alright, 03Mazda has a website that sells different kinds of healight bubs...i am probably goin to upgrade mine from the APC's i have now...

he has 3 kinds; Xenon, Krypton, and Arctic White...

what are krypton and xenon?!?! i've never heard of either and i cant find any info on them

 

I bleeive it's the gas inside or seomthing sending outa differnet color field of light, there was a thread on RPS if you do a search for HID i think...

 

two words for you:

sylvania silverstars

 

4 words:

Legal limit 4 lights!

Just kidding your trucks sweet. Now I want a bunch of those heh.

Aaron

 

for you:

 

Do you really hate my orange suit that much? I look pretty badass ya know..

Aaron

 

What's that Christian, like $200 worth of light bulbs?!

 

They wish. It's just a marketing tool. Real xenon bulbs need just a tad more than 12 volts to light up.

 

chrisitan, damn dude....turn them all on and take a pic from inside so i can see just how much of the road u're exposeing to sunlight...haha

 

Like dave said, it's all flashy marketing. When they say the bulb is "xenon", usually they put like .0001% xenon gas in it, the rest being normal halogen. That way, they can claim it is a xenon bulb. There is so much BS in the automotive light bulb industry, it is sick. If you want a bright lightbulb that will not melt your wires, the Sylvania Silverstar or XtraVision bulbs have been tried and true on all the ranger forums on the net. Most of the others are gimicks. Hint, blue tinted light does not help you see.

 

i know that the blue tinted ones will produce a whiter light..i have the APC's that are a bit blue, and its a LOT better than stock...the only problem with white bulbs is its harder to see in the rain, as the white light reflects the rain drops, were as yello is better in rain cuz it shines thru the rain (i guess thats the explanation)

i just wanna be able to see better...i see all these other cars/trucks out here with way better lights than me...i feel like mine are weak

i guess i'd have to upgrade to a higher watt bulb for more light, but i cant find any above legal....i know that the brand Nokya bulbs are bright and look good....

 

You can get brighter lights and break the law if you want, they are out there. You need new wiring and new lenses to run them, and of course you'll be breaking the law and blinding other drivers making it unsafe for them to drive in front of you.

 

eh....i'm already running illegal with my turn down exhaust and other things....

i dont tailgate people ...i try to stay far away from them, but now, I'M the one thats blinded by everyone else....damn beamers with hid's....plus i've come close to hitting many a deer that was just standing in the road due to my lack of vision

 

dave u must live in the city......cause around here you get blinded by some country bumpkin with 6 KC lights on top, 2 in front and 2 faceing backwards...... we got some dumb people round here...but non the less i wanta fight back with somethin

 

Sounds like standard issue one-ups-manship! They've all got brighter headlights and I'm blinded, so I need to 'fight back' w/ my own bright lights! Ya'll should be headed the opposite way: cut those fogs when in populated areas, leave the off-road lamps for off-road, etc..

 

I have HID's on the Audi and people flash at me some times thinking I have my brights on. All I have is the reuglar factory lights as the car was delivered. The TT does aim them up and down as you drive to maintain the height of the beam, and if anything I think they are too low. The left one doesn't light up the road far enough in front of the car.

And yeah, I live in the city.

 

as far as i have seen, the silverstars are the best... i ran the superwhite piaa bulbs in my ranger and they burned out in a short period of time... i have had my silverstars in over 2 years...

i run 9007's in the headlights and 9005's in the fogs...

i only turn on my foglights when i need to see the sides of the road better... like out in the country or on a highway with a small median(animals on the sides of the road)...

when i am out by our ranch, on country roads, with no other drivers, i sometimes turn on my "driving kc's" which are the ones on the grille guard. the ones on the bar are long beam and i only use them offroad...

here is what i look like, driving around town:

 

same 9007 heads, but 9006 fogs...

 

This is crazy but, I only use my fog lights when it is foggy. For the people that drive with them on all the time, I figured it was just foggy in their minds.

 

I like them a lot when it's snowing. Sometimes in hard rain too. And I love'em on back, twisty roads. They add a lot to the close-in side to side visibility. Especially when modded and the high beams are on.. I actually find them of relatively little use when it's actually foggy!

My GF gets on my case when I use'em though. She drives a small car and claims that the fogs off 'big trucks' like mine always blind her. I actually think she doesn't mean fogs at all, but rather aftermarket off road and driving lamps instead.

 

I've posted this before but I'll do it again, lol. These little tutorials get swallowed up.

