OEReplacement News


Piercing the night–does a new sun dawn? Or is that brilliant white light from an HID headlamp? If you were behind the wheel of a car with HID bulbs shining, you might not know if it was day or if it was night. Only the most sophisticated manufacturing can produce a high intensity discharge car headlight, like a xenon projector bulb. It requires sophisticated circuitry not only to get HID headlights to turn on, like a BMW’s angel eyes halo effect, but to keep them going. So if your car was equipped with OE halogen headlights and you don’t have HID projector bulbs, you can’t just replace your old headlight bulb with new HID lights; rather, you’ll have to retrofit an HID conversion kit with a high-voltage wiring assembly and ballasts.

Inside the HID light bulbs that make it so easy to see when used as fog lights or driving lights, xenon is used to light off an arc, which is why a ballast needs to generate around 400 watts. Then mercury and metal halides in the headlight assembly start to glow at a color temperature determined by the composition of the xenon and other metals inside, only using 35 watts. Brightness is expressed in lumens, and all HID headlights are a very bright 3,200 lumens or so, but the color can be a matter of preference. 4300K is close to daylight, and OEM HID bulbs are usually between 3800K and 4500K. HID xenon headlights at 6000K are a bright blue-white, and 8000K HID bulbs are definitely blue or even European-style purple–as an example, a D2S bulb could be 6000K. If you’re thinking of a headlight replacement with HID lighting, you might be tempted by 6000K xenon bulbs, or 8000K HID replacements. But all HID light bulbs are the same brightness, two or three times brighter than halogen bulbs, and daylight spectrum HID headlights are easier on your eyes. If you really want new HID car lights, xenon projector driving lights or fog lights might be the way to go.



Filed under: Product News by Josh Razgunas On: January 13th, 2010