Blau S-car headlight upgrade kit

[Paul Nicholson]

At 0:29 +0100 11/7/00, Per Lindgren wrote:

>1) Buy a new Xenon headlight @ $800 each
>2) Convert to Halogen headlights @ $250 each
>
>Not much to wonder about, if you ask me.

One of the electrical engineering trade publications had an article a couple of years back on electronics in the automotive industry and they were saying that the move to xenon would be driven by the longer modern car warranties and the cost of replacing conventional halogen bulbs. The gist of the article was that the xenon, while more expensive, would be more reliable and therefore less likely to fail while the car was still under warranty. Thus they would save money overall.

Now I can't imagine that it currently costs car manufactures much to repair the halogen headlights that fail under warranty. I can't ever remember replacing a headlight on a vehicle when it was anywhere close to being covered under warranty.

I can't imagine that it costs that much more for a xenon bulb, it's just a glass envelope with a couple of electrodes and some xenon gas in it. Now it does take an electronic circuit (ballast) to produce the high voltage for it (10,000 volts to turn it on and 85 volts to run it), so you are looking at a multi-amp power FET, some transformers to make the 85 volts and 10,000 volt ignition spark, a little IC to control it, plus assorted components. Ok, maybe it costs $15 or so to build the electronics in quantity.

The reflector has to be different too - the arc is in a different position than the filament of a halogen bulb.

The manufacturer could potentially save on alternator capacity as the power requirement is 40 percent less. I can't imagine that they would reduce alternator capacity until the xenon light was standard across the line.

So what do you need:
	1) optimized reflector
	2) xenon bulb
	3) electronic ballast

http://www.sandiego.com/scripts/wheelbase/message.idc?passin=325