# 55W HID 4300K Kit Test Results



## Morepower! (Jul 17, 2008)

Ok, I decided to put one of these kits to the test, mainly for my own curiosity. The tests were performed using a PSU capable of supplying 40A @ 16V DC continuously and is voltage regulated, so no chance of voltage lag, a Lux meter from DX and a Protek 506 True RMS DMM. I decided to post the results for anyone who might be interested to know, sorry if i've burst anyone's bubble. I know I've burst my own.

The set up:














Now for the bad news:

*INPUT: 14.8V*
*BALLAST*
Start up current: 5.51A DC
Run current: 3.66A DC
Start up voltage: 14.8V DC
Run voltage: 14.8V DC
*BULB*
Start up current: 1.69A AC
Run current: 0.49A AC
Start up voltage: Unmeasurable without a High Voltage DMM, with test leads attached bulb won’t ignite.
Run voltage: 86.3V AC (106.8V AC on a non RMS meter)
Wattage at bulb: *42.29W*
Lux at 300mm from bare bulb @ 15mins runtime: 5,320



*INPUT: 11.1V*
*BALLAST*
Start up current: 7.41A DC
Run current: 5.24A DC
Start up voltage: 11.1V DC
Run voltage: 11.1V DC
*BULB*
Start up current: 1.67A AC
Run current: 0.49A AC
Start up voltage: Unmeasurable without a High Voltage DMM, with test leads attached bulb won’t ignite.
Run voltage: 86.3V AC (106.8V AC on a non RMS meter)
Wattage at bulb: *42.29W*
Lux at 300mm from bare bulb @ 15mins runtime: 5,220

I didn’t bother doing a 12V test after seeing the results between 14.8V and 11.1V, it’s pretty obvious the ballast is regulated. I also don’t read too much into the difference in Lux, I just took the measurements to see if there were any significant advantages in running 14.8V vs 11.1V. I don’t know if a bulb with a different arc length would pull more current out of the ballast or not ?




.


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## Flashanator (Jul 17, 2008)

awesome work and thanks.

these cheap HID kits are bs.:thumbsdow

its not surprising but.


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## BVH (Jul 17, 2008)

As Xeray has indicated a few times, looks like these are rated at "input" specs, not output. Efficiency is in the low 80's or below.


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## XeRay (Jul 17, 2008)

BVH said:


> As Xeray has indicated a few times, looks like these are rated at "input" specs, not output. Efficiency is in the low 80's or below.


 
The same marketing games they play on the Home Depot specials with 20 or 30 million candle power.

Believe me they (Asian ballast makers) know the 35 watt std ballasts are output based not input. They just decided to change the rules when they came out with 55 watt ballasts. Our newer ballasts are better than 90% so our 55 watt input nets a 50 watt output. This also means much less heat to manage (heatsink away).

To bad we dont have worse efficiency we could use their "creative" rating system and claim 65 watt to "play" their numbers game.

Also, most if not all Asian made HID bulbs cant take sustained 50 watt operation. 40-45 watts is much easier for them to cope with. They claim some of their bulbs to be 50 watt capable most cannot handle it. I am making general statements here, not absolutes.

There is a law of business that I have found to be true: There are three general factors in a competitive product market.

Price, Quality, Availibility

You can only get at most 2 of the 3 in any purchase.

Low price, High quality, NO quick delivery

High Quality, Quick Delivery, NO low price

and so on......

I think you see where I am going with this.


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## XeRay (Jul 17, 2008)

Morepower, could you take some closer photo(s) of the ballast. That ballast looks like one that is sold under a few different labels here in USA.


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## Patriot (Jul 17, 2008)

I'm not surprised at all. Still a little improvement over a "35W" I guess.


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## XeRay (Jul 17, 2008)

Patriot36 said:


> I'm not surprised at all. Still a little improvement over a "35W" I guess.


 
Maybe 800 more Lumens using a quality 4200K bulb.


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## Morepower! (Jul 18, 2008)

XeRay said:


> Morepower, could you take some closer photo(s) of the ballast. That ballast looks like one that is sold under a few different labels here in USA.


 
Ballast pics as requested, please let me know if it is the one you think it is.














Also while I was mucking around testing things I decided to put the new PSU to the test.















Note: The load is fencing wire.

I suppose, in true CPF style, I should jam the load into a reflector, double the input power and take some beamshots ? :devil:




.


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## Flashanator (Jul 18, 2008)

fencing wire??? ROFL

Thanks for your input Xeray



> Maybe 800 more Lumens using a quality 4200K bulb.


 

I feel so cheated buying 55w HID KITS. OMG I'm a sucker.


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## steed77 (Jul 18, 2008)

Great Work....very interesting. Thanks for you time on this.

