But the main reason that you want to use a 35W kit is the HID ballasts current draw. To sum things up, a greater power source will result in brighter light, but the flipside is that it comes with a number of technical deficiencies that may end up making the process of installing and maintaining 55W more troublesome over extended periods of time. The amount of light produced by a 35W Xenon bulb is much higher than a 55W halogen bulb. It allows HID bulbs and ballasts to operate independently of the vehicle’s original wiring system and can provide a power source that is more consistent.ĥ5W ballasts should only be installed alongside 55W bulbs since you run the risk of running down 35W ballasts much faster if they’re powered by a higher power source.
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A relay harness may help avoid overloading the electric system. To complicate matters, factory wiring is usually designed to allow a stream of 16-55 watts of energy, and a higher power source may cause damage to this network. This requires more work and some level of oversight. WattageĪnother issue with higher-power ballasts is that since they produce greater heat levels and warm up faster, they need to be mounted on an area with good ventilation. this would be my biggest concern, the 55w burning the shrouds. I chose 35w to be safe and they are bright enough. So it would seem that while 55W ballasts produce greater power, they are less efficient than their 35W counterparts. The 55w ballast burns the bulbs hotter and will melt the shrouds. But then you also have what’s called the “law of diminishing returns.” If you increase power by one watt, you get an additional 20 lumens, but adding another watt will only result in a increase of 19 lumens. On the other hand, the 55W has a higher light intensity of 3000-4800 lumens. The rule is: the higher the power level, the more heat. This means that if your input a total of 10W, the result will be a light beam of 9W. One fact to keep abreast of is that while no electrical device provides 100% efficiency, (some power is invariably lost as heat, which happens to be the reason ballasts warm up during operation) we have succeeded in reaching efficiency levels of nearly 90%. From TRS: The 35w HID bulbs do indeed burn cooler than your stock 55w halogens, but the 50w HIDs do burn hotter than the stock 55w halogens, so thats more likely to cause issues with the stock projectors overall. We wanted to provide you with some background information on the different choices of wattage to help you choose the right ballasts for you and your car. 3724 Views 5 Replies 4 Participants Last post by phoenixosu, Jump to Latest T.
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Needless to say, this is a hefty task that requires countless car parts to work together in perfect symphony. The first difference is in the wattage and name itself. It’s a complex circuit made up of many components, each one tasked with carrying out a specific function. An HID ballast creates, drives and sustains the electrical arc in a bulb which maintains the light current in your car’s headlights. To make an HID system operate, a high-voltage pulse must be transmitted to the HID bulb.