Xenon bulbs & adapters

[chiccokaiser1]

I put on a xenon bulbs & adapters kit for both low and high beams on my 02 tb. Result is amazing, low beams are great and high beams looks like a bright football field by night... After a while the little steel cup in front of low beam bulb started to loose chrome day by day as if you put it on a flame, am I going to cook the whole headlight? Does this happen because of heat or uv rays? Is there a difference about the technology of xenon and hid kits?
Thanks

[maxwedge]

You are most likely overheating the reflector.

[chiccokaiser1]

Maybe it's heat, but isnt'it as a neon light? It needs a discharge to light and then it needs just a little power to run?

[jdmccright]

If I read your post right, the xenon bulbs you have are still the filament style. I'm not sure why you'd need an adapter if they were designed as a drop-in replacement.

In any incandescent filament bulb, the more light you put out, the more energy you have to put in to heating the filament. But incandescents are inherently inefficient with most of the energy dissipated as heat and infrared. Xenon bulbs are the same general type, but the xenon gas helps the bulb operate at a higher temperature and give off more light.

But in your case, the bulb may be too close to the reflector either due to the bulb itself or the adapter you had to use.

Xenon HID does not have filaments. The ballast (much like a fluorescent light) uses a high voltage charge to strike an arc between the electrodes, ionizing the gas inside. Once the arc is struck it takes much less power to maintain the arc. The light comes from the continuous ionization and recombination of the gas molecules/electrons inside the bulb. These can get very hot too because of the wide span of light wavelengths given off...infrared to UV. Some HID systems even have cooling fans to prevent overheating of the assemblies. Many others use ceramic coatings on the bulbs and/or reflectors.

The gas itself is what gives the light its color, but is typically filtered to creat different hues.

[chiccokaiser1]

As "adapters" I mean electric transformers from 12v to 20kv or somethingh like that. These bulbs consumpiton is 35w each against 55w for the original ones. I didn't know some cars have cooling system for xenon headlights, crazy! It has to be both overheathing and light wavelenght, for sure. Just it's too bad that I have to take all off 'couse result is great. Does anybody know a way or a serious supplier for this kind of stuff that can help me out?

[svotta]

ddmtuning.com get the hid kit and the harness and youd need the DRL harness as well

[chiccokaiser1]

Ok thank you.