K&N air filters add 5-10%? Also: xenon?

[Brett Dikeman]

At 2:37 PM -0700 1/19/03, Benjamin Weste Pearre wrote:

>Can't I have a headlight made entirely from superbright LEDs that
>draws 2 watts and spanks the DOT lights?

The very brightest LEDs available currently are made by Foveon, and
they're around 100-120 lumens if I remember correctly(and consume
about 5W, necessitating heat-spreading components), which is very
bright for an LED- about 5 to 10x the 'normal' high brightness LEDs.
It's really nothing special; just multiple LED dies together in one
package.

Automotive 55W bulbs are about a thousand lumens...so you'd need
upwards of ten of them, slightly less- meaning you wouldn't save much
in power.  In contrast, HID is about 2-4x more efficient to halogen,
so the difference justifies the added cost of the HID ballast and
bulb.

Lastly, these nifty little LEDs cost about $40 APIECE; lifetime is
severely reduced with temperature(they're unable to tolerate anything
over about 85 degrees C PERIOD) and, like many high-brightness LEDs,
they loose about 50% of their brightness over their lifetime.

Brett
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