Aftermarket Bionic Cheetah projectors?

Yeah, those 7 lense ones.

Has anybody use the non-OE ones? For the price difference, I'd rather experiment with those if anything.

At first I though the Q45s were 7 individual light sources, but it's actually still just 1 housing with 7 lenses, just like the non-OE ones.

What are the actual differences with these?

they are probably using non HID projectors and the cutoffs are probably week..may not have the cut off shields in them...

from what i can tell the replicas should be as good as the oem as long as the lenses are quality. gattlin guns are more for style than actual output anyway. i would probably go for the replicas in this rare case because they are new, cheaper, and  its a relatively low tech design.

Got a link to let me see? The ones that went under the name Spyder-something were just a regular light reflector with the 7 lenses placed infront of it. The real one has the reflector bowl specifically designed to aim equal amounts of light to the lenses, and each individual lens has its own cutoff shield that is aimed to merge correctly into one cutoff line. It may not be the sharpest cutoff line, but its pretty accurate.
 
I cant imagine a replica getting all those details anywhere near correct. But if its only for the daylight look (i.e. not too concerned which direction your light is being scattered at night), then probably not such a big deal...

Rich and Dominick are both correct.  The OEM projectors are HID and the after market are non HID.  The OEM are also strategically aimed.  The top two little balls (no homo) are aimed towards the ground and act as fog lights

i stand corrected. i missed the cutoffs completely the first time around:
 
[IMG]http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm144/oemxenonparts36/DSC02706.jpg[/IMG]
 
should have known better than non-oem. :pat:

Good info, good info. I figured there must be something extra to the OE ones, and now it makes sense.

The beam from the aftermarket ones looks pretty much like 7 cutoffs 'sort of' lined up, but not exactly.

These are the non-OE ones I saw on [url=http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/_Car-Truck-Parts-Accessories__UNIVERSAL-P7-Q45-PROJECTOR-HEADLIGHT-FOGLIGHT-FOG-LIGHT_W0QQitemZ320277936158QQadnZCarQ20Q26Q20TruckQ20PartsQ20Q26Q20AccessoriesQQadiZ2865QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item320277936158&_trksid=p3756.m14.l1318]eBay[/url]. They look nice, but the beam pattern is...:ughrun:

The attractive part is that I don't need a proper beam pattern as I don't highway drive, and if I do, swapping headlight housings takes 5 minutes on this car. Oh, and the $500 price difference:giggity::signdammit:


But OE stuff is just so much cooler

Non OEM will be half the price and will give you half the results (atleast they will look the same when the lights are not on lol)
 
Anyway, will these even fit in your housings?  I got some messurements for you
 
[IMG]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y170/aedprix/DSCN0527.jpg[/IMG]
 
[IMG]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y170/aedprix/DSCN0526.jpg[/IMG]

Well i gotta admit, that looks better than the ones that i was thinking about. Looks like these were to be a direct copy (these other ones were an obvious ripoff, and sold for about $50)

But yeah, even if they copied all the design specs, its unlikely they got the optics right. The cutoff on these is dead flat (saves having to align the step), and aftermarket projectors never seem to work that well with HIDs (hotspots in the centre, narrow beam)

But on the other hand, at least these wont look obviously bad, and most people dont even notice cutoff steps or light pattern as long as its not blinding them