kgh31386

i always hear and read and worry that if my HID's flash(which they have a few times in their day) that it's bad. but aren't HID's more reliable than halogens, yet halogens flash god knows how many times and no one ever says that's bad...and yes i know HID's are really different than halogen. but where was it determined that flashing HID's will really shorten the lifespan? because i work at nissan and a lot of times ppl trade cars in and what not, and the ones that go off to auction usually get played with..including the HID's. and there's this one 2002 Maxima that's been there for a few weeks waiting to get auctioned cuz it was repoed, with 170k miles. the HID's look great just like any other maxima with 30k miles, and at least once a day we go back their and turn those HID's on and off really fast for like 5 minutes straight, almost where they strobe...and we set the alarm off and yea everytime it turns on and off they flash orange. but after doing that 10-20 minutes a day for the past few weeks, the lights still come on deep blue, then warm up to the off white/bluish OEM color just fine. and it's like you can't even tell....so yup where was it determined that flashing is bad?

swifty562

I believe so its bad... i'm not an expert but... each time the light flashes the ballast send out a certain amount of power to the hid bulbs so that it can ignite(discharge). each time the light is flashing is each time the ballast is flashing power to the bulb.

notice how every hid you see...you get that quick flash of light..then warms up to its real state.

Ex.. my hid 3k fog lights...*quick flash* turns green then goes into its real state of being yellow.

so... during the time that its flashing the ballast does not get its constant power nor does the bulbs.


therefor....

...causing it to be unstable.
...causing the bulb to ignite unstable... and not constant


in short... i believe it is bad to do so... if not... correct me if i'm wrong.

kgh31386

im no expert either, i was just curious as to where it was tested. because i heard that the d2s bulbs are tested to withstand that kinda torture

swifty562

not sure about that =0. but any and everything has a limit.

jsquared

i'm really not sure either... but i'm assuming it's because of the way it powers up. like with a tv, supposedly it isn't good to keep turning it off and on repeatedly (in a small amount of time). maybe you have to give the system enough time to 'recharge' and power up again. flashing them on and off doesn't allow that to happen disrupting the system.

haha well i really don't know, just trying to give some kind of input.

RedrumGTS

you'll fry the ballasts and harness in the car... Hid's use a huge amount of power during initial power up, flashing them on and off will increase the rate of substantial power drain from the car and power applied to the ballasts. YOU could end up melting the wires (better than over powering the ballasts and buring then out).

lexxo

iTrader: (2)

How would we be alble to protect our after market HID's from flashing. Since when the alarm is triggered and the low beam headlights go off and on. I've had this happen a couple of times this week and I don't want to fry anything.