Headlight bulbs!

[pgarner]

yeah 60w pulls 5 A of current the 130w bulbs that i had installed (in additional driving lights ) pulled neared 11 A. a total draw of 44 A then the standard bulbs drawing there own current. required 2 realys and some a lot of 27A cable to get them to work safely. first time tried using 1 realy and 17A cable realy blew and cable melted, luckly didnt go on fire

[StevieDB9]

hey waynne, was thinking of changing my dipped beam to those phillips x-treme power 80% jobbies. good are they? the blue vision are certainly good on the main beam and they only claim 30% more light

[HDi fun]

Philips Xtreme whites are meant to be good. Osram's also got a new one, claiming 90% extra.

I'm not one for blue tints, but the Halfords things I'm currently using (dips only) have a really really pale coating of very deep blue hue. It's barely visible to the naked eye and doesn't seem to rob light. They do have the effect of giving a slightly whiter light which is supposed to be better to see by.

I'm not sure it makes that much difference, and will stick with absolutely clear ones in future.

[waynne]

I am actually quite pleased with the phillips 80% ones. They are noticably better than the standard ones but it would be interesting to compare them with the 40% ones. I don't get the fact you get more light from the same wattage input. I guess they are more efficient. Does the gas they fill the bulb with make much difference?

[pgarner]

think its all to do with the gas
think back about 10 year to hand held torches you had the chose of standard bulb of hylogen bulbs whiched claimed to be brighter and were
whatever happened to the old bulbs? dont think you an get them any longer

[HDi fun]

Basically the gas or gases are there to enable the filament to burn hotter, therefore whiter and brighter. This means a thinner wire coiled into a filament.

Halogen gases are very unreactive and stop too mucg tungsten eevaporating from the filament.

The Xenon ones work slightly differently, so I believe. The Xenon gas reacts with the tungsten (don't know how) and keeps the gaseous metal in a colourless 'cloud'. WHen you turn off apparently this cloud condenses and redeposits metal onto the filament.

Xenon, is a member of the group of halogen gases anyway - so???

I have no idea why it doesn't condense on the inside of the glass envelope.

Try this for a better explanation:

http://members.misty.com/don/xeincand.html

[waynne]

Xenon molecules are big and cause the others to "bounce back" onto the filament instead of forming a film on the glass. Its clever stuff! In the olden days there just used to be a vacuum!

[HDi fun]

Lovely old things in spherical envelopes that slung out bugger all light in return for their 60 watts worth of supplied current.

Ahh, valve amps - now there's something that can't be bettered even now. The glow through the fretwork; the constant re-biasing; the electricity bill...............

Thankfully we never relied upon 'em for lighting but they do make good heaters.

[waynne]

Now your showing your age! Imaging if cars ecus were a bank of valves under the dash - its would look like the Tardis!

[StevieDB9]

btw, xenon is not a halogen gas but infact a noble gas with full quantum shells and an 18 electron configuration which makes it very inert.

halogens (fluorine, chlorine iodine etc) are infact very reactive!

[waynne]

I'm impressed! We have another resident scientist.

[HDi fun]

Originally Posted by waynne

Now your showing your age! Imaging if cars ecus were a bank of valves under the dash - its would look like the Tardis!

I think the ECU would be far larger and heavier than the car. It would be pretty though.

[waynne]

Put it in the caravan and tow it around! (Isn't that why caravans are so slow!)

[HDi fun]

Bit like my mate who visited America a few years ago and was asked by a cop to show his UK driving licence. Cop was very impressed - thought my mate was obviously a very good driver indeed as his licence had been endorsed.!!!



And I thought that when they say 'tear along the dotted line' on the old style licence they mean the white one down the middle of the road.