All About Hid

[hkspowers]

There seems to be a lot of misinformation in the area of HID, and Setting up HID in a car that did not come stock with HID. I know HID Stands for High Intensity Discharge, and it is bright as hell. But thats about it. Well I was interested in Getting a Hid Kit into my 93 coupe, and I have a few questions about it first. First OFF I hear that hid will melt projector headlights. I want the one piece black halo projectors by TYC. And I want to know how hid is measeured. I noticed that the always have a kelvin measurement and a lumen measurment. I know kelvin is a heat unit and I know lumens is a light discharge unit. But some people tell me that the higher the k measurment of a hid bulb the brighter it is well if thats the case what do they give a lumen rating for? and I also noticed that some cars have better HID that others. For instance BMW's I can tell theirs from a mile away. It has the bluest tint and you can see it from miles away. This is my personal favorite. And I know BMW's use phillips light ballasts for their HID. Mercades seem to have a ultra bright white tint to them, and the new Maximas seem to change color as the light source shifts positions and distance from the viewer. Well I want to know what I am looking for to get my self HID like the BMW's in my civic and What the reading actually mean. IS Bigger K better or is Smaller K better?

Any thoughts anyone?...Aaron?..

James

[imported_comutek]

the higher the degree the more blue/purple the light gets. however, they higher the color temp goes the lower the lumens go. a lot of HID elitist will say only go w/ a 4100k kit but IMO i say go w/ what color you want. they put out a lot more light than a halogen, especially in those tyc projectors.

my HIDs in the tyc projectors look almost identical to S2000 HIDs which are considered by most HID gurus to be the brighest OEM hids ever made. i had a 5200k/3200 lumen kit (that lumen rating is debatable). the light was very white and lit up the road well. however, there was considerable glare w/ the HIDs in the TYC projectors. but, to my knowledge i never killed anyone or left them blind (except charles ellwood )

from what you are saying i'd suggest going w/ a 7000k kit. it's got a lot of color (blue/violet) and still puts out quite a bit of light.

the one thing i did learn on my HID quest is there are a lot of losers that spend all day long arguing about HIDs over at hidforum.com. probably one of the most obnoxious/elitist boards i've ever been on. those people need to get out of their houses and actually drive their cars instead of wasting their life talking about headlights!

[hkspowers]

yeah I hear you there. Well thanks for the info. How much sould I be expecting to spend on this conversion? And Where Should I buy it from? Any suggesstions would be great.

James

[imported_comutek]

Originally posted by hkspowers@Feb 5 2004, 11:38 PM
yeah I hear you there.* Well thanks for the info.* How much sould I be expecting to spend on this conversion?* And Where Should I buy it from?* Any suggesstions would be great.

James

i bought my H1 kit used off of ebay for somewhere around 270 and it came with an extra set of capsules (bulbs). i think the projectors were about $180.

[CeeReX]

Originally posted by comutek@Feb 5 2004, 11:13 PM


the one thing i did learn on my HID quest is there are a lot of losers that spend all day long arguing about HIDs over at hidforum.com. probably one of the most obnoxious/elitist boards i've ever been on. those people need to get out of their houses and actually drive their cars instead of wasting their life talking about headlights!

WOW there is a board about headlights?How much can you talk about there? They do need to find somthing better to do with their time!!!

[Calesta]

Originally posted by hkspowers@Feb 5 2004, 09:37 PM
There seems to be a lot of misinformation in the area of HID, and Setting up HID in a car that did not come stock with HID.* I know HID Stands for High Intensity Discharge, and it is bright as hell.* But thats about it.* Well I was interested in Getting a Hid Kit into my 93 coupe, and I have a few questions about it first.* First OFF I hear that hid will melt projector headlights.* I want the one piece black halo projectors by TYC.* And I want to know how hid is measeured.* I noticed that the always have a kelvin measurement and a lumen measurment.* I know kelvin is a heat unit and I know lumens is a light discharge unit.* But some people tell me that the higher the k measurment of a hid bulb the brighter it is well if thats the case what do they give a lumen rating for?* and I also noticed that some cars have better HID that others.* For instance BMW's I can tell theirs from a mile away.* It has the bluest tint and you can see it from miles away.* This is my personal favorite. And I know BMW's use phillips light ballasts for their HID.* * Mercades seem to have a ultra bright white tint to them, and the new Maximas seem to change color as the light source shifts positions and distance from the viewer.* Well I want to know what I am looking for to get my self HID like the BMW's in my civic and What the reading actually mean. IS Bigger K better or is Smaller K better?

Any thoughts anyone?...Aaron?..

James

That HID Forum discusses mostly retrofits and getting HID setups into cars that didn't ever have them in the first place... there's LOTS to talk about. I guess.

James-

Lumen = light output
Kelvin (for lights) = color temperature
Kelvin (for temperature) = absolute temperature, meaning 0K actually means NO activity in the atomic structure of a substance

Light output, color, and intensity are all totally separate things. Don't let the retards who don't know what they're talking about confuse you.

Light output / brightness vs intensity...

Take two 100 watt bulbs. One is a flood light, one is a spot. The spot and flood have the exact same light output- they're both 100W bulbs. The spot has higher intensity because it's focusing the light on a point, while the flood spreads it all out. The spot seems brighter because it's more intense in a few spots, but in reality it's just as bright as the flood- the flood is just dispersed more.

Melting housings- bullshit. How stuff works... regular incandescant bulbs that you buy for your house and your car operate off one simple thing- a filament. The filament is a dead short across your electrical system. It heats up so much that it gives off light- but most of the energy dumped into it is used to produce heat.

An HID capsule works by running an arc between two electrodes. It's basically a big spark that your car maintains the whole time the headlights are on. The light output comes from the visible spark and not a heated up section of wire, so it's much more efficient. Most HID systems in cars from the factory only need 35 watts per light, while incandescant systems (normal non-HID lights) typically use 55, 65 or more watts per bulb. The HID system is more efficient, so it generates less heat per watt than the incandescant- that's why it's so much brighter- brighter than even the brightest aftermarket overwattage replacement bulb.

If you have less heat generation per watt with HID, and then less wattage overall- what puts out less heat? The HID. HIDs have an even lower chance of melting your housings than your normal bulbs do.

Color- the color that you see from most OEM HID systems comes from the projector housing, not the bulb. All factory HID systems are rated at a color temperature of 4100 to 4500K. That's it. Anything higher isn't legal.

The color that you see when an HID car is pointing at you is from the edge of the beam pattern. The beam pattern has a very sharp cutoff at the edge. What you're seeing is the light being cut off, and certain colors shifting through the light range at the very edge of the beam. If you look at the light a BMW casts on the ground, it's white- not purple. Projector beam cutoff is also why the S2000 and some Audis look like they're twinkling at you. The beam pattern is bouncing around with the car, so the edge of the beam pattern is constantly changing (from your point of view). Your eyes are passing in and out of the beam pattern's edge, so you see a twinkling effect. Normal projector headlights without HIDs will do this too.