Colour temperature of HIDs?
 

Something that I've been wondering about for the past few weeks. its nothing major..

Just wondering if anyone has seen/knows the approx colour temperature of the HIDs on the GTS...

From all the press pics, it seems to be very similar to the colour of the LED DRLs (5000-6000K white?)

I couldn't find anything conclusive on the forums =T

Anyone know?
(I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering about this right?..) haha

OEM is almost always 4300k.

Yeah it'll be in the 4300K range. Anything higher and it would not be road legal!
Higher than 5000K and it starts to look like blue light which is more for show than anything else! You also can't see feck all ---> Dangerous!

Yeah, anything higher then what @sirus said will be blinding on coming traffic. Dang, some of those HIDs are ridiculously bright, I always slow down when I see HIDs coming or glaring into my rear view mirror, some people don't adjust their head light to aim down on the road. warmer colours are alright, its the ones that starts to look kind of blue. MY EYES! >.< LOL!

It's not the colours that are blinding you sir. Its the idiots that put HID bulbs into regular reflector fittings in the first place. The beam pattern is not what its supposed to be, and there is ridiculous amounts of glare above the cutoff.

I understand the relationship between colour temperature and lumens. I was only wondering about the colour temperature because some OEM bulbs seem to be cooler than others. The Honda Accord Euro Luxury ones come to mind specifically.

6000k is white (with a blue hue, but not blue) and it is very visible. 4300 is the most visible as around that is what our eyes have evolved to see.
6500K is more blue and is not great.
the blinding light comes (as proficience said) from people using HID bulbs in a reflector style housing. what happens here, is that the light rays do not diminish as they were intended to do from certain parts of the reflector and thus give a more flooded effect. also the 'line' becomes blured.
this isnt a problem in projector housings as they use a physical plate to block out light after a certain point, and the lense to disperse the beam after it is already blocked out. this plate is what is moved mroe often then not, to make the lights dip with car when the car tilts back and forth (pitch) and also to make a high beam from a low beam (bixenon)

:thumbsup: thanks guys!

What 70NYD has said is correct. The reason why 4300 is what is used in most OEM equipment is that that is the Kelvin Temperature of daylight/sunlight.

Proficience - What you're describing in the Accord Euro is a headlight that has actually been developed for HID's. Alot of guys out there will throw HID's in cars that have projector beams even though they didn't come standard with HID's. While they still look good they don't perform nearly as well as proper HID projector housings do.

The reason why you'll never get them looking as good as that Euro is because it was never designed for HID's. If you want to get them looking that great. You'd have swap out your projector beams for some better quality ones which can be quite an expensive and time consuming task.

Yes - It may be the case that the owners have all swapping out to cooler bulbs but I've seen too many of these cooler temp HIDs on Accord Euros to think that was the case.

I know 4300 is 'daylight' and gives the best power/lumens output. As I said was just wondering if manufacturers do give cooler bulbs.

So projector housings that come with halogen bulbs aren't the same as OEM HID projector housings?...

What do you mean? I'm sure the Accord Euro's come with HIDs from the factory, as does the GTS....

Its just a matter of the colour temp of the OEM beam...

I'd put money on Toyota using bulbs in the 4100-4500k temperature range.

For the most part the cases the projector housings made for halogens are different to projector housings for HID's. There may be some exceptions to this but I don't know to what extent.

I was moreso referring to the difference between say the GT and GTS. ie. a OEM non-HID housing vs the OEM HID housing. Either way if you were going to replace them with a cooler bulb it's is a D4S Bulb IIRC.

I've used both 4300 (4500?) and 6000k bulbs in the same system and I personally found the 6k ones MUCH better in terms of what I could see on unlit hills roads. Seemed to get a better penetration of light once they came up to full temperature as well as the bluer colour being more surgical/accurate looking vs a bit more washed out/blurry with more white 4300.

I'm sure physics disagrees though.

I've also found 5000-6000K to reflect the cats-eye type reflectors on the road better, whether it be number plates, road signs or lane markings.

But when the rain/fog comes down, its a whole different world and this is where physics takes over :paddle: This is because blue light scatters more easily, so in fog/rain your beam will cause an a lot of glare back at you meaning badly illuminating the road in front of you. This is why fog lights are usually 3000-4000K. Yellow is boss in the rain!

Yeah the 6k ones are pretty terrible in fog, don't get much around here luckily.