Stock HID lights

[OldTrout]

1 hour ago, Britprius said:

It is true that there are numerous MOT testers that turn a blind eye or ......

Blind eye possibly caused by bad headlights? 🤔

John who could not resist - sorry John

 

[Britprius]

I did think of it as an accidental pun as I wrote it, and then just left it as is.

John.

[route66]

My own car is a mid-2014 Exec with 84K miles recorded - my first car with HID lights.

According to the powerbulbs.com website (link😞

Quote

Xenon HIDs produce a more powerful beam and a whiter light in comparison to a halogen bulb, but they do take longer to switch on than halogens and need to be used a few times before they achieve their maximum brightness.

I am disappointed with the output of my lights and have some of the following questions/comments:

• Does anyone know how about light output reduction on HID lights over time? The auto light feature on the IS in my experience means they are switched on more than those in a car with manual switching but the linked article suggests they last 2500 hours. At, say, 15 hours a week, this means a HID bulb will only last for a bit over 3 years ...
• Has anybody replaced the original HIS bulbs in their IS300H with equivalents and went WOW afterwards or was it just done to replace a faulty/failed bulb
• My lights "boot up" bright and then dim. This happens very quickly and you need the lights to be pointing at a light to notice. Is this normal?

[Inazone]

My own car is a mid-2014 Exec with 84K miles recorded - my first car with HID lights.
According to the powerbulbs.com website (link[emoji20]

Xenon HIDs produce a more powerful beam and a whiter light in comparison to a halogen bulb, but they do take longer to switch on than halogens and need to be used a few times before they achieve their maximum brightness.

I am disappointed with the output of my lights and have some of the following questions/comments:

• Does anyone know how about light output reduction on HID lights over time? The auto light feature on the IS in my experience means they are switched on more than those in a car with manual switching but the linked article suggests they last 2500 hours. At, say, 15 hours a week, this means a HID bulb will only last for a bit over 3 years ...
• Has anybody replaced the original HIS bulbs in their IS300H with equivalents and went WOW afterwards or was it just done to replace a faulty/failed bulb
• My lights "boot up" bright and then dim. This happens very quickly and you need the lights to be pointing at a light to notice. Is this normal?

I have read somewhere that the hids can loose 20% of there light output over time. Assuming the light output initially is 3200lm then a 20% reduction would put it in the halogen bulb territory...
I bought some cheap eBay replacements which appear brighter however the passenger side does flicker abit, which is annoying. I have since decided to purchase some top spec osram Night Breaker bulbs which I haven't installed yet, as I have seen quite a few comparison videos on YouTube where they compare all the latest bulbs and these have the highest lumen output for the standard 35w.
I will be swapping the bulbs hopefully this weekend. I have installed a lux meter app on my phone to record the brightness of the eBay ones vs the super spec osram bulbs. Will let you know how it goes.
Also you mention the bulbs start bright then reduce in brightness. This is normally. Essentially the bulb takes a few seconds to stabilise. I suggest reading up on the process as there are about 5 or 6 stages the lamp ballast goes through to create a stable arc in the bulb. Quite interesting if you are that way inclined...

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[Herbie]

Xenons don't actually reduce light output with age but the colour rating does change, which may have the same effect.

If they are, say, 6000k when installed, three or four years later they'll be down to about 4000k or possibly even less.

[Britprius]

Perhaps not surprisingly the lumen output of HID bulbs varies with the Kelvin colour rating. However the whiter bluer light is in fact at a lower lm rating. A rating of 4300k is the sweet spot for maximum light output, but us humans seem to prefer the bluer light levels at 5000k to 6000k perhaps because this is closer to the colour of sunlight.

John.

[Herbie]

Seems that @007M has gone a bit quiet 🙄

[007M]

Don't have to justified anything, my motor car just have to be compliance with the law and as a consequence be compliance with the mot. No need to justify that my car have about 3x more lumens than a standard hid.  

This subject of retrofitting hid/led can be talked on forums until the cows go to sleep. Not much point. Leave some of u guys to argue amongst yourselves 🙂

[OldTrout]

The Wikipedia entry for Headlamp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlamp#Optical_systems is informative reading. The HID section comes about half way through. I have replaced HID bulbs in my church that have been so blackened I wonder any light could escape at all. The replacements gave out much more light.

Blue light is scattered much more than red light*. That is why fog lamps are orangey. If they were blue much more light would be scattered - some directly back - and thus not so effective.

Oncoming blue lights are much worse for the oldies amongst us. We have much more crud floating round in our eyes and this crud scatters light. Dirty windscreens scatter light no matter what age you are.

Hope this generates more light than heat.