I bet you can get more out of an OEM ballast. There are several car guys, modifying the ballast and turning them up. I am sure you can get 50-75W out of a good OEM unit. 

The cheap ballasts are just not as good. Something like this may be a better canadit for overdriving a ballast. hidplanet.com has some DIY on this topic.


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## XeRay (Jul 18, 2008)

Looks to be identical to what is being sold by a number of "55 watt" kit sellers in USA.
http://high-intensity.org/forums/showthread.php?t=566 

This ballast is marketed under a number of names including "Digital"


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## al2k (Jul 18, 2008)

Great tests, thanks!

What's interesting is I purchased a very similar looking 55W kit from Hong Kong 6 months ago and tested it running straight off a fully charged car battery (voltage under load was just under 12V if I remember correctly) and the input into the ballast was 6A (after 2 minutes on), didn't measure at the bulb though so could just be an even less efficient ballast. 

Upon installing one into the right headlamp in my car and comparing the output to the OEM 35W ballast (also had a new bulb), the "55W" one did seem significantly brighter, I'd estimate around 1500 more lumen. With both installed the difference was even quite dramatic compared to stock.


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## brickbat (Jul 19, 2008)

Couple of things to keep in mind on your measurements. 

Thing 1 - Your Protek meter is specified to 1 kHz. I don't know what frequency the ballast is driving the lamp at, but if it's 1 kHz or more, there could be error in your measurement there. Also, electronic HID ballasts tend to provide square wave drive to the lamp, which means there will be high frequency energy at the harmonics of the drive frequency.

Thing 2 - Calculating AC power by multiplying RMS volts by RMS amps works fine for non-reactive, linear loads, like resistors. HID lamps are non-linear, and I wouldn't be surprised if some additional error crept in because of this.

That said, your DC input power calculation should be pretty accurate, and with only 55W of DC input power, I agree with your conclusion that there's no way the ballast is providing 55W to the lamp...


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## AlexGT (Jul 20, 2008)

Seeing that the bulb is being driven at 42 watts I am wondering if using a good 35 watt bulb yield more lumens being overdriven by 7 watts than a 50watt being underdriven by 8 watts?

AlexGT


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## Lamphead (Jul 20, 2008)

XeRay said:


> ...Our newer ballasts are better than 90% so our 55 watt input nets a 50 watt output. ...



Isn't everybody using flyback as the topology for the power circuit in the ballast, since it's the most economy topology to use for this power range? For a conventional flyback to achieve over 90% efficiency is quite a stretch, if not impossible...unless Active Clamp or other soft switching method is used...but then soft switching thingy needs more active devices in the power train and is a bit less reliable...

Also, just noticed that the XeVision's HID ballast and search light look so similar to the products from a Taiwan company called FarVision...here is the link....http://www.farvisionopto.com/eproductc.htm

hmmm...I guess nobody can avoid the connection with the "Asian ballast makers"....;-)


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## Morepower! (Jul 20, 2008)

Hey brickbat, thanks for your input on this and the additional info, I'm always eager to learn. And yes Specs for the meter at the 20A AC setting is 100Hz-1KHz, my knowledge is still limited when it comes to HID so I have no idea what they run at.
I did wonder about waveform, but never even thought about frequency.

By doing some searching it seems most of them are square wave, but I did see some that where triangular wave. I don't have any test equipment capable of measuring it so I took away the RMS from the bulb results. I do however know someone who might still have their test equipment, they used to be involved in something to do with communications.

I ran the tests really for my own info, I needed to know the total power consumed, at what loads and when, and also to possibly learn more about them. I did also, of course, want to know if it was putting out 55W, which sadly isn't the case.


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## XeRay (Jul 21, 2008)

Lamphead said:


> Isn't everybody using flyback as the topology for the power circuit in the ballast, since it's the most economy topology to use for this power range? For a conventional flyback to achieve over 90% efficiency is quite a stretch, if not impossible...unless Active Clamp or other soft switching method is used...but then soft switching thingy needs more active devices in the power train and is a bit less reliable...


 
We do zero volt switching (approx 400 Hz output) and are just a bit better than 90%, our older stuff is about 85%.

We never claimed to make the Searchlight. That is one of our manufacturing partners. Our ballasts are engineered in USA and the PCB's are mass produced by them. We have an exclusive arrangement with them on our Proprietary ballast products.


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## Dr.Skaramanga (Jul 28, 2008)

hi

just a short question for what i dont want to post a extra thread

i have just orderd some parts for my low budget HID flashligt
i use a 50/55W 4300° K car conversion kit, from china  (dont have the money for a quality one, its my first hid)

i want to mount a digital voltmeter in the spotlight host
my question is now, whats the lowest input that wont cause any damage to the ballast or the bulb or is a normal ballast regulated and would only cutoff if there is not enough powerwithout damagin any part ?

thanks
Dr.Skaramanga


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## SafetyBob (Aug 9, 2008)

I need to ask the group of responders here a big question.

