What is HID (High Intensity Discharge system)
-What are all the needed components to have a working HID Conversion system?
You need the ballasts, the igniters (most now are integrated inside the ballast), finaly the Xenon bulbs. Of-course some type of wiring system to hook up to the car.
-What are ballasts? Do I need them?
A ballast is needed for HIDs. The HID bulb needs a high power “jump start” to turn on the bulb then lowers the power to keep it stable. Ballasts are the most expensive component of the whole HID system.
-What’s the difference between HID Xenon bulbs and those other bulbs that says “Xenon”?
Well HID Xenon bulbs have no filament (that thing that you look at to see if the bulbs burnt out) This is also why HID bulbs can last 3000 hours…. They have no filament that can be burned out! You can notice this by looking at the bulb you will see a electrode and a gap to the other electrode. This is also why you need the ballast, they provide that initial spark that makes the electricity jump from one electrode to the other then the electricity can die down to a stable level. “notice that initial bright moment when you first turn the light on”
-What is a “relay wiring system” and a “common wiring system”?
A common wiring system is rather easy to install. They take the power directly from the factory socket. CONS: Some cars just have bad wiring system and don’t provide stable power to the ballasts. Relay wiring is a bit tricky. They connect directly to the battery and use the factory socket as a signal to turn on the relay. Then the relay directs power from the battery directly to the ballasts. So the factory socket pitches in no power to the ballast they only turn on the relay. PROS: Make a car with bad wiring functional for HID system. If your cars driving light is also a DRL “day time running light” then you car can use a High Intensity Discharge system with no problem.
So its always a safer bet to use a HID Conversion Kit with a relay wiring system.
-So is 8000K brighter then 6000K?
NO! Kelvin (k) is a color scale and not a measurement of intensity. Also Kelvin temperature dose not relate to heat. The higher up the Kelvin scale the deeper the light will be. The higher the Kelvin rating the deeper the color will be but as you go up the scale its harder to produce light so you start loosing luminosity (less bright).
3000K Gold/Yellow-------------3200lm
4300K OEM/white--------------3200lm
6000K Ice-burg/white----------2800lm
8000K HID Blue----------------2500lm
10000K Deep Blue--------------2100lm
3900K Halogen-----------------900lm
-Will HIDs Melt my Headlight?
NO! HIDs run cooler then Halogen. Yup that’s right so you won’t even come close to melting your headlight.
Some important terms to know:
Watt- Measure of electrical power (w)
Volt- Measure of electrical charge (v)
Kelvin- Measure of color temperature (K)
Lumen- Measure of light brightness (lm)
Capsule- term for where the pressurized gas is located inside the HID bulb.
HID (High Intensity Discharge)
Halogen- Inefficient Incandescence bulb.
