#Halogen vs xenon how to
Once the spark is lit, the voltage is dailed back down, but still measures thousands of volt.ĭiscover how to change the headlight bulbs on your car! Pros/Cons of Halogen Headlights HID headlights create a much more powerful light - measured in thousands of lumen - for a given amount of wattage used.Ī ballast is used to step up the 12 volts from the car's electrical system to 24,000 volts of electricity, which creates a potent spark and ignites the Xenon gas mixture. However, this requires a much higher voltage in order to make the jump. HID (which stands for High Intensity Discharge) light bulbs are filled with xenon gas, and there is no filament instead, a spark is created inside the HID bulb between two electrodes. These can cause a hot spot on the glass, which can cause the bulb to fail within minutes. The downside is that halogen bulbs must be made of special glass and handled in such a way that you don't leave fingerprints on them. Halogen reacts with the hot filament to help create a larger amount of light that is much whiter in color, because the filament burns hotter. Burning hotter allows them to give off more light. Typically, incandescent light bulbs have the filament in a vacuum, but car headlights are filled with special gases in the halogen family (usually iodine or bromine). The newer LED and Xenon HID lights use a different system, and are much more efficient, producing more light, and less heat, from a given amount of electricity. Simply put, a common light bulb has a filament and when electricity is applied, the filament gets very hot and reaches a state of incandescence (glows bright red/orange/yellow). Incandescent light bulbs are not very efficient - about 5%-10% goes to making light and the rest makes heat. Indeed, most cars today still use lights based on his original designs.
Step forward Thomas Edison, the inventor of the incandescent light bulb, who came up with first long-lasting headlamps for cars that could handle the vibrations. But then again, these cars were only traveling at the pace of a brisk jog.
#Halogen vs xenon drivers
It's fair to say that when it came to lights, most drivers were still in the dark. Later, technology advances included gas-burning lanterns and kerosene lamps, similar to the ones Coleman still makes for camping. Back when the first cars were just hitting the road, headlights were pretty rudimentary, and comprised a candle inside a glass housing.
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