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Old 10-16-2005, 12:41 PM   #1 (permalink)
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Default About those blue headlight bulbs... good read!

What's All The Fuss? Various companies and individuals are selling halogen headlamp bulbs with blue or purplish-blue glass. There are lots of spurious claims made for these bulbs. They're falsely advertised as "Xenon bulbs" or "HID bulbs", the blue glass is claimed to "force the bulb to perform at a higher level", and there are seemingly endless amounts of pseudoscience aimed at enticing buyers who want better performance from their headlamps. In fact, these bulbs reduce headlamp performance while increasing dangerous glare. How and why are blue bulbs dangerous? Many of them degrade roadway safety, both yours and other drivers'. Some of them can be physically hazardous. Here are the nuts and bolts of why blue bulbs are a bad idea:

White light is made up of every color of light mixed together. But the colors are not all present in equal amounts. The output spectrum of filament bulbs, including halogen headlamp bulbs, includes a great deal of red, orange, yellow and green light, but very little blue or violet light. Blue bulbs have colored glass (or a filter coating applied to clearglass) that allows only the blue light through the filter — this is why the bulbs appear blue. Because very little blue light is produced by a halogen bulb in the first place, it is only this very small amount — a tiny fraction of the total amount of light produced by a halogen bulb filament — that ever reaches the road. Blue and violet are the shortest wavelength/highest frequency colors of visible light, and, as such, they scatter the most readily. This is why the sky is blue rather than any other color from the sun's white output spectrum.

Blue light doesn't just scatter most readily in the sky, but also in the eye. To observe this effect, try this informal experiment: Next time you see a dark blue store front sign or a row of blue airport runway landing lights after dark, notice how blurry the edges of the sign or landing light appears compared to adjacent lights or signs of different colors. Decades ago, hot rodders would install "blue dots" in their cars' taillamps. These small bits of blue glass cause the taillamps to appear not red with a blue dot in the center, but rather pinkish-purple, because the observer's eye easily focuses on the red but has trouble with the blue, which remains out of focus and appears to tint the entire area of the red light. How can there be more glare if there's less light? Informal tests by the US Department of Transportation's Office of Crash Avoidance Standards found that a standard-wattage 9004-type blue headlamp bulb reduced the road lighting ability of a standard headlamp by 67%, and increased glare for oncoming and preceeding traffic by 33%. This apparent contradiction arises because of the way the human eye handles light of different colors. The short-wavelength colors (blue, indigo and violet) are very difficult for our eyes to process and focus on. Compared to uncolored bulbs, Blue headlight bulbs are able to produce more glare with less light because of the difference between the "signal image", which is what an observer sees when looking at an illuminated headlamp, and the "beam pattern", which is the light viewed from behind the headlamp facing forward, as by the driver of a vehicle.

In order for headlamp light to be used by the driver, the light must travel forward from the headlamp to an object, bounce off the object and return to the driver's eyes. As light travels through the atmosphere, it spreads and diffuses according to the Inverse Square Law: The intensity drops as 1/(distance)2. That is, a given headlamp will illuminate an object 2 feet away with 1/4 of the intensity found at the front face of the headlamp, an object 3 feet away with 1/9 of the source intensity, an object 10 feet away with 1/100 of the source intensity, and so on — and then this loss is re-doubled because the light must travel back to the observer's eyes. Remember that the blue filtration prevents the bulk of the light being produced from reaching the road, so the light "stealing" effect of the Inverse Square law becomes greatly magnified: Less light by which to see. On the other hand, light travels directly from the headlamp to the eyes of the oncoming observer, so the "back to the driver's eyes" re-doubling of the Inverse Square law does not take place: More glare. Therefore, for any given distance between the headlamps and the observer, there'll be considerably more light to cause glare than there'll be to allow the driver to see More glare.

Note that some types of "blue" headlamp bulbs are actually legal and not necessarily unsafe; Does the scattering tendency of blue light affect headlamp performance and road safety in other ways? Yes, in two ways: Because blue light scatters very readily in the human eye, casting a beam that's blue-tinted by any amount in a rainy, foggy or snowy environment causes increased perceived back-glare for the driver of a car equipped with blue headlamp bulbs. Also, blue light per secreates increased glare for oncoming traffic. That's because blue light does not trigger a strong pupil-closing response in human eyes. It is yellow light that stimulates the human eye most strongly to constrict the pupil. Due to the comparatively weak pupil response to blue light, the human eye is very glare-sensitive to a blue signal image. With the yellow light filtered outby the blue bulb and prevented from reaching the observer's eyes, the pupils remain wider open than they should, and the eyes are hit with a blast of difficult-to-process blue light. Isn't the same amount of blue light reaching the observer's eyes whether or not the bulb is blue? Although the same amount of blue is emitted by a halogen bulb whether it's got a blue-filter coating or not, in the "no filter" case, the remainder of the output spectrum — consisting largely of yellow light — triggers a pupil-closing response in the eyes of oncoming traffic, helping to reduce the short and long term effects of headlamp glare.This glare-protection response is severely compromised when the oncoming signal image is blue.


In short, not every blue-tinted "Xenon" bulb is a performance enhancing upgrade. I think Haknslash has metioned this topic several times before while talking about HID bulbs - which this same principle applies to. Something for you all to consider in selecting the right bulb for your car.
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Old 10-16-2005, 03:40 PM   #2 (permalink)
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get a life, i'm sure every1 knows about those bulbs by now bc its not like they've been out for years
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Old 10-16-2005, 03:44 PM   #3 (permalink)
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Don't get a life.. Even though the write up may be a bit dull and most people have a good idea- It was a good write up never the less.
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Old 10-16-2005, 03:46 PM   #4 (permalink)
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Quote: Originally Posted by iwant1ne
get a life, i'm sure every1 knows about those bulbs by now bc its not like they've been out for years

lets see you try and contribute something more, loser
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Old 10-16-2005, 03:58 PM   #5 (permalink)
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Quote: Originally Posted by iwant1ne
get a life, i'm sure every1 knows about those bulbs by now bc its not like they've been out for years

Wow! Looks like someone's boyfriend refused to give him oral last night

Sorry for contributing information on a forum dude.
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Old 10-16-2005, 04:54 PM   #6 (permalink)
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I love it when those companies say "xenon" light this and that LOL. I'd like to see someone actually create "Xenon gas" from 55w or hell even 150w LOL.

People, you can't make actual Xenon gases without creating a ARC of high current electricity at over 23k volts. Your not ever going to physically or possibly make that kind of power out of a filament bulb. It would literally xplode. This is why salts and mercury are used in true "xenon" prioducing systems like HID. Only high intensity discharge (HID) can create enough 'power' to create xenon gas out of salts albeit mercury vapor or metal halide. The Arc created by the ballasts at over 23k volts per approximately 45 seconds creates a high current powerful arc jumping over the incapsulated salts thus superheating them into a gasious form. This gas has now turned into Xenon shich is what is actually lighting up the road unlike a filament which is used in a halogen bulb. This is a whole other can of worms i'm sure most here have a grasp on.
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Old 10-18-2005, 12:32 PM   #7 (permalink)
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good write up.
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Old 10-19-2005, 11:51 PM   #8 (permalink)
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oh unbelievable jokes, great job
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