John

* It's why the sky is blue and setting sun is red.😊

[Inazone]

Ok, an update on my original post. Before I removed my cheapy eBay 5k bulbs I used a photographic light meter to measure the light output. First I measured the light output about 10ft away and then decided to measure directly in front of the light lens to save setting up the distance again when I installed the new Osram bulbs. So to cut a long story short... The eBay lights gave me the highest reading of 20.1 eV and the Osram Night Breaker Laser D4S bulbs gave me 21.5 eV. This is a good result as the Osram bulbs are over 5x times the price. I have noticed a good light output and I am satisfied with the result. I took close up pictures of both the cheap bulbs and the Osram bulbs and you can clearly see a difference in the discharge chamber shape and general quality of the bulb construction. I can certainly recommend the Osram bulbs although they are expensive, compared to cheap eBay ones you do get what you pay for in the end. In terms of comparison with the old standard oem bulbs the Laser bulb is night and day....
Now people did ask for a wright up but the bulbs are very easy to change. This time around I only removed the front radiator plastic cover where you need to push down on the plastic rivets to release them. I also removed the kneck of the windscreen washer bottle which gave access to the righthand side light. For the lefthand side you can get access to the light without removing the air filter box. A couple of tips when rotating the outside light cover which contains the light ballast built in. Just before you remove it make a mark on the housing and cover to aid easy lining up. Also the rubber gasket was very dry which makes rotation difficult. I used some o ring grease on the o ring and this made it so much easier to put back. The rest is straight forward, you have a bulb cap which rotates off with the shielded wire, the whole ballast / cover can be removed, exposing the bulb which is held in by a spring clip, push down and pull in towards the bulb on each side will release the clip which is captivated. The bulb can then be removed from the housing. Note the bulb has an insulated wire going from the base to the top of the bulb, this points to the back of the light housing when fitting. Installation is the reverse. Do not touch the glass bulb with your fingers as the grease/acid will attack the glass.

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[matt8]

I don't understand the eV measurement, but 5 times the cost, for ~5% increase on output (looking at numbers alone here I know) doesn't seem money well spent.

How much brighter is that extra 1.4eV?

[Inazone]

I don't understand the eV measurement, but 5 times the cost, for ~5% increase on output (looking at numbers alone here I know) doesn't seem money well spent.
How much brighter is that extra 1.4eV?

Lux to eV is calculated using the following formula. Lx = 2.5 x 2^eV.

Basically the Osram bulbs are 2.5x brighter than the eBay bulbs. Unfortunately I don't have any figures for the original bulbs that these replace. But I suspect these new ones are in the region of 5x brighter..

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[007M]

At 2.5x brighter than the cheap bulbs then it's probably worth the investment. Good lighting is a must for me when driving on unlit country roads. 

In recent years I have been driving to Cornwall, Lake District, Dorset and Wales for UK breaks of 3-5 days, it's vital for my car to have bright lights which makes driving safer.

[wharfhouse]

Not trying to to be flippant but I am always surprised how much light is lost from slightly dirty headlamp glass. Mine seemed dimmer today - looked at the lenses whilst at the garage and they didn't look too dirty but washed them off with some water and then got back in the car again and was surprised at how much brighter they were. It doesn't seem to take much road dirt on the glass to scatter the light and the headlight washers don't seem very good at removing the road grime film that builds up at this time of year. Also I have noticed the bulbs seem to get brighter after being on for a while which is something others have mentioned here too - it maybe it's just my eyes night vision kicking in.... 

[Inazone]

Not trying to to be flippant but I am always surprised how much light is lost from slightly dirty headlamp glass. Mine seemed dimmer today - looked at the lenses whilst at the garage and they didn't look too dirty but washed them off with some water and then got back in the car again and was surprised at how much brighter they were. It doesn't seem to take much road dirt on the glass to scatter the light and the headlight washers don't seem very good at removing the road grime film that builds up at this time of year. Also I have noticed the bulbs seem to get brighter after being on for a while which is something others have mentioned here too - it maybe it's just my eyes night vision kicking in.... 

It's funny you mentioned about dirty headlights as you are correct in how much this affects the light output, it's an obvious thing but it really does make a difference. I had to clean my lights prior to taking a reading and the improvement was quite visible.

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[bobesku]

Hi,

IS 200t 2016 model here, HID headlights. When I purchased the car I was very unsatisfied with the lights at night, especially because I drive fast. So I have tried a couple of upgrades, and only when I got the Osram Nightbreaker Unlimited D4S, I was really happy and confident to drive fast as I like at night. Now there is the Osram Nightbreaker Laser version which should be a bit more powerful and whiter. What I wanted to share is that only with these light bulbs and clean headlights I am confident in driving fast at night. Stock bulbs are crap.

[LenT]

I have just replaced the original main/dip bulbs on my IS250 with the new D4S Osram Xenarc Night Breaker.  I’d always felt that the original bulbs were inferior to my previous car (Honda Accord) and had asked Lexus if they could be changed for HID bulbs - only to be told that on my model they already were,

 Previously I would even turn on the fog lamps to help light up the near side verges of our narrow, potholed country lanes.  The new bulbs give a much brighter and better defined dipped beam which is much more comfortable to drive behind.  Main is similarly improved.

I feel the improvement is significant and well worth the investment.