Basic Incandescent Bulbs

First, at one time, incandescent bulbs were "filled" with a vacuum (that is to say, no gas at all). The filament was heated to incandescent temperature, and over time ions were thrown off the filament creating vapor in the bulb, and plating the inside of the glass. You can see this phenomena in bulbs as they age -- they get blackened areas on the inside of the glass.

HID Lights

Gas discharge lighting is like a flash unit for a camera: a high voltage pulse (and like Dave said, a bit more than 12 volts -- like hundreds of volts) causes the gas to ionize. Such lamps have no filaments, just some electrodes. Voltage across the electrodes breaks down and ionizes the gas and it emits light. The color depends on the gas or mixture of gases. Basically, HID (high intensity discharge) lights are actually firing in very fast pulses and not actually continuously. The discharge of the electrical pulse through the gas creates high intensity light -- hence the name!

Modern Halogen Incandescents

Also some time ago, someone (and you can research it, I don't remember who that might have been) discovered that certain "noble" gases known as "halogens" had an interesting effect on incandescent filaments: the gas impeded the exit of the ions from the filament. Although the ions were produced, a high density of a neutral halogen gas would force the ion to quickly lose energy and recombine with the filament.

These "halogen lamps" use a filament that is lower resistance, and/or thinner than normal lamps. Lowering the resistance increase the current, and thinning the wire can reduce the surface area and both techniques can result in higher temperatures on the filament. Normally, such high temperatures would cause the filament to fail quickly -- but the halogen gas allows the filament to survive for as long (if properly designed) as a normal incandescent.

Why is a higher temperature good? Because it changes the color spectrum of the white light. The lower the temperature, the "redder" (or yellower) the light. So, if you can push the temperature up, you get a whiter light. You can also run higher wattages in the same size filament with halogens depending on what you are trying to accomplish.

Silverstars use a filament with a reduced surface area that draws the same current as a regular bulb. This makes a whiter light. The thinner filament and higher temperatures can result in reduced life, even with halogen gas. These bulbs look brighter to the human eye, picking out more detail, even though they don't necessarily make "more" light.

High wattage halogen bulbs use lower resistance filaments to increase the temperature, and they can be both whiter, and BRIGHTER. Unfortunately, the TOTAL heat is higher and the electrical drain is also. The heat and or the strain on wiring and connectors can be a problem.

Xenon? It's a halogen. It's one of the best halogens for use in bulbs but it's also more expensive than argon, krypton and what not. So, REAL high pressure xenon filled bulbs can be run at a higher temperature and be brighter. However, as was mentioned, I doubt many so-called xenon bulbs have much in them.

Even with all that, most bulbs are run in a range where their color spectrum still is not "white" but off white. Cheap bulbs (and some better ones) tint the glass blue to FILTER OUT the lower part of the spectrum. Note: FILTER OUT.

Rule: ANY BULB WITH A BLUE COATING IS DIMMER THAN THE SAME WATTAGE WITHOUT THE BLUE COATING. The coating makes it look good to you (oh, it's so blue white!) but it's at the expense of much useable light.

That should make it a bit clearer, or confuse you hopelessly.

 

if you want to have a good light for actual fog, you need a yellow beam...

i think a great fog light is the PIAA 520 Series Ion Crystal Fog

 

As an asside, last night I picked up a pack of the GE Reveal light-bulbs for the house to experiment w/ for photography. They are blue coated. Side by side w/ a conventional bulb the difference was quite noticalbe; the reveal was far 'whiter'. So white in fact that it confused my cameras automatic qhite balance. And the output seemed similar too. They claim to use a rare-earth element in the glass to filter out yellows. It is what gives the bulb a blueish color. I would speculate that they do a fillament trick like the Silverstars to get them brighter. I can speak first hand at how delecate they are. I already broke the fillament in one after dropping the work lamp I installed it in. I think I had the bulb on for all of 20 minutes!

 

I'm addicted to those things. I even have them in the fridge!

Oh yeah, and the startup voltage required for HID's can be more than 20,000 volts. I think to run they are around 2500 volts.

 

I thought that might be so. They are "self firing" aren't they, Dave? They don't require the trigger wire like photoflash ones, I think -- not sure. It takes a higher voltage for the HID headlight design.

Normal photoflash style xenon tubes only require a few hundred volts and generally less than a thousand. In those designs, the multi-kilovolt pulse is only required on the third wire to "trigger" the discharge, and the "power" actually comes from a much lower voltage and is applied to the electrodes in the tube.