i need someone to shed some light on this topic

what's the difference betwen hid and zenon? i know most euro cars, merc, bmw, mini called their light zenon while the japanese called theirs hid light. they both seem to put out very bright and nice light. granted most euro have autoleveling with the zenon. teach me obiwan

 

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure they're just two ways to say the same thing. They're Xenon High Intensity Discharge headlights. I pretty much use the terms Xenon and HID interchangably. Actually, I usually just say "Xenon HID" because then everybody knows what I'm talking about. :smile:

 

Same thing. Xenon (with an X) is one of the elements on the periodic table (atomic number is 54). It's the gas that when excited emits the light in the H.I.D. system.

 

i thought Xenon was just a brand name...like Sony or Delphi or Mini, etc.

 

Xenon isn't the brand
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2002 Mini Cooper - LY/LY [BMP/ProMini Intake | Magnecor Plug Wires | More soon...]

 

>>i need someone to shed some light on this topic

Luke. Your shift key fell off. Your welcome.

 

More facts: Xenon is one of the Noble Gases, those snooty types that hang out in the rightmost column of the periodic table. Others in the family are Neon, Argon, Freon, Krypton(!!) and lightweight Helium. They're pretty much happy when it comes to their electron state, and so they very rarely react (bond) with other atoms to form molecutes (you can get some of them to match up with the "greedy" elements like Fluorine if you try hard enough).

These gases as a family can be exicted to a radiative state if you pass an electric current through them. You've surely seen neon lights, have probably seen argon (yellowish) street lights, and know of the bright blue white Xenon lights. Kyrpton is fairly rare on Earth (I'm not joking here), and is therefore expensive to get in quantity. It never-the-less is characterized by brilliant green and orange spectral lines, and in fact is the underlying unit of measure for the meter (1m = 1,650,765.73 wavelengths of Kr-33). As for Helium, you probably *could* get light out of it (just look at, oh, any star), but earthly applications are hampered by Helium's tendancy to treat pretty much any contaning material as permiable.

 

Actually, I thought one of the big differences between the two were:

HID could be installed in conventional lights (just bulbs really), while Xenon had to be factory installed, as they require special "fixtures". Kinda like Incandenscent (sp?) vs. flourescent (sp?) bulbs.

Though, I could be making this up too, who knows?

 

They're the same thing, BUT, some halogen lamps also have xenon to benefit from the higher lumen intensity of xenon gas, and so I wonderwhat they're called when they're a hybrid.

 

High Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps use an ionized gas (in this case xenon) excited by high voltage to produce light. In other words, you fill a clear glass bulb with xenon gas under pressure, add a pair of electrodes and pass a high-frequency alternating current through the gas via the electrodes. Unlike conventional incandescent bulbs, most of the energy put into the lamp is converted to light. Incandscent lamps produce a great deal of heat in order to put out a useable amount of light. You also need a rather involved circuit which converts the 12 volts DC to a complex high voltage high frequency waveform to 'drive' the lamp.

Halogen incandescent lamps (standard on the MINI) use a conventional tungsten filament with 12 volts applied to it which heat the filament to it's white-hot state to produce light. The halogen (inert, noble) gas which fills the bulb allows the filament to burn hotter without burning up. Since the gas is inert (it does not react or reacts weakly with) it helps keep the filament intact. Krypton, Argon and Xenon are most commpnly used in halogen lighting.

The term 'xenon' is applied to the interior lamps of the MINI which are basically ordinary incandescent lamps with a small amount of xenon gas added to allow the brighter, hotter burning.

"Xenon" HID lamps are more expensive than standard halogen lights because of the circuitry required to 'ignite' (start up) the ionization process and maintain it, plus the levelling mechanisms and associated circuitry, and the washers. Since the HID lamps put out more light than standard headlights, the elns must be kept clean and the lights aimed to prevent blinding oncoming drivers.

The average HID "Xenon" headlamp draws about 30 watts of power each compared to the 55 watts drawn by the standard headlights, but produce more light since there is little waste heat genearated. The everyday equivalent of the MINI Xenon HID lamps are those big mercury vapor yard and parking lot lights you see at car dealers. Very energy efficient for the amount of light they put out, and very long-lived, since there is not filament to burn out.

 

^^^^^^Obiwan has spoken! What a nice tutorial, GB. Now tell the truth: did you just make all this up? It sounds SO impressive! LOL!








Clo/Wanda

 

You might want to read my post-rant on HID vs XENON vs INCANDESCENT vs BS

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...mp;topic=18838

for the straight dope... Obiwan: right-oh, except the halogen cycle is the reason halogens burn whiter (hotter). see the post...

Also: European cars have self-leveling lights when HID equipped because they are required there, but not in Japan. Therefore the WRX STI has ADJUSTABLE, not self-levelling HIDs. I wish MINE were adjustable. I tweaked my lights up a hair to get better throw, and still not be blinding.