Because they are true hid's

 

True enough.... HID is a different setup than a true Xenon short arc. The lamps I referred to are true arc lamps and do appear "bluer" than standard incandescant lamps due to their output capabilities. Either will definitely put a standard Halogen to shame as far as output.

I'm a bit confuse about the idea of having Xenon, a completely inert gas at just about any temperature, mixed in with Halogen gas in the same lamp...Xenon will lend nothing to improve the halogen process. Xenon is used in arc lamps for the fact that it remains stable/inert at extreme temps. HID (high intenstity discharge) lamps utilize the gas itself to heat and reach a luminous point. These lamps require no filament (metal) to reach incandesence either. Sodium vapor lamps like the "pink" ones used for streetlighting and Mercury vapor lamps each require that the gas contained in the inner envelope be heated by electricity to a point of luminescense. Hence you end up with a High Intensity Dishharge of light from the heated gas. Thats why these lamps will cycle off and on once they have aged enough because there isn't enough gas left in the lamp to maintain elecrical continuity and maintain the heat required to make the gas luminesce. Fluorescent lamps work on this principle as well.

In reference to certain "wannabe" lamps that have been colored or tinted. Adelyser is absolutely right. No matter how you look at it, filtering any light source will REDUCE its output as far as lumens and MSC (mean spherical candela). Only a camera will interpret a different "color temperature" as being closer to the same output. In other words, if you put those "blue light" (specials) into your truck and video tape it the headlamps will appear on camera as being similar in output to daylight because the correction factor to make Halogen lamps look like daylight to a camera is to use a filter that causes a Mired shift in the blue portion of the spectrum. But as for actually GETTING a greater output, not gonna happen. Another example: The red lenses over your taillamps reduce the initial lumens of those lamps by greater than 80%. The amber lenses about 40-50%. So a 50 watt lamp is reduced to the efficiency of a 25 watt lamp when put behind that filter. It makes no difference if there is a red or amber lense or the lamp itself has been colored.

 

Technically, there are some significant differences in how Mvapor/fluorescent/HID lights work compared to Xenons & arc lights.

A common Xenon bulb immerses the filament in Xenon (one particular halogen gas, all of which are inert). Each halogen gas imparts a particular hue to the light coming off the filament, so using different gasses allows the engineer to determine the characteristics of the spectrum emitted by his bulb. Xenon imparts an unusually white tint, which is desirable for many applications. Basically, a common Xenon bulb is a hi-tech incandescent, not much different from Edison's original.

All the others are fluorescents, each using a particular metal vapor as a starting conductor. The current flowing thru the gas doesn't produce light thru heat (which is how incandescents work); it causes a quantum leap within the atoms of the gas inside the lamp. When the lamp is off, the gas is a good insulator, so metal vapor is added to allow current to begin to flow. The current then imparts energy to the atoms of the gas, causing an electron in each to jump to a higher orbit temporarily. When the electron makes the leap back to its normal stable orbit, it releases the same quantum of energy it absorbed, but instead of releasing it as electricity, it's emitted as UV light. This (invisible "black") light is absorbed by some other material surrounding the gas (a Fluorine powder in normal fluorescents, and another gas in other types). The second material ALSO undergoes a quantum leap and then releases the energy as some spectrum of visible light. Tanning bulbs have less of the second layer to allow more UV to escape the bulb.

There are also Xenon strobe bulbs which have no filament and operate as fluorescents.

An arc light works on a similar principle, using electricity to cause visible light to fluoresce from a gas, but the gas is ambient air, which is extremely corrosive, so the electrodes are made of copper-wound carbon and they're designed to be fed into the arc to sustain it as the electrodes are consumed. It's basically controlled lightning.

 

Just to toss my .02 in if anyone wants to do a Xenon upgrade Supreme Power Parts sells xenon bulbs with halogen bases so they will plug into the existing housing.

http://www.supremepowerparts.com/xenon.htm

Ordered a set on Monday for an Audi that I am helping a friend with.

Just thought I would provide a place to get the kits if you want.

Tim

 

I got "cheap" blue Xenon bulbs on eBay. I can't say much about the technical aspects. But the bottom line is that they work better for lighting things in the distance like signs and stuff, but worse for lighting the road right in front of you. They are probably better in bad weather than regular lights.

 

I have had these for about 9 months now and are the cheapest best thing i have ever done. They were purchased of ebay and are great. the thing to watch for in most of these bulbs is the watt's most at an auto part store are very low 35 to 50 plasma glows are 85 if i remeber right and are remarkable. They also have their own webpage at www.plasmaglow.com they too sell the 50 to 500 watts as well and i have had friends have those and they are not nearly as nice as the super high voltage ones they sell. I belive they are like 40.00 there but watch ebay for them i dotn think i paid over 20.00 for them. So i would say yes do it but make sure you get a good brand when you do. Oh! and they carry the 10year warranty on them. And i myself have not had to use them but put them in my sister truck and one did burn out i called them and they had us send them in and they returned 2 brandnew bulbs within a week. no problems since. So great bulb and a great warranty that they do back up.

 

Steve83,
Correction. Xenon Arc Lamps do NOT fall into the category of a typical incandescant or HID/fluorescent lamps. Xenon Arc lamps (actual quartz envelope lamps) use Xenon merely to perfrom as it would in the Halogen cycle (to carry particles flaking off the anode and cathode back to the surface of these two contacts). Xenon just happens to be the most efficient gas for this process. The "copper wound carbon" has fallen into disuse due to the soot produced and the inefficiency of this process over an actual arc lamp. The arc produced inside a Xenon filled arc lamp is exactly the same as the type of arc generated by the old carbon rod systems but with an incredible advantage over it in that a single arc lamp will be able to maintain an arc for literally thousands of hours. Whereas the old carbon rods would merely burn away and the "trim" (pair of rods) would have to be replaced after apporximately an hour to an hour and a half of use lest the anode and cathode rod supports weld themselves together.

Xenon performs within the process as a carrier of particulants nothing more. The Halogen cycle does nothing more than replace particles of the filament in an incandescant lamp back on the filament thereby increasing the lamp life. The gas merely responds to heat by moving away from it and as it cools near the outer perimeter of the lamp envelope it is drawn back. The particles caught in the gas are deposited on the filament and filament supportsand the cycle repeats itself.

Arc lamps use Xenon for the same reason... maintaining the conductivity and overall condition of the anode and cathode. Arc lamps like their predecessor carbon-rod systems require a magnet at the cathode side of the arc outside the lamp to maintain arc stability. The light produced is a maintained ARC. Hence, ARC lamp! Just like you get when you connect a power supply to a circuit that has a load on it. For lack of a better description, a big fat spark! This is the ONLY source of light. The Xenon provides an atmosphere inside the lamp envelope that is conducive to maintaining the structural and conductive integrity of the anode and cathode contacts. Xenon strobes work the same way but do not require the magnet because the arc is not maintained.

HID lamps, fluorescent lamps, yes they perform in the manner you described. And in these instances the gas that is used does determine the color temperature of the lamp. All lamps emit UV and IR obviously those that burn with a color temperature closer to the UV end of the spectrum will emit more UV. Vice-versa for IR.

Xenon filled arc lamps and standard Halogen cycle lamps do not utilize the gas for any other reason than to generate the process by which the filament or anode/cathode are being maintained through the cycle. You can't acheive the same color temperature with a standard vaccuum sealed incandescent lamp because the instant you supply electricity to these lamps they begin to deteriorate because at incandescance particles of the filament will begin to flake off the filament. Thats why incandescant lamps burn out. The halogen cycle reduces these effects on the lamp.

Before the halogen process, larger high wattage lamps were filled with about a teaspoon to a tablespoon of iron filings before the air was sucked out and the glass envelope sealed. After several hours of use, they had to be removed from the fixture and shaken so the the iron filings would scrape the soot from the filament particles off the inner walls of the lamp. Otherwise a 1000 watt lamp would soon have the output of about a 500 watt lamp due to the soot buildup on the inner walls.

 

Well for me I am very pleased with my HID 'look' sealed beam conversions I bought of ebay. I use em in my 78 Bronco, and I even bought purple tinted 110W bulbs. They put out less light than the super white bulbs that came with the kit but even still the purple lights put out WAY MORE light that the stock sealed beams did. The stock lights made dumb looking practically orange circles on the road ahead of you. The conversions had a revised reflector that more evenly distributes the light accross the road. I havent had any problems with em for the 2 years I have ran them so far (quite frequently too). Even here in the city were there are alot of HID and blue tinted headlights, my artic purples still stand out. And no tickets yet (for the headlights anyways).

Tristan Stewart