[Shotimes] Re: When did H3 HID hit the market? Fogs..headlamps..color

[Herman Anker]

I don't see how an average fog light will be any better for what it is ment for using an HID bulb. Fog lights are designed for fog. Even a 55W bulb is borderlining too bright in fog.....
I assume what you really want is better headlights, but realized that there are nothing on the marked and went for a fog lamp and use them as aux low beam. (The Hella XL and Sylvania Xenarc X1010 are in this group). Some fog lamps might be used as aux. low beam, but having too many lumens will only lit up more right in front of the SHO, and thats not where you want to see. It seems like you have found an exception, David.

A 35W HID bulb made by Philips or Osram (no comment on other manufacturers) has the same lumens as a 130-160W halogen bulb.

H3 HID kits as been avail for many years from less serius manufacturers. I find that any H3 kit manufacturer is unseriuos because success rate is low. The arc will never match the filament of H3 - see my faq on this page: http://faq.auto.light.tripod.com/special-topics.htm

Higher colortemp than 4100K will have less lumens output and less advantages in wet or foggy weather. I havnt even bothered trying.

I have heard of one Catz application where halogen bulb was mounted vertical. Any attempt to insert an HID bulb would be very short lived. D2 bulbs are desgined to work horisontaly pluss/minus 10 degrees. Outside this specs, pinch will overheat.

I definatly agree, if LED techonlogy progresses as it has so far, we will have LED headlamps in 3-4 years. In the meantime, centralized HID lightsource combined with fibreoptic cables will arrive.

David P wrote:

> I noticed FET (CATZ) has an H3 HID system available. Coolness~ Now we can add HID to just about any fog/driving lamp on the market (other than the myriad of reflector-bulb stuff). This is exactly what I've been looking for. The one drawback to the CATZ MSP's that I so strongly tout has been that the H3 bulbs only seem to be good for 3-6 months, and to install a new bulb, you have to disassemble the housing, forcing you to re-aim the lamp after replacing a bulb. That will end with an H3 HID install. The MSP's have been outstanding with 100W H3 bulbs (I am able to drive solely with the MSP's utilizing 55W bulbs, and I have the fog (yellow) version), but they burn out so fast I stopped using them. I assume the lumens of the HID will be between the 55W and 100W bulbs My only concern is the ION filter coating on the outer glass. They reflect blue colors IIRC. Filtering out the blue on an HID bulb is not going to leave much color, but won't there still be a lot of yellow to pass, since the blue light is only  a by-product of the HID output, or is there no yellow present? I do plan on getting clear lenses. Any comments? Clear lenses alone are available, but at $65 each, so If I may just sell the set I have and pick up a new set of clear MSP's, unless I can't get jack for them. This is going to be very, very good. Micro-focused reflector, ovoid, optics quality projector lens and HID all wrapped up in one package. With the eventual E- code driving lamps in place, and I'll be the envy of the automotive lighting world. Well, until LED lighting become useful in headlamp applications, anyway. It'll be like having the anti-Taurus of lighting systems. Also of notice is the three different Kelvin's CATZ has available. They have the original blue, a purple-ish version, but interestingly, they have a pure-white HID system as well. I am curious about the pure-white and whether it helps to alleviate some of the effects experienced with the "colored" systems.  David P 95MTX   ~

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'95 ATX  ~139 000 km
Mods&Service page: http://hanker.tripod.com/sho.htm
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High tech Automotive lighting faq: http://faq.auto.light.tripod.com
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