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Eurolite headlamp 'deflectors'

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MyNameIsUrl
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Eurolite headlamp 'deflectors'

#156134

Postby MyNameIsUrl » July 30th, 2018, 3:43 pm

Has anybody used Eurolite stick-on 'deflectors' when driving abroad? Do they actually bend the light or are they just opaque stickers?

I used to use insulating tape years ago to mask off the left-hand part of the dipped beam when headlights were flat, but now my car has faired-in plastic covers I can't see how the Eurolights can possibly be the right shape for every car. I don't want to spend £3 or more on a sticker which does no good.

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Re: Eurolite headlamp 'deflectors'

#156147

Postby Watis » July 30th, 2018, 4:23 pm

MyNameIsUrl wrote:Has anybody used Eurolite stick-on 'deflectors' when driving abroad? Do they actually bend the light or are they just opaque stickers?

I used to use insulating tape years ago to mask off the left-hand part of the dipped beam when headlights were flat, but now my car has faired-in plastic covers I can't see how the Eurolights can possibly be the right shape for every car. I don't want to spend £3 or more on a sticker which does no good.


I have used them but can't tell how well they worked because I don't think I drove in the dark while on the continent! So not a lot of help I'm afraid, except to say that you have to be seen to have attempted to comply with the law, and these stickers - or insulating tape - would do that.

I used to use the black sticky-backed plastic versions bought as a kit of two roughly 6" square sheets and would oftem get several sets per kit by using the mask for my car as a template to cut the same shape out of the rest of the sheet.

I would be reluctant to use insulating tape these days due to two factors that have changed in the last twenty years or so. They are firstly, that modern quartz halogen headlamp bulbs are more powerful - and hence hotter - than the old tungsten bulbs of yore. And secondly, that headlamp lenses are made of plastic these days, and not glass as before. I suspect that black insulating tape would absorb so much heat as to risk melting the headlamp lens. I note that Eurolite deflectors and the modern versions of the square plastic kits I menitoned have silver reflective backing - presumably to avoid this very problem!

HTH,

Watis

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Re: Eurolite headlamp 'deflectors'

#156151

Postby jfgw » July 30th, 2018, 4:31 pm

From memory from about 15 years ago:

They partly mask off part of the beam. There are comprehensive instructions showing where to put them on different vehicles. You may have to cut bits off for some types of headlamp.

Buy them in the UK before you go as the ones for converting from left to right are a mirror image of the ones for converting from right to left.

Julian F. G. W.

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Re: Eurolite headlamp 'deflectors'

#156176

Postby bungeejumper » July 30th, 2018, 6:41 pm

Indeed, they don't bend the light but they mask it. The idea being to 'correct' the dipped beam that focuses your lights slightly
to the left. Continentals don't like seeing that coming toward them! (Especially the French.....) So you've got a bit less light than usual, though you probably won't notice it.

It gets a bit more complicated if you've got projector lenses or LEDs or HID headlights. But assuming your lamps are standard halogens with a normal reflector, you just stick the Eurolites sticker in the approved place, which will generally be exactly where you don't expect it to be - probably to the offside of the lens centre and slightly above it! (That's because your beams come off the reflector, not the filament, so everything is inverted left-to-right and up-to-down. Think about it. ;) You may need only the circle and not the side section. The instruction leaflet will tell you.

HIDs run very hot, and can melt your deflectors, so sticking a silver patch on the lens is not recommended unless it's a heat resistant type. Which you can get. I've used Eurolites for decades, and never had any trouble except when one came off in a driving rainstorm. After you get home again, they come off your headlamp lenses with a wipe of white spirit to shift the glue.

Quick and easy. Buy them in advance from Ebay (cheaper as two sets), and not on the ferry which will charge you something extortionate. Bonne route. :D

BJ

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Re: Eurolite headlamp 'deflectors'

#156335

Postby DrFfybes » July 31st, 2018, 1:27 pm

bungeejumper wrote:It gets a bit more complicated if you've got projector lenses or LEDs or HID headlights.
BJ


Most have a little lever on the back that you have to slide over. This usually requires removal of the front wheel liner and a gynaecologist to operate. The BMW has a panel inside the arch you remove with plastic clips but you still can't find/move the lever with the wheel in place.

Paul

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Re: Eurolite headlamp 'deflectors'

#156531

Postby Slarti » August 1st, 2018, 10:22 am

MyNameIsUrl wrote:Has anybody used Eurolite stick-on 'deflectors' when driving abroad? Do they actually bend the light or are they just opaque stickers?

I used to use insulating tape years ago to mask off the left-hand part of the dipped beam when headlights were flat, but now my car has faired-in plastic covers I can't see how the Eurolights can possibly be the right shape for every car. I don't want to spend £3 or more on a sticker which does no good.


I bought some for my trip to Brugge, last year while waiting to get on the Shuttle as we were delayed by 5 hours and so would not be arriving until after dark.

It rained heavily during the journey and by the time I arrived at my destination, they'd gone!
But they did leave 2 nice sticky patches that took a lot of effort to remove :cry:

Slarti

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Re: Eurolite headlamp 'deflectors'

#156553

Postby Alaric » August 1st, 2018, 11:45 am

MyNameIsUrl wrote:Has anybody used Eurolite stick-on 'deflectors' when driving abroad?


With all the gadgets on modern cars, isn't it slightly odd that a switch which adjusts the beam for driving on the right isn't available? There's "up and down" already, so why not "left and right"? Given that with Sat Nav, a car knows where it is, a warning that it's set incorrectly becomes possible. That would avoid all the low tech faffing about with stickers.

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Re: Eurolite headlamp 'deflectors'

#160506

Postby bungeejumper » August 18th, 2018, 9:51 pm

Alaric wrote:With all the gadgets on modern cars, isn't it slightly odd that a switch which adjusts the beam for driving on the right isn't available? There's "up and down" already, so why not "left and right"?

Rather a long time ago, I had one of the original "Topolino" Fiat 500s. When you travelled to Europe you just took out the front headlamp bulbs and fitted right hand drive bulbs instead. They cost a couple of quid, as I recall, and they redirected the dipped beam to the right instead of the left. You could get them in clear or in yellow, which was more or less obligatory in France in those days.

How did they work? It couldn't have been simpler. The filament in the bulbs was strung to the left of centre instead of to the right, and that shifted the beam from the reflector. Of course, there was a catch. This cheap but brilliant idea would only work if your reflectors happened to be exactly hemispherical, whereas modern reflectors are much more fancy and asymmetrical. That's progress for you, I suppose. ;)

BJ


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