If the ebay and all the import ballast are of poor quality, where do we find good ones at? 

Is it worth stripping out ballasts out of wrecked cars? Are they even powerful enough? 

I want to try and mod one of my POB lights with something noticably better and bigger or find a HF light and mod it. 

Bob E.


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## BVH (Aug 10, 2008)

Look for the Philip's brand or Hella. They are usually the one's supplied with the $400+- HID kits. But I'm not sure how much more Wattage you'd get out of them. They are a much better quality ballast built with quality parts but still are 35 Watt rated.


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## BVH (Aug 11, 2008)

Got my 55 Watt, (input), 5000K "Digital" brand kit installed in my Silverado. Went for a 10-mile drive down and back on a very crowded boulevard. No flashes from anyone. I noticed, as many of the Duramax truck forum members say, that the stock projectors in our trucks are very good candidates for HID. There is a very definite horizontal cut-off which dramatically reduces the light reaching "eye-level" of almost every car that I opposed and those that crossed in front of me on cross streets. No ones head was illuminated. I love the color of 5000K for vehicle HIDs. There's no hint of blue in them. Sort of like my "Diamond white" color produced by my Locators if you're familiar with Shootout 4. I like 4300K in flashlights.


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## Morepower! (Aug 11, 2008)

It's good that the conversion worked out so nicely for you, I've heard some horror stories while reading around. It's interesting you prefer a hotter colour temp. for your vehicle and a colder one for flashlights. Is there some kind of advantage in this ? Also on another note could you possibly take a pic of the component side of the board in the Digital ballast, that is of course if you don't mind and it dosn't void the warranty some how ? It would be interesting to compare it against an analogue ballast like the one tested here as I havn't seen a Digi ballast.


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## BVH (Aug 11, 2008)

I like 4300K in flashlights only because I want as many Lumens out of the bulb as possible and 43K does that. Truth be told, 5000K is the color my eye prefers - flashlight, vehicle, whatever. With the truck and two lights working, I don't miss the very slight loss going from 4300K to 5000K.

The ballasts are kind of a pain to get at and remove for pics. In the spirit of our quest for knowledge, I'd pay half of the cost of a ballast if you want to pick one up for yourself?

My guess is that my "Digital" is exactly the same as your ballast. The mounting tabs, the white potting compound between the input spade connectors, the label (substitute "Digital" for "Conquer" and they look the same), the two different shaped metal "catches" on the input plug housing to latch onto the source plug. Everything except the name looks identical.


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## Morepower! (Aug 11, 2008)

Ah yes, the exrta Lumens. That's a very generous offer and thanks for that but unfortunately I just spent my "HID quota" for a little while not more than 3hrs ago. Not only that, I feel you are correct in the assumption that they are the exact same ballast. I think one could safely put money on it. Besides all that I am trying to source some DL-50 bulbs as it dosn't look like the group buy is going to get off the ground, unless you think otherwise ?


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## BVH (Aug 11, 2008)

Yes, I'd say the Group Buy is Dead On Arrival! You may be aware but just in case, there are two DL50's. The standard and the Fatboy with a larger ionization chamber/bubble. If you're successful, try to ensure that they're Fatboys and I'll be in for 3-4 bulbs.


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## Flashanator (Apr 30, 2009)

Anyone want to guess what the overall wattage of these 55w ballasts are?

Only 43w at the bulb, but how much watts total too run the ballast.


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## Patriot (Apr 30, 2009)

Figure between 80-85% efficiency what ever that comes out to watt wise. It's not a huge number in any case.


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## XeRay (Apr 30, 2009)

Flashanator said:


> Anyone want to guess what the overall wattage of these 55w ballasts are?Only 43w at the bulb, but how much watts total too run the ballast.


 
Probably 49-56 watts input. Best to measure the input amps and volts after about 2-3 minute warm up.

Multiply the measured DC amps X the actual voltage to get watts. You probably already knew that.


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## Flashanator (Apr 30, 2009)

Thanks for that Xeray.


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## HIDholic (May 1, 2009)

Flashanator said:


> Anyone want to guess what the overall wattage of these 55w ballasts are?
> 
> Only 43w at the bulb, but how much watts total too run the ballast.


 
assuming 85% efficiency, input power would be 43w / 0.85 = 50.6w. i guess 50w meaning 50w on input?


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## weegidy (Dec 19, 2012)

BVH said:


> As Xeray has indicated a few times, looks like these are rated at "input" specs, not output. Efficiency is in the low 80's or below.



I am making a model rocket with a "35w" ballast I for for $7 on eBay. When used with 11.1v the input is almost perfectly 35w, so I bet it is the same thing going on with OP's light.


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