Hi Waggin,
Yes, I have been in automotive industry, both Cars and Motorcycles and a bit of Racing in both sectors, for some few years.

Strangely the topic of this forum just happened at a time, I had done several months of testing and research on this subject on several types of vehicles.
And I had “picked several brainsâ€￾ on this subject, from manufacturers of bulbs, discharge units etc., both on OEM and after market levels to University experts and Road Racing / Rally / Off-Road Pilots on the field, to get as much info and facts as possible. Of course I ppicked the brain of those of them who had one or some of it left.

Have fun,
P.S. there is much more to this issue to know and learn about than what has been discussed so far.
mavs19

Hi guys,

Could I ask all of you people who have retrofitted a HID Xenon Kits to your cars to do me a great favour, please? (Please, please, pretty please with sugar and cherry on top).

Could you park your cars 3 metres from a wall, turn your headlights on and take a picture of the headlight pattern that appears on the wall? and of course post it on this thread.
I need these pictures for a study I am conducting and will let you know the outcome in a day or so.

Thanks in advance.
Have fun,
mavs19

Are you talking about OEM Kits fitted to falcons, or the H1 and H4 kits we're buying from eBay

Great timing!! You've been a fantastic help to me, and all the other HID'ers also

I thaught I might be able to help you out here, I have been running HIR H3's in the high beam of my EF for about a month now. And damn they put out a lot of light, i rekon a 65w HIR globe is brighter than a 130w Quarts halogen. Annyhow ARB sells them under their IPF Globe range, they claim their 65w H3 HIR puts out 130w of light and their 70w/80w H4 HIR globe puts out 170w/190w of light respectivly.

Annyhow if ur intrested i could sell you some H3 globes for $85 each! damned expensive, The place i work dont stock the H4's so im not to sure what they are worth, but i can get them.

hope all this helps ya

Luke

From ARB site

IPF Globes

IPF globes are available in a variety of styles and configurations to suit most 4WD applications. MG series globes which combine highly compressed exotic gas mixtures with tungsten filaments and HIR globes featuring IPF’s exclusive infra red technology are available, as well as high performance halogen globes.

http://www.arb.com.au/default.htm?menu.htm&0

Hi, everyone,

Waggin my friend you are more than welcome.

My request for pictures of the headlight pattern is to those of you that have installed an after market HID Xenon Kit, i.e. the ones you have buy from eBay or a car accessory shop etc.
So if anyone of you have installed an aftermarket HID Xenon Kit, please take a picture of the light pattern (lo beam only) on a wall facing the car, 3 metres away from it.

Once I have concluded my study I may start a new thread (or if you guys think I should continue on this one), where I will share some of the main points of the study which is a sort of tutorial about HID. How it works, what to buy, what to look for etc.


EF 4.9 thanks for your kind offer. I only mentioned the bit about HIR so that those who don’t want or can’t afford buying a HID Xenon kit could have an alternative to think about. However, thanks for letting us all know that we can buy these bulbs through you and at a very attractive price may I say.

Part of my study is to find out alternative products in the market.
Which I may say are not many. Few of them, (which I still have not mentioned yet), mainly due to the fact that some of them are in the development stages and are not yet openly available to the public, are very interesting and I am so much looking forward to the release of some of them, I can’t wait.

Once released these products are going to revolutionise the Automotive lighting industry.

By the way, it looks like I have to spend some time to learn the tricks of how to post on this forum so I also can do all these fancy thing with pictures in middle page between the text and reply boxes etc. Is there is how to page on this site?

Have fun,
mavs19


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i will take some pics of my lights tonight if i remember.
did u want an in the car shot or outside? did u just wanna see the spread of beam on the wall?

Yes I only need to see the spread of the beam on the wall.
Something like the attached picture would do fine.
Thanks
Have fun,
mavs19

 

 

Attachments:

Beam Pattern1f.jpg [ 61.38 KiB | Viewed 187 times ]

Is the life of the bulbs or ballasts shortened each time the lights are turned on/off?

Halogen vs. HID Xenon

Halogen lighting involves a very simple direct-current and a direct-circuit setup.
The bulb itself contains a filament which is commonly made of tungsten metal,
This filament is essentially a very delicate and “wobblyâ€￾ coil of wire.
The filament is held in place by two chemically-treated and usually copper-coated steel (or molybdenum) lead wires.
On some bulbs, like the 9006/HB4, the glass bulb that encases the filament is capped at the end with a nickel-plated brass film.
The bulb itself is also filled with a noble gas.
When electrical current is supplied to the positive lead wire in the halogen bulb, it crosses a path of tungsten wire, which has very high electrical resistance. This high resistance produces heat and ultimately light as a by-product.


Halogen bulbs produce more heat than they produce light (incandescence), which means an inefficient usage of potential energy. Secondly, as the Halogen bulb is used, tungsten atoms begin to evaporate from the filament due to this extreme heat.
When the tungsten evaporates, it deposits itself on the relatively cool surface of the glass bulb (this is why dead Halogen light bulbs are often black),
As this evaporation happens the filament becomes thinner and more brittle.
Sooner or later the filament will evaporate enough tungsten particles that it snaps in two pieces and breaks the electrical circuit.


HID uses a capsule (bulb) with two adjacent electrodes positioned in close proximity to each other.
The capsule sends these two leads to an electronic HID ballast.
The ballast or Discharge Unit is an electronic module that has a circuit board lined with several small high current capacitors, transistors, and resistors.
The ballast acts as an ignition box to fire up the gas discharge process, and as a control unit to regulate a steady power flow.
The HID capsule is filled with a rich mixture of noble gases as well as alkali earth metal salts. In this setup, the noble gases and metal salts are actually used as part of the lighting processes instead of as a buffer (as with halogens).

For quick ignition, the ballast takes in a small amount of input power of 35 watts at 12 volts and inducts a solid-state charge of 25,000 volts to the positive electrode. That is why most HID kits are “water proofâ€￾. Can you imagine being zapped by an exposed HID wire? Ouch……

This creates a very high-powered arc of electricity across the electrodes, which excites xenon gas into discharging photon particles (light).

The light is relatively cool burning compared to halogen and consumes much less power and produces much more light at a much higher colour temperature.


Answer to your question: Both Yes and No.

Yes, anything man made is bound to stop working one day (it could also be a night).

No, HID bulbs and discharge units are made to last the life of a vehicle. Unless misused or mishandled by man or woman.

So, turning the lights on and off, does shortens the life of both the discharge and bulb. But, don’t worry much about it, It is part of the deal.


By the way, Higher Kelvin DOE NOT mean brighter lights.

Man has finally managed to duplicate Nature in HID Xenon Light system
to mimic and recreate DAY LIGHT.
The light from sun is not Blue nor is it Purple It is White with only 4100 Kelvin, which is OEM colour strength.
Anything above this figure starts turning blue on to purple and then darkness.
.
Osram-Sylvania's highest colour temperature bulb is 5400K and Philips' highest colour temperature bulb is 5800K (marketed at 6000K Ultinon)

So, installing bulbs with higher Kelvin only defeats the purpose

Have fun,
mavs19

Thanks.. I was just asking as I was contemplating using an alternating flasher unit for my High Beams, which are now HID and was curious if the flashing would dramatically shorten the life..

I've been thinking about getting one of these kits for a while now. It should be fine going thu slightly yellowed lenzes yeah?

I dont see why not. May be a good time to invest in some new genuine or even aftermarket headlights. The aftermarket replacements are great quality and can be had for a very reasonable price!

hmmm.. what sort of price you thinkin?

I had no idea ya could get some aftermarkets.. where from?