Re: Ion blue lights

[Luis Marques <marques@rtis.ray.com>]

Now please somebody correct me if I am wrong, but why would anyone in his/her
right mind go ahead and put blue light bulbs on their car's headlamps - except
maybe they think they look "cool"?

The "blue" headlamps on the the late Mecercedes or Porsches are HID (High
Intensity Discharge) lamps and don't use light buls in the traditional sense,
but rather flow a small current through a gas (not fillament).  The resulting
beam appears "blueish", but in fact emits light in all wavelegnths of light
spectrum and lets you see objects of any color.  HID lamps are to Halogen lamps
what Halogen lamps were to conventional (dim, yellow) incandescent.

Now, the blue replacement light bulbs are just that: light bulbs that emit blue
light.  They are still incandescent, not HID, with the shortcoming that they
only give out blue light and you won't be able to see anything that isn't blue
too well.  I have personally seen lots of Hondas, etc. with these blue
headlights and can only wonder if they have ever done any kind of hi-speed night
driving.  Remember guys, headlamps should be white to let you see objects of all
colors!  Now, yellow lights do have an advantage in rain and fog, but that's it
- the rest of the time they should be white.  The last thing you want is to see
some small reddish obstacle on the road too late to do anything about it!

HTH

Luis Marques
'87 4kcsq

randrews@post.cis.smu.edu (Robert Paul Andrews) wrote:
> Well guys, a company has Ion blue lighting bulbs for our Audis.  They
> are $35 for the pair for my 90.  These are similar to those found in
> Benz and the new Mark VIII.  I'm thinking about cuz they do look so
> cool and light em much better.
> Found the sight on the newsgroups at dfw.forsale.
> Later!
> Rob