HID Lamps
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Joined: Aug 2001
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From: Duluth
HID Lamps
HID Headlamps
For years I designed drivers/dimmers for Gas Discharge lamps. I even wrote my Masters Thesis on the subject, so I thought I would pass on a little information about your headlights.
High Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps are used as low beams for the S2000. Typically these are Xenon-Mercury metal halide bulbs, similar to those used to light factories. They work by striking a controlled arc between two electrodes. Mercury vapor ions carry current from one electrode to the other, in an extremely high temperature plasma column. In this column various metal salts are excited till they give off their characteristic light spectra. Every element known to man gives off a specific combination of colors of light when it is burned. Well, you don't actually burn the metal salts in HID lamps, but they are heated to a temperature where they would burn if there were oxygen present, and they give off light as if they were burned. You pick the color of the light by picking a good combination of metal salts. Over time the lamps discolor as the metal salts imbed themselves in the quarts bulb wall. You probably won't even notice the change in color unless you change one lamp after a few years, and not the other.
You light these lamps by first striking an arc. This can take from several hundred volts to several thousand volts, depending on the temperature of the lamp (the hotter the lamp, the higher the voltage required). A reasonably low voltage inverter provides an AC current to sustain the lamp. From a cold start the lamp capsule rises in temperature to around 750
For years I designed drivers/dimmers for Gas Discharge lamps. I even wrote my Masters Thesis on the subject, so I thought I would pass on a little information about your headlights.
High Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps are used as low beams for the S2000. Typically these are Xenon-Mercury metal halide bulbs, similar to those used to light factories. They work by striking a controlled arc between two electrodes. Mercury vapor ions carry current from one electrode to the other, in an extremely high temperature plasma column. In this column various metal salts are excited till they give off their characteristic light spectra. Every element known to man gives off a specific combination of colors of light when it is burned. Well, you don't actually burn the metal salts in HID lamps, but they are heated to a temperature where they would burn if there were oxygen present, and they give off light as if they were burned. You pick the color of the light by picking a good combination of metal salts. Over time the lamps discolor as the metal salts imbed themselves in the quarts bulb wall. You probably won't even notice the change in color unless you change one lamp after a few years, and not the other.
You light these lamps by first striking an arc. This can take from several hundred volts to several thousand volts, depending on the temperature of the lamp (the hotter the lamp, the higher the voltage required). A reasonably low voltage inverter provides an AC current to sustain the lamp. From a cold start the lamp capsule rises in temperature to around 750
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From: Windsor
I hope you dont mind me asking you this question but I recently installed a 1 new projector on my S2000 and was wondering why only one side changes color from blue to white to purple while the new one only stays white. Thanks in advance
HP
HP
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Joined: Aug 2001
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From: Duluth
As I mentioned, the color of the lamp is determined by how much of each metal salt is in the mixture inside the lamp. The manufacturers of lamps can select the colors to be almost whatever they like. I'm sure they could make them more blue, or whatever the demand calls for.
