do 6k. 8k too blue IMO. anything above 6k is a no go for me.

 

How did you with this statement ??
I guess all the experts are wrong

 

remember back in science class when they taught us that white light is the absence of no colors? How, then, can you take the stance that yellow output (which is yellow due to losing color, i.e. brightness) is brighter than white?

I haven't fired 'em up for some time. I'll get some and send em to you. They are color modded, not in my 2g . . . yet.

 

First point--- I was just basing my information off of the information you provide about your own car in your signature. If you dont have them then good.


second point. I never judged you. I judged the decisions you made for your car as far as lighting only by saying it is not safe. When i say not safe i am refering to the fact that headlights with a low light output can and will cause your eyes to strain even if you dont notice it. That in turn will make your eyes tired which in makes you tired. 12K=not safe. your car do what you want

 

Originally Posted by Rockstar21
5-6k is minimal light difference.. most people wouldnt be able to tell.. and im ok with THAT amount of light loss

i guess im all about the 30k though

 

I have a 1 year warr. from metrodecals.com so far they are great bulbs (6000k), side by side to 2006 350z mine are brighter looking.

 

4300k...

 

Most people that live in the city with all the street lights probably cant tell, but in the country when there are no lights they can. Park cars side by side and see which one has better lighting. 4300 will be it. Also in foul weather there is a larger distinction between the 2 concerning usable light.

 

most of the streets here are paved so dark that you would only be able to see squat with 3000...

you can only see in small city driving, and thats due to the streetlights.. idk what bright person decided to redo all the roads from greyish pavement to black tar crap

 

Send 'em please.

 

98% of our roads are blacktop and i can tell you that 4300k is far better than halogen (3k) If 3 k was better for visibility thats what auto manufacturers would put in cars. Plain and simple stock produces more usable light.

Now in inclement weather like fog and snow the yellow does help out better than white

 

never argued that?

i agree lol

but for black top, at least for me. my accord and the woman's civic show better with just halogens. guess i could be wrong.

 

when it all comes down, the road is only sometimes what you are needing to see . . . Really what we want to see is something ON the road, be it traveling or not, color of road may or may not bring out the brightness emitted, but if there is something on it (stripes, cars, person, animal) you will still be better off with the brightest output . . .Think we know which one that is . . .

 

3000K only put them in your fogs, or else they attract attention.
4300K is stock. ew. practical, yes. sexy? no.
5000K is really white
6000K has a blue tint at some angles.
8000K is borderline ricey.

 

Regarding 3000k...on another board the "lighting forum" moderator pretty much said that yellow light (something about a dichroic filtered light) is actually worse than just using white. Does this apply to HID light?

Also TequiLa....in CA, I checked DMV's vehicle code..any light emitted from the front may be white or yellow...so I had ALL three lights with yellow bulbs. My lows, highs AND fogs were all yellow. I never got pestered by ANYONE in law enforcement. I even had the VC number memorized back then..LOL

Anyway, I've been told that my lights don't look as bright as they should....even when I told them it came w/ HID from the factory. Should I be in the market for replacements now? I mean, my car's an '02 and I'm pretty sure the previous owner never had to change them. Do these HID bulbs REALLY last 7 yrs?

 

Dichroic filters



A dichroic filter or thin-film filter is a very accurate color filter used to selectively pass light of a small range of colors while reflecting other colors. By comparison, Dichroic mirrors and dichroic reflectors tend to be characterized by the color(s) of light that they reflect, rather than the color(s) they pass. (See dichroism for the etymology of the term)
Used before a light source, a dichroic filter produces light that is perceived by humans to be highly saturated (intense) in color. Although costly, such filters are popular in architectural and theatrical applications.
Used behind a light source, dichroic reflectors commonly reflect visible light forward while allowing the invisible infrared light (radiated heat) to pass out of the rear of the fixture, resulting in a beam of light that is "cooler". Many quartz halogen bulbs have an integrated dichroic reflector for this purpose, being originally designed for use in slide projectors to avoid melting the slides, but now widely used for interior home and commercial lighting.
Dichroic filters use the principle of interference. Alternating layers of an optical coating are built up upon a glass substrate, selectively reinforcing certain wavelengths of light and interfering with other wavelengths. The layers are usually deposited in a vacuum. By controlling the thickness and number of the layers, the frequency (wavelength) of the passband of the filter can be tuned and made as wide or narrow as desired. Because unwanted wavelengths are reflected rather than absorbed, dichroic filters don't absorb this unwanted energy during operation and so don't become nearly as hot as the equivalent conventional filter (which attempts to absorb all energy except for that in the passband). (See Fabry-Pérot interferometer for a mathematical description of the effect.)
Where white light is being deliberately separated into various color bands (for example, within a color video projector or color television camera), the similar dichroic prism is used instead.





Advantages of dichroic filters

• Much better filtering characteristics than conventional filters
• Ability to easily fabricate a filter to pass any passband frequency and block a selected amount of the stopband frequencies (saturation)
• Because light in the stopband is reflected rather than absorbed, there is much less heating of the dichroic filter than with conventional filters
• Much longer life than conventional filters; the color is intrinsic in the construction of the hard microscopic layers and cannot "bleach out" over the lifetime of the filter (unlike for example, gel filters)
• Filter will not melt or deform except at very high temperatures (many hundreds of degrees Celsius)

• Capable of achieving extremely high laser damage thresholds (dichroics are used for all the mirrors on the world's most powerful laser, the National Ignition Facility)

Disadvantages of dichroic filters

• Higher initial cost (sometimes much higher)
• Glass dichroic filters are more fragile than plastic conventional filters
• Glass dichroic filters are harder to work with than plastic conventional filters
• Can reflect light back into an optical system
• Specific bandpass depends on incidence angle (can be an advantage in some applications where in-situ tuning is desirable)

There are some good and bad things about dichoric filters. When it comes down to the nitty gritty of it, There are opinions on whats safer/better but i honestly think if you stick to 3000K-5000K you will be fine and look good at the same time.

 

I'm debating between OE (if I can find a deal), the Kaixen 5000k (through Excelerate) for the lows...and keeping my 3000ks in the fogs. Then depending on what I get for the lows I'd like to get something that "resembles" them in the high beams...if it's possible.. Don't know if I'd like to go HID in highs since I rarely use them in Los Angeles.

 

both the OEM and Kaixen 5K kit are nice and they are a great combo with 3000K fogs.

HIDs in the high beams would simply be a waste considering the normal person rarely uses them.

 

Says who?

To the OP: I say 6000k. That's what I have and they're bright, they light up the road really good and they look nice. I've seen 8000k and it looks gay...

 

I saw some stupid scion driving on the highway the other night.. thing must of had at least 8k, but prob like 12k, and I drove side by side with them for a bit... they couldn't see shit compared to my stock 4300k.

Note: I was THIS close to throwing my Wendy's trash out my window in front of them.

Those bright ass blue lights are obnoxious, and make me wanna throw things at their car.

 

Hey ArTL-S...I've heard that yellow colored light, even for fogs...are counter productive since it has something to do w/ the filtered light being dichroic....so, why do all "real fog" lights come w/ yellow or amber external lens? Are those just filter lens? And are my 3000k lights actually doing anything to help see in inclement weather?

Added: I just looked in earlier posts in this thread and realized you already answered part of my question regarding yellow light (being dichroic filtered light) for inclement weather. But what I fail to understand is does this same concept apply to HID lights?

 

the HID lows last about 2500 hours of use
They get dimmer and color change with end of life
No reason to put anything fancy in the highs- since they come on with the lows- they add so little its a joke

 

Congrats 07HONDATL you are the first person I add to my ignore list.

Headlights are for seeing what's in front of you. Some people fail to understand that. I don't wish any form of physical injury upon anyone, so I suggest those people wake up before they end up in a ditch.

 

Congrats i could CARE LESS..lol

 

3000K's in your low's are definitely illegal. My friend got a ticket for it, and we're from San Diego. Anything that's not OEM for your car is considered illegal from what I've heard. So it's only legal to have 4300k HID's in the low beam and halogens in the fog for the 02-03 TL's. Cops won't bug you if you have 5000K's, but if you have 3000K low's... they'll catch you eventually, and if you don't, you're lucky. 5 low 3 fog or 6 low 3 fog looks the cleanest imho, as long as you have 1157 LED turn signals and 194/163 corner bulbs.

 

whats in them new infinitis they look extra blue at night what are they 8k or 10k

 

Part of the "blue" effect from those luxury cars are because of their "high quality" projector not from the bulb. That why its reflecting light from far away make you see it "blue" but when you get closer to it or sit behind the steering wheel, you see it "white". They're only 4300K bulb!
I just replaced the OEM with HID kit (4300K) bulbs for my Odyssey van and I driven all night from Texas to Florida and man, I can tell you that, the whiter, the better. The first sign (and my wife's also agreed) is it won't fatigued your eyes. Not at all!

 

^X1,0000000000000000000000000000000000.....i had 8K's for shits and giggles and my eyes were hurting...i put my 5K's back on and i was like damn i shouldve never did that..lol..

 

i think part of it is the lamps... if you notice some of the luxury cars have this wierd rainbow/chemical colored lamps when you get up close to them.. i think at night it may have a slight effect to the way the lights look from different angles... the lamps are swirled with blue,purple and orange colors.. unlike the clear ones we have...


you DO realize that he didnt see that, hence the "ignored list" comment...

 

o well.again i could care less if he reads it or not i dont know him like he was hurting my feelings or something..lol

 

Sorry, should've been more specific. I'm not putting HID in the highs. I just want one of those other bulbs that "match" the color so it doesn't look "funny" if I've got my lows and highs on at the same time.

Also, would you know the answer to the dichroic filter stuff in regards to HID bulbs? I really need to know....

 

^ when ur highs are on ur lows turn off and it would be pretty hard to get the same color effect since HID runs on a completely different system than halogen..u could do the mod when u turn ur highs on ur lows stay on...

 

or turn the high's on, then when u go to turn it off, pull and hear the click; dont release and voila! kinda ghetto though hahahah

 

8k way to go i got 8k fog and low beam and its great

 

yeah, then switch back to 4300k and realize how much light output you've been missing

 

The thing is that 12K it has a BLUE Over-Kill color and its overboard the Black-gama color spectrum so you have succesfully annihilated performance from them i can assure you that anyone with 5000K that line up with your car will give at most 3x time more light output than yours. 12K is for show off only they dont work for lighting up the road since most roads are Black your blue lights blend with them giving the impression that you arent brighting up anything at all.

Also Blue HID are automatically discovered from the Cops since no Auto-maker use BLUE color in any car for their HIDs. That actually are normal Headlight no Projector!
the cops will know that you illegally modified your Intended Halogen Stocks Headlights (Honda Accord). Audis for example use 4300K or 3200/Lm but the Projector gives the impression that the light is Ice-blue (8000K) in the headlight but the actual output is white on the road (5000K) Normal Headlights doesnt do that they will give you actual color in Headlight and on the Road, For 4300K that is Ambar or Pinkish. Thats why we Change the stocks no one likes ambar, i now i dont!

For me my color is Ice-Blue i have 8000K or 3000/Lm in my car and it goes nowhere near the Super Blue-ish of 12K. if 10K is around 2300/Lm output just what do you think 12K give you? lows 1900/Lm

You need to understand that our cars TLs came with HIDs as OEM (4300K or 3200/Lm basically the Most Light Output possibly) so our cars are basically just changing Bulbs (actually degrading performance for looks/color) your car came with Stocks Halogens SO your actually Mod your headlights (To gain Performance output) for the Cost around 90$Kit your Spectrum Lm arent upgrading from the Stock Halogen Bulb around 1500-1800/Lm so you basically are just changing color and getting just little Lm boost.