Whilst clearing out part of our office / spare room / junk room, I rediscovered some Osram Silverstar bulbs that I picked up a couple of years ago. Still in their original packaging.
These have the envious reputation of being placed pretty much at the bottom of their class when Autoexpress* tested them. What the heck, I put them into the 9-3... so ooooh another modification post. :)
*I think it was Autoexpress that did a H4 comparison.
Well if this counts as a mod then I fitted a set of Phillips BlueVisions to my 306 the other day. One bulb went so I bought a pair of these off eBay but I've not had chance to try 'em out yet as I haven't been anywhere in the dark in the 306, so I don't know if they've made any difference...
I used BlueVision bulbs in the Ka to good effect, they worked well enough. I remember why I bought the Osrams, they had a "buy two get one free offer" at a car show, or something like that. The Osrams feel like they have a very short beam, primarily because they're chuffin' bright inside the beam but there's very little glare above that.
Bit offputting at first, but on main beam, they're second only to the Morettes I had on the Ka.
Both Osram SilverStars and Philips Vision Plus lamps are about the best performing (non-HID) automotive lamps there are. Assuming like for like wattage they provide far, far better peak beam candelas than standard halogen lamps and especially the *truly* s**te 'blue-beam' offerings. Some lamps produced by Narva/Ring and PIAA come close to the lumen output of the Osram/Philips but are not as well designed or assembled. For example, I tested some H1 halogens in standard, Silverstar/Vison Plus, and some 'blue' halogens in out lamp test system here in our labs at work. If you normalise the data and say that standard 12v 55W H1 halogen lamps are
100% lumen output, the Silverstar/Vision Plus produced 141% and 147% respectively and the 2 different blue types produced 59% and 63% respectively.JB
Goodo. Just out of interest, what was the variance on your samples? Autoexpress reckoned that some bulbs were so variable, you might get a good pair, you might not...
With the 10 samples of the Osram and 10 Philips lamps, the total spread of lumen output was 3.2% and 2.8% repectively. The standard lamps I tested were from GE and Philips and measured a spread of ~6%-8%. The 'cool'-blue lamps measured a 19.7% across 10 lamps!! JB
Chuff!
*composes self*That figures, then: take one bulb, slap on some blue coating, go, woohoo funky bulb...
As I remember, I used these Silverstar H4s on the Ka's dipped beam and used some "cool blue" bulb for the main beam, I forget the make. The Morettes' main beam used a straightforward spot light with no lens, just a reflector, so I figured, meh use whatever I can get. They were *superb* main beams, worked great in navigation rallies and suchlike. I didn't need to change the bulb so that could have been the H1 bulb, or the light set up. I'll never know now...
The Philips X-treme Power has a good reputation...
The 'dip beam' is a very inefficient optical system (typically the 'projector type system with an ellipsoidal reflector and aspheric lens is only 80%. Just about any lamp in the main beam would be ok, but you need a very good lamp indeed to make the 'dip' beam work to any useful degree. This is why you got better results by putting the blue lamp in the main beam. Don't forget too that the human eye is much more sensitive to the blue/green part of the spectrum so unless you had a lightmeter to check the light levels, any subjective estimate of light levels would probably be inaccurate.
Not tried these yet but I have samples on the way.
JB
Absolutely. I used Osram's "Cool Blue" for the main beam, but always figured their performance was because the Morettes had a bulb, a reflector, and that was it. None of this dipped beam gibberish in the way. :)
Yes, and of course the harder you work those bulbs, the greater the compromise elsewhere (I'm thinking, bulb longevity and temperature issues).
Oh I have no idea as to how much brighter the lights were, the dipped light _seemed_ brighter on the road, but the main beam went further because it was pointing that way rather than scattering it low and left, so you'd expect main beam to be dimmer on the road surface.
With the Morettes, when you put main beam on, it kept the dipped beam on too. Something I miss with the Saab's H4s.
Could you let the group know?
Glad my BMW keeps the dips on when you select main. Plenty bright.
Yup, I'll post the results but it won't be until mid Dec. I'm getting H1 types as samples (possibly because my E36 takes this type? mmmmm...)
JB
have you seen the price of HID kits these days? to be honest i wouldn't bother with the normal bulbs. which reminds me i still aint got my HID kit fitted i must pester my mate to swap my H4's for H1's!!!
Only problem is that without automatic self-levelling (and apart from Hella, I've never seen that in an aftermarket kit), they're illegal and a certain MOT fail. That siad, I'm still going to fit a set of modified E38 optics with Osram HID lamps/ballasts I've built to my E36 though for the iwnter. I'll stick the old halogens in for MOTs.
JB
Is that 10 bulbs or 10 pairs? Were you testing in a vehicle or just the bulb? Strange question I know but the position of the filament in a reflector can have an impact. (One of the problems I've seen with cheap HID kits)
10 lamps from each manufacturer (I tested over 100 H1 lamps in total). Testing was in an integrating sphere with an Ocean Optics spectrometer. I agree that filament (or arc) location accuracy is absolutely critical in automotive optics. A mm off axis and the beam quality becomes total s**te. Anothe problem with HID retrofits is that the actual luminous portion of the arc itself is substantially larger than that of a filament lamp, causing poor focussing and softening of the beam.
JB
Did you test any 100W bulbs? It seems to me that they'd give pretty similar output to a HID lamp but obviously be rather cheaper... OTOH as they're not E marked, quality could be rather variable.
Problem with true 100watt bulbs is, a lot of the time the wiring can't handle it, the lights get no brighter but the wiring melts, or the headlights melt because they are made of plastic.
Difference between hids and 100 watt lamps is hids produce less heat and produce better light for less power used.
Or the lens, or any / all of the above. Quite funny when you tell a moppet Ka owner not to do it, he does it anyway, then chunters at length about cruddy build quality / headlights / non-E-marked bulbs, but a simple link shows a dozen people saying not to do it...
There's a bit more to the difference than that, though. It's a different frequency of light chucked out.
You can get HID bulbs which are approx the same colour temperature as tungsten. Many modern cars have them - the high colour temp ones have gone out of fashion.
The beauty of an HID system is it concentrates its output on the visible light frequencies. Tungsten produces non visible frequencies - and of course a deal of heat. Hence the poor efficiency.
FWIW, the eye is most sensitive to the green part of the spectrum - not blue as early HID bulbs were.
Hmm - well eyes vary immensely. I'm not bothered by the bluer lights from some cars, Charlie is. She's not bothered by an overly bright red light, I am.
Metal and glass reflectors in the Golf, I've already got a spare set *and* the wiring needs uprating to handle 55W bulbs without a voltage drop, so it's already on the to do list.
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