covers and also I'm only running 100w bulbs now they have had quite a severe time I initially thought that the shock was buggering the 130w but after my trip up north I'm fairly sure it is like people say they just run too hot .the only problem is knowing my luck I'll probably get a stone hit one of my s/lights.

lokokkee

Just did a long distance trip in the dark, with the SS driving lights working on the outward leg and dark on the return journey. While traffic conditions were a bit worse during the latter, the loss of lights added half an hour to an otherwise 3 hour drive. Got to look out for herds of cattle that wander across the road over certain stetches. Have not dismantled the lights to see what's the problem yet, but rather unusual to have both lights out at the same time, while the fuse is OK. Suspect heat oxidation of the bulb flange/holder again. Have a set of 100W bulbs that I can use, but wonder if the heat problem will remain and the reduction in light output is significant enough to discourage their use? I have Phillips Vision Plus in the headlights, but that's not good enough for someone who used to be the oldest driver on the BBS.

lokokkee

Opened up the lights today and it is the contacts again. Looks like the bulb holder is arcing pretty badly and heat colouration change on the bulb flanges as well. Sanded them down and they are OK for the moment. Anyone know where can I get a set of H2 bulb holder replacement? Can't get them locally and they are not listed on ScoobySport's web site.
Thanks.

Jmc

I had no probs when switched to 100watt bulbs

Dave T-S

lokokkee
Textbook failure......you can get them from Demon Tweeks - www.demon-tweeks.co.uk

Pete Croney

Lokokee, it may be fair to explain that we supplied these to you in 1998.

lokokkee

PC, the lights were bought in 2000, not 1998. I am not slagging the Cibies, they are great when working (good for speed in excess of 100 mph), just that it is an inherent design problem with the bulb holder when using 130W bulbs. BTW, can SS supply the bulb holder? Dave, I don't see the bulb holder mentioned at the Demon Tweeks website. Do I have to write in to enquire instead?

Thanks.

Pete Croney

Lo, We were both wrong, it was Nov 1999

We do have some bulb holders in stock, they are £9.67 each

Jmc

I heard ss are now going on to hella units?