Headlamp aimer calibration.

[Jack_K]

I have recently purchased an old headlight aligner. Unfortunately someone has very much messed with the calibration, typical mechanics.

I've been thinking about it for a few days now and for some reason I haven't thought of a good way to calibrate it. I could manually aim some headlights and then compare it. That would work if I had nice level ground and headlights with a clear cutoff but I don't. I can't test a "good" vehicle because I've never had an inspection where they actually bother to check the alignment.

Does anyone have any ideas for calibration? How is it normally done?

It's so basic that it just has one lens and the screen.

What the calibration was like when I got it as someone must've thought they needed to "tighten" the nuts:

how I've got it set now like one would expect.

 

[hotponyshoes]

There are guides to show how the beam should be set.
I've got a couple of lines in the garage, one on the floor, one on the wall.

Do that with some masking tape and check the car against it then use the car to check the tester

 

[james butler]

best thing to do is find someone with a new or nearly new motor and test the headlamp aim
the car should be set perfect from factory and can use the beam patten to calibrate from
alternatively take it to a calibration lab for automotive fixtures

 

[james butler]

There are guides to show how the beam should be set.
I've got a couple of lines in the garage, one on the floor, one on the wall.

Do that with some masking tape and check the car against it then use the car to check the tester

this is also a great idea
seem to recall the haynes manual telling you how to set beam pattern by being a set distance from a wall and measuring up against the floor a determined height to determine and set pattern

 

[Jack_K]

There are guides to show how the beam should be set.
I've got a couple of lines in the garage, one on the floor, one on the wall.

Do that with some masking tape and check the car against it then use the car to check the tester

Unfortunately I don't have an area that is suitable. I might do it with a short distance if I have to. That's how I calibrated it currently, I used a vehicle which I recently set roughly using a short distance (2m vs the standard 10m)

If I can find an accurate way it would be great. I like to over engineer everything.

 

[hotponyshoes]

You can enhance the beam pattern by sticking some wet kitchen roll/blue roll over thr light and doing it in